General Zhukov's cook

A small bald old man, formerly a cook for the late General Zhukov, in Chekhov's novella "Peasants" (Мужики, 1897): a wandering, homeless figure who stays the night with Semyon's family (inadvertently occasioning the fire that burns down their hut when his cap catches too) and later with the Chikildeevs, trading stories of dishes cooked "under the masters"; Olga and Sasha pass him again, unspeaking, on the road as they walk back to Moscow at the novella's end.