11 December 2025

Reluctant Cheats: a story by Anton Chekhov

In this short story, appearing in English for the first time, New Year’s party guests battle against time

There is a party underway at Zakhar Kuzmich Dyadechkin’s. They are celebrating New Year and congratulating the hostess Melanya Tikhonovna on her name day.

There are many guests. They are all respectable, trustworthy and sober people of good character. Not a single scoundrel. Their faces show tenderness, pleasantness, and a feeling of their own worth. Sitting in the living room on the large oilcloth sofa are the landlord Gusev and the shopkeeper Razmakhalov, from whom the Dyadechkins buy goods on credit. They are discussing eligible bachelors and daughters.

“These days,” says Gusev, “it is hard to find a man who isn’t a drinker and is well-to-do… a man who works… It’s hard!”

“The main thing is to have order at home, Alexey Vasilich! You won’t have that if at home you do not have that… which… order at home.”

“If there is no order at home, then… it’s all so… There is a lot of modern nonsense in this world… So how can you have order? Hmm…”

Three old women are sitting on chairs near them and hanging on their every word. Astonishment at such pearls of wisdom is written in their eyes. Godfather Gury Markovich is standing in the corner, examining the icon. There is a lot of noise coming from the master bedroom. The young ladies and their suitors are playing lotto in there. The stake is one kopeck. First-year schoolboy Kolya is standing by the table crying. He wants to play lotto, but they will not give him a place at the table. Is it his fault that he is little, and that he does not have a kopeck?

“Stop wailing, you fool!” they admonish him. “What are you crying for? Do you want Mama to spank you?”

“Who is that wailing? Kolka?” Mama’s voice can be heard from the kitchen.

“As if I hadn’t walloped him enough, the little imp… Varvara Gurievna, give him a yank on his ears!”

Two young ladies in pink dresses are sitting on their hosts’ bed, which is covered by a faded calico eiderdown. Before them stands Kopaisky, a young fellow of about 23 who works for an insurance company and who, en face, looks very like a cat. He is courting them. “I do not intend to marry,” he says, showing off and loosening the high collar which is cutting into his neck with his fingers. “A woman is a radiant point in the men’s mind, but she is capable of destroying a man. She is a malicious creature!”

“What about men? Men cannot love. They do all sorts of rude things.”

“How naive you are! I am neither a cynic nor a sceptic, but I nevertheless know that a man will forever occupy pride of place when it comes to the emotions.”

Pacing from corner to corner, like wolves in a cage, are Dyadechkin himself and his first-born Grisha. Their souls are on fire. They drank heavily over lunch and now are desperate for a hair of the dog that bit them… Dyadechkin goes into the kitchen where the hostess is sprinkling a tart with icing sugar. “Malasha,” says Dyadechkin. “You should serve appetisers. Something for the guests to nibble…”

“They can wait… Or you’ll eat and drink everything now, and then what will I serve at midnight? You won’t die of hunger. Go away… Get out from under my feet!”

“Just a little shot, Malasha… There will be more than enough to go round… May I?”

“Bother! Get out, I’m telling you! Go and sit with the guests! Why are you crowding the kitchen?”

Dyadechkin sighs deeply and leaves the kitchen. He goes to look at the clock. The hands show eight minutes after 11. Fifty-two minutes to go until the desired moment. This is terrible! The anticipation of a drink is the hardest kind of anticipation. Better to wait five hours in the freezing cold for a train than to wait five minutes for a drink… Dyadechkin eyes the clock with loathing, paces up and down for a bit, then moves the big hand forward by five minutes… And Grisha? If Grisha isn’t given something to drink right now, then he will go to the tavern and drink there. He is not prepared to die of misery…

“Mama,” he says, “the guests are angry that you aren’t serving refreshments! It’s just rude… You’re starving them to death!.. You could at least give them one shot!”

“You’ll have to wait… It won’t be much longer… Soon… Stop crowding the kitchen.”

Grisha slams the door and goes for the hundredth time to look at the clock. The big hand is pitiless! It has barely moved.

“It’s slow!” Grisha consoles himself, and with his index finger he nudges the hand forward seven minutes.

Kolya runs past the clock. He stops in front of it and starts working out the time remaining… He cannot wait for the moment when they shout “hurrah!”. The motionless hand stabs him in the heart. He clambers onto a chair, looks round timidly, and snatches five minutes from eternity.

“Can you go and see quelle heure est-il?” one of the young ladies urges Kopaisky. “I can’t wait. It’s the New Year, after all! New happiness!”

Kopaisky clicks his heels and rushes to the clock.

“Dammit,” he mutters, gazing at the hands. “Such a long time still! I’m dying to tuck in… I will definitely kiss Katka when they shout hurrah.”

Kopaisky walks away from the clock then stops… Having thought for a moment, he turns round and shortens the old year by six minutes. Dyadechkin downs two glasses of water, but… his soul is on fire! He paces backwards and forwards… From time to time, his wife chases him out of the kitchen. The bottles standing on the window ledge tear at his soul. What can he do? It is more than he can bear! Again he grasps at a last resort. The clock is at his service. He goes to the nursery where there is a clock hanging on the wall and encounters a picture which does not please his parental heart: Grisha is standing in front of the clock and moving the hand.

“W-w-what are you doing? Eh? Why did you move the hand? What a fool you are! Well? Why did you do that? Eh?”

Dyadechkin coughs, hesitates, frowns deeply, and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand.

“Why? Oh well… Go ahead and move the damn thing!” he says before pushing his son away from the clock and moving the hand himself.

There are 11 minutes to go until the New Year. Papa and Grisha go into the living room and start to lay the table. “Malasha!” shouts Dyadechkin. “It’s almost New Year!”

Melanya Tikhonovna runs in from the kitchen to verify her husband’s words… She stares at the clock for a long time: her husband is not lying. “What am I to do?” she whispers. “The peas for the ham aren’t even cooked yet! Hmm. Bother. How can I serve them?”

After a moment’s thought, Melanya Tikhonovna moves the big hand backwards with a shaking hand. The old year is handed back 20 minutes.

“They can wait!” says the hostess, running back into the kitchen.

This story is an extract from “Anton Chekhov: Earliest Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882”, edited by Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska (Cherry Orchard Books, Boston)

[Further reading: The book is dead? Long live the book!]