person
Vata
also: Вата
A young woman of the Chekhov household's Poltava-province acquaintance, one of Pleshcheyev's admirers during his stay at Luka (§3); bruises her cheek in the comic arrival at the Smagins' (§5) and departs for Kupyansk at the summer's end (§10). Distinct from the Smagin siblings (Sergei, Alexander, and their unnamed sister) mentioned alongside her, and NOT the same as, the fictional Bukreev sisters 'Nata and Vata' in the story "The Name-Day Party" -- that is an unrelated invented pair sharing only the nickname.
Reading notes
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 28 June 1888. Sumy. §3 Vata
A young woman of the household's acquaintance, one of Pleshcheyev's admirers during his stay; distinct from the Smagin siblings named later in the letter, and from the unrelated fictional "Nata and Vata" of Chekhov's story "The Name-Day Party." She recurs in §5 (injured on arrival at the Smagins') and §10 (departing for Kupyansk).
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 28 June 1888. Sumy. §5 Vata bruised her cheek
The same Vata of §3, now among the party arriving at the Smagins' at night and catching a minor injury in the general comic chaos -- not a member of the Smagin family herself, despite appearing in the same sentence as Sergei and Alexander.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 28 June 1888. Sumy. §10 Vata to Kupyansk
The same Vata of §3 and §5, now departing the Sumy circle for Kupyansk as the summer winds down.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 27 August 1888. Sumy. §6 Vata
Vata, the young Poltava-province acquaintance introduced in; rumored here as a possible match for Chekhov's brother Ivan. "Vata's most amiable mama" in the same sentence is her unnamed mother, not otherwise identified in the corpus.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 3 September 1889. Sumy. §7 already thrusts her belly out well ahead of her, as if rehearsing pregnancy
Rendered faithfully, not softened. The Russian -- "уже выставляет свой живот далеко вперед, точно репетирует беременность" -- is a blunt, physically explicit, and mildly cruel joke at Vata's expense: she has not yet married but (per Chekhov) already carries and displays her belly as though pregnant, in anticipation of the marriage and its expected consequence. This is casual gossip of a kind Chekhov wrote often to close, trusted correspondents like Pleshcheyev, and the apparatus should record it as exactly what it is -- an ungallant joke about a young woman's body -- rather than paraphrase it into something gentler (e.g. merely "eager to marry").