person
Alyoshka
also: Алешка
A four-year-old boy on Sakhalin, son of a settler's wife whose funeral Chekhov attended; dressed in a woman's jacket and blue trousers with bright patches at the knees, he is asked by Chekhov where his mother is and answers "Buried!" with a careless laugh and wave of the hand, after which the Circassian lodger present asks what is to be done with him and his infant sibling, since he is not obliged to feed them. Distinct from other Alyoshka figures elsewhere in the corpus (e.g.,); not otherwise identified from the surviving text.
Reading notes
- To A. F. Koni, 26 January 1891. Petersburg. §21 the other, Alyoshka, a boy of about four
The dead woman's four-year-old son, dressed in a woman's jacket and patched blue trousers; his uncomprehending curiosity at the graveside and his careless "Buried!" (\S24) in answer to Chekhov's question form the scene's emotional turn.