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The Commensaux

The Commensaux is a novella written by Anton Tchekhov, published in 1886.

Contents

Record Summary References French edition

Record Les Commensaux was initially published in the Russian newspaper « the newspapers of Saint-Petersbourg », number 246, on the 8th of September 1886. The text is signed A. Tchékhonté. It was also translated in French with the title « les pensionnaires ».

Summary Michel Zorrov, seventy years old, was woken by the cold weather. It may be five am. He got out of the bed, prayed, turned on his samovar, but there was no more tea. He complained : him, petty bourgeois, owner of flats. Living in a misery like that.

Outside, his dog and his horse were also in a miserable health, almost not feed, regularly fought. Zorrov couldn’t get ride of them : he opened the door to them, but the beasts didn’t move.

Zorrov finally decided to have tea with MarcIvanytch, his neighbor, who gave a piece of advice, which was : to bring the horse to the butcher. « You lived thanks to charity and you protected your beasts. » Zorrov, then, went to his great-niece’s house but he mostly not knew her. He will give his house to her and she will feed him. He was leaving the very day. He didn’t do a verst that he heard his horse and his dog behind him. He couldn’t go to a relative's house with his pets! He drove the horse to the butcher : a blow with a mallet, it was over.