figure
Anyutka
also: Анютка, Аннушка, Annushka
The coachman-narrator's small sister, seven or eight years old, who is with her father when he is robbed and killed; entrusted with the money and hidden in the woods, she witnesses the aftermath, is nearly murdered by the robbers to silence her as a witness, and saves her own life by swapping clothes and places with the sleeping forester's daughter.
Reading notes
- An Incident (A Coachman's Tale) §37 Anyutka must not live -- she must be cut down
This section and the two that follow it (38-40) describe the robbers' drunken decision to murder the child Anyutka to eliminate a witness, and the botched outcome: fearing detection, they cast lots, and the forester -- drawing the lot -- goes to fetch an axe; Anyutka, overhearing everything, swaps clothing and places with the sleeping forester's own daughter, a girl of about the same age, so that when the killer returns in the dark he kills the wrong child by mistake, believing her to be Anyutka. The passage is translated plainly and without embellishment, following the original's own restrained, matter-of-fact narration; nothing in the source or this translation lingers on the act itself beyond what the coachman's telling requires. Chekhov's mature description of the killing (section 40) is a single unflinching image -- the child "on the besoms, under the sheepskin coat, her whole head covered in blood, hacked open with the axe" -- delivered flatly by the search party who discover it, with no further elaboration; this note exists to flag the content plainly for readers rather than to narrate or dwell on it further.