Chekhov's story of a police inspector, a bitten finger, a small white dog — and an overcoat that comes off and goes back on as the truth keeps changing.
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Ten words unlock the story. Work through the four activities — say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words from the story: mongrel · pedigree · damages. Say the right word, then reveal.
Chekhov's story, retold here in English and shortened, keeping his voice. Read each part. After it, there's a quick comprehension check (try the questions from memory first), then one thing to discuss.
Police Inspector Ochumelov is crossing the market square in a new overcoat, with a small parcel under his arm. Behind him walks a red-haired constable with a sieve full of confiscated gooseberries. All around is silence. The open doors of the shops and taverns look out at the world sadly, like hungry mouths; there are not even any beggars near them.
"So you bite, do you, you devil?" Ochumelov suddenly hears. "Don't let it go, lads! Biting isn't allowed these days! Hold it!" A dog yelps. Ochumelov looks round and sees a dog running out of Pichugin's timber yard on three legs, chased by a man in a starched cotton shirt and an unbuttoned waistcoat. The man throws himself forward, falls to the ground and seizes the dog by its back legs. In a moment a crowd has gathered, as if it had grown out of the earth.
At the gate stands the man in the waistcoat, holding up a bloody finger. On his half-drunk face is written: "I'll skin you alive for this, you scoundrel!" — and the finger itself looks like a flag of victory. Ochumelov recognises Khryukin the goldsmith. In the middle of the crowd, trembling all over, sits the cause of it all: a white borzoi puppy with a pointed nose and a yellow patch on its back. Its watery eyes are full of misery and terror.
"What's going on here?" demands Ochumelov, pushing into the crowd. "I was minding my own business, your honour," begins Khryukin, coughing into his fist, "and this low animal goes for my finger for no reason at all. I'm a working man. My work is delicate. I may not be able to use this finger for a week. I ought to be paid damages." "Hm… very well," says Ochumelov sternly. "I shan't let this pass. I'll teach them to let dogs run about loose! The owner will be fined, and the dog destroyed — at once. Yeldyrin, find out whose dog it is and write a report. Well? Whose dog is it?"
"I think it's General Zhigalov's," says someone in the crowd.
1. What has happened to Khryukin, and what does he want?
2. What is Ochumelov's first decision — before he knows who owns the dog?
1. A small white puppy has bitten his finger. He shows the bloody finger to the crowd and asks for damages, because he says he cannot work for a week.
2. He is stern and official: the owner will be fined, the dog destroyed immediately, and the constable must write a report.
"General Zhigalov's? Hm! Yeldyrin, take my coat off for me… It's terribly hot!" He turns to Khryukin. "There's one thing I don't understand. How could it bite you? It's a tiny little dog, and you're a great big man! You probably scratched your finger on a nail and then had the bright idea of getting some money out of it. I know your sort, you devils!"
"He pushed a cigarette in its face for a joke, your honour," says someone in the crowd, "and it wasn't stupid — it bit him." "Liar!" shouts Khryukin. "His honour is a clever gentleman; he knows who's lying. And my own brother is in the police, if you want to know…" "Silence!"
"No, that's not the general's dog," says the constable thoughtfully. "The general's dogs are all pointers." "Are you sure?" "Quite sure, your honour." "I knew it myself. The general's dogs are expensive, pedigree animals, and this — what is it? No coat, no shape, nothing. A wretched, mangy little mongrel! Who would keep a dog like that? Khryukin, you've been hurt, and you mustn't let this pass. These people need to be taught a lesson."
"But perhaps it is the general's," the constable thinks aloud. "I saw one just like it in his yard the other day." "Hm! Yeldyrin, help me on with my coat, brother… there's a wind getting up. I feel quite cold. Take the dog to the general's and ask there. Say I found it and sent it. It may be a valuable dog, and if every pig pushes a cigarette up its nose, it'll soon be ruined. A dog is a delicate creature. And you, you idiot, put your hand down! There's no need to show everyone your stupid finger. It's your own fault!"
1. How does Ochumelov's view of Khryukin change when he hears the dog may be the general's?
2. When the constable says the general's dogs are pointers, how does Ochumelov describe the puppy — and what happens to his opinion a second time?
1. Khryukin turns from victim to suspect: the dog is "tiny", so he must have cut his finger on a nail and invented the bite to get money.
2. As a wretched, mangy mongrel that no general would own — so Khryukin is a victim again. Then the constable says it might be the general's after all, and the dog becomes valuable and "delicate", and Khryukin becomes an idiot whose fault it was.
"Here's the general's cook. We'll ask him," says someone. "Hey, Prokhor! Come here! Look at this dog. Is it yours?" "What an idea! We've never had one like that in our lives!" "Then there's no need to ask any more," says Ochumelov. "It's a stray. If I say it's a stray, it's a stray. It must be destroyed, and that's the end of it."
"It isn't ours," Prokhor goes on. "It belongs to the general's brother, who arrived the other day. Our master doesn't care for borzois. His brother is fond of them." "His brother? Vladimir Ivanich has arrived?" asks Ochumelov, and his whole face fills with a smile of tender emotion. "Well, fancy that! And I didn't know! So this is his dog? Delighted. Take it… It's not a bad little pup at all… a lively little thing… Snapped at this fellow's finger! Ha-ha-ha… Come, why are you trembling? Grr… grr… angry, the little rascal… such a sweet little pup."
Prokhor calls the dog and walks away with it. The crowd laughs at Khryukin. "I'll get you yet!" Ochumelov threatens him, and, wrapping himself in his overcoat, he continues on his way across the market square.
1. What does the cook say first, and what does Ochumelov immediately decide?
2. Who really owns the dog, and how does the story end for the dog, Khryukin and Ochumelov?
1. That the general has never had a dog like that — so Ochumelov declares it a stray to be destroyed, with total confidence.
2. The general's brother. The dog is taken home as a "sweet little pup"; Khryukin is laughed at and threatened; Ochumelov wraps himself in his coat and walks on as if nothing has happened.
Ochumelov never says "I've changed my mind". He changes his adjectives. The same dog is tiny, wretched, valuable, delicate and sweet within ten minutes. To do that convincingly in English, you need to know which intensifiers go with which kind of adjective.
Write very or absolutely in each gap. Then say aloud why the other word would sound wrong.
1. "It's a small dog. How could it reach your finger?"
2. "Take my coat off — it's boiling today!"
3. "A general keep a dog like that? The idea is ridiculous!"
4. "If it is the general's dog, it is a valuable animal."
1. very (small is gradable: "absolutely small" sounds wrong) 2. absolutely (boiling is extreme: "very boiling" sounds wrong) 3. absolutely (ridiculous is extreme) 4. very (valuable is gradable; the extreme form is priceless)
Replace the gradable phrase with absolutely + an extreme adjective. Write only the adjective.
1. The puppy was very small. → It was absolutely
2. Khryukin was very angry. → He was absolutely
3. If it's the general's dog, it's very valuable. → It's absolutely
1. tiny (or minute /maɪˈnjuːt/) 2. furious (or livid) 3. priceless (or invaluable — careful: this means very valuable, not "without value")
Constable Yeldyrin writes the report as if the dog were a stray. Choose the word that fits each gap; then read it aloud again, changing every adjective as if the dog belonged to the general.
At noon a (mangy / pedigree), (wretched / delicate) little mongrel attacked the goldsmith Khryukin without the (slightest / smallest) reason. The wound was (extremely / absolutely) serious, and the victim was (very / utterly) furious. The Inspector, who was (quite / slightly) certain of the facts, ordered the animal to be destroyed.
mangy · wretched · slightest · extremely · utterly · quite
The general's version might begin: "At noon a delicate, valuable little pedigree pup playfully nipped the goldsmith Khryukin, who had foolishly provoked it…" — same facts, opposite story. Note: quite certain = completely certain, because certain is an absolute.
Hold on to these structures — in the Speak tab you'll narrate the story and then describe the same thing twice, as a flatterer and as a critic.
Anton Chekhov published "A Chameleon" in 1884, the year he qualified as a doctor, in the comic weekly Oskolki ("Fragments"), under one of his early pen names, A. Chekhonte. He was twenty-four and was writing short comic sketches at great speed to support his family. The sketch has never stopped being read: in Russian, a person who changes their opinions to suit whoever has power is still called a chameleon, and the story has been taught in Russian schools for over a century.
This is the heart of the lesson — do all of it out loud. The timer is there to keep you going: fill the time with detail rather than racing through it.
Tell A Chameleon as if to someone who has never read it, and make every change of mind visible — including the coat. Move through the arc: the empty square and the gooseberries → the shout and the bloody finger → "fined and destroyed" → "the general's?" — coat off → "a mangy mongrel" → "perhaps it is the general's" — coat on → the cook: "not ours" → "the general's brother!" → the sweet little pup, the laughing crowd, the coat wrapped tight.
Use at least three extreme adjectives with absolutely / utterly, quite in both meanings, and at least five key words (confiscate, sycophantic, fawn over, mongrel, pedigree, damages, nip, wretched, turncoat, blow hot and cold).
Build an argument. One reading: Ochumelov is a contemptible coward who would destroy an innocent animal — or ruin an innocent man — to please his superiors. Another: he is a small official trapped in a system where one wrong word about a general could end his career, doing only what everyone around him does. Take a side, give three reasons, deal with the strongest objection, and say what Ochumelov would have done if the general's brother had been the one bitten.
Then argue the opposite for one minute — the harder direction is where the language comes from.
The story is about how opinions bend towards power. Talk about where that happens now.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: