Anton Chekhov's story of a child's letter, written on Christmas Eve — and the address on the envelope.
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Ten words unlock the story. Work through the four short activities — say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words from the story: orphan · beating · dawn. Match each definition to the right word — out loud, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, there's a quick comprehension check (try the questions from memory first), then one thing to discuss. Notice the tense: Chekhov tells much of this story in the present, as if we are standing in the room.
Nine-year-old Vanka Zhukov, sent three months ago to the shoemaker Alyakhin to be trained as an apprentice, does not go to bed on Christmas Eve. He waits until the master and his wife and the workmen have gone out to the midnight service. Then he takes a bottle of ink from the master's cupboard, a pen with a rusty nib, spreads out a crumpled sheet of paper, and kneels in front of the workbench. Before writing the first letter, he glances several times, fearfully, at the door and the windows, and sighs. The paper lies on the bench; the icon of the saints looks down from the shelf.
"Dear Grandfather, Konstantin Makarych," he writes. "I am writing you a letter. I wish you a happy Christmas and everything good from the Lord God. I have no father and no mother; you are the only one I have left."
Vanka raises his eyes to the dark window, where the reflection of his candle flickers, and vividly pictures his grandfather: a small, thin, lively old man of sixty-five, the night watchman at a gentleman's estate in the village. All day grandfather sleeps in the servants' kitchen or jokes with the cooks; at night, wrapped in his huge sheepskin coat, he walks round the estate shaking his rattle, with the old dog Kashtanka and the sly black dog Eel trotting behind him. Right now, Vanka thinks, grandfather is surely standing at the gates, screwing up his eyes at the bright red windows of the village church, stamping his felt boots and joking with the servants. The frost crackles; the whole roof of the sky is sprinkled with stars, and the Milky Way stands out as clearly as if it had been washed and scrubbed with snow for the holiday.
1. Why does Vanka wait for Christmas Eve to write his letter, and how does he behave while writing?
2. Who is Konstantin Makarych, and what does he do every night?
1. The whole household has gone out to the midnight church service, so it is his one chance to write in secrecy. He glances fearfully at the door and windows and sighs — he knows he would be punished if caught.
2. Vanka's grandfather — a small, lively old man of sixty-five, the only family Vanka has left. He is the night watchman at a country estate, walking the grounds all night with his rattle and his two dogs.
Vanka dips his pen and writes on. "Yesterday I got a beating. The master dragged me into the yard by the hair and beat me with a strap, because I was rocking the baby in its cradle and fell asleep without meaning to. And last week the mistress told me to clean a herring, and I began from the tail, and she took the herring and pushed its head into my face. The workmen laugh at me and send me to the tavern for vodka and make me steal the master's cucumbers, and the master hits me with whatever comes to hand. And there is nothing to eat. In the morning they give me bread, at dinner porridge, and in the evening bread again; as for tea or cabbage soup, the master and mistress drink and eat it all themselves. And they make me sleep in the passage, and when their baby cries I do not sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle."
"Dear Grandfather, show God's mercy — take me away from here, take me home to the village, I cannot bear it any more. I bow down at your feet. Take me away, or I shall die. I will grind your tobacco for you, I will pray to God for you, and if I ever do anything wrong, then beat me like the grey goat. And when I am big, I will look after you, and when you die I will pray for the rest of your soul, just as I do for my mother's."
He remembers, too, the good times: going into the forest with grandfather to cut the Christmas tree for the big house, the frost crackling, grandfather chuckling, the young lady Olga Ignatyevna — who, when Vanka's mother Pelageya was alive and in service, used to feed him sweets and, having nothing better to do, taught him to read, to write, to count to a hundred, and even to dance the quadrille. When his mother died, orphaned Vanka was sent first to the servants' kitchen to be with grandfather, and from the kitchen to Moscow, to the shoemaker Alyakhin. "Come, dear Grandfather," he writes. "I beg you, for Christ's sake, take me away. Have pity on an unhappy orphan. Everyone here beats me, and I am terribly hungry, and I am so miserable I cannot tell you. I keep crying. Your grandson, Ivan Zhukov. Dear Grandfather, do come."
1. Name three of the cruelties Vanka describes in the letter.
2. What does Vanka promise to do if his grandfather takes him home?
1. Any three of: he is beaten with a strap for falling asleep while rocking the baby; the mistress pushed a herring's head into his face; the workmen mock him and send him to fetch vodka and steal cucumbers; he is fed almost nothing; he sleeps in the passage and must rock the crying baby all night.
2. He will grind grandfather's tobacco, pray to God for him, accept any punishment if he does wrong, look after him when he grows up, and pray for his soul after his death — just as he prays for his mother's.
Vanka folds the sheet of paper twice and puts it into an envelope he bought the day before for a kopeck. He thinks a little, dips the pen, and writes the address:
To grandfather, in the village.
Then he scratches his head, thinks again, and adds: "Konstantin Makarych." Pleased that no one has interrupted him, he pulls on his cap and, without putting his coat on over his shirt, runs out into the street. The men at the butcher's had told him, when he asked, that letters are dropped into postboxes, and from the boxes they are carried all over the world on troikas with drunken drivers and ringing bells. Vanka runs to the nearest postbox and pushes the precious letter into the slot.
An hour later, rocked by sweet hopes, he is fast asleep. He dreams of a stove. On the stove sits his grandfather, his bare feet hanging down, reading the letter to the cooks. Beside the stove walks Eel, the black dog, wagging his tail.
1. What address does Vanka write on the envelope — and what is wrong with it?
2. How does the story end?
1. "To grandfather, in the village — Konstantin Makarych." There is no village name, no street, no surname that a postman could use: the letter can never be delivered. Vanka doesn't know how addresses work — no one has ever taught him.
2. Vanka posts the letter, goes to sleep "rocked by sweet hopes", and dreams of his grandfather sitting on the warm stove, reading the letter aloud to the cooks, with the dog Eel wagging his tail beside him.
Notice what Chekhov does: "Vanka dips his pen and writes on… He folds the paper… He runs to the postbox." The story happened long ago, but it is told in the present simple — the narrative present. It puts the reader in the room while things happen.
Fill each gap with the verb in brackets — present simple or present continuous — to match the meaning in italics.
1. Vanka (kneel) in front of the bench and begins his letter. (next event in the chain)
2. Outside the window, the candle's reflection (flicker) in the dark glass. (background, in progress)
3. He (glance) at the door, sighs, and dips the pen again. (next event)
1. kneels (event — present simple, with third-person -s)
2. is flickering (background scene — present continuous)
3. glances (event — and note -es after the -ce sound)
A student is retelling the story out loud, but one verb in each line is in the wrong form. Write the correct form of the underlined verb.
1. "So Vanka waiting until everyone has gone to church…" → he until everyone has gone.
2. "While the baby cries all night long in the background, he has to rock the cradle…" → while the baby all night long.
3. "Then he run to the postbox in his shirt…" → then he to the postbox.
1. waits (event — simple, not -ing on its own)
2. is crying (continuing background action — continuous)
3. runs (third person needs -s)
Fill each gap with the correct present form of the verb in brackets. Read the whole paragraph aloud when you finish — like a storyteller.
Vanka (fold) the letter twice and (push) it into the envelope. He thinks for a moment, then (write) the address. While the city (sleep) all around him, he runs to the postbox. An hour later he (dream) of his grandfather on the warm stove.
folds · pushes · writes · is sleeping · is dreaming
Notice: the chain of events takes the simple (folds, pushes, writes); the surrounding scene takes the continuous (is sleeping, is dreaming).
Hold on to this — in the Speak tab you'll retell the whole story in the narrative present, like a storyteller with the listener beside you.
Chekhov wrote "Vanka" in 1886, reportedly in a single day, for a Christmas edition of a newspaper. Christmas stories were supposed to be sweet. Chekhov delivered four pages that readers have never been able to forget — or quite forgive.
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 the story of Vanka as a storyteller would, in the narrative present, as if it is happening now: Christmas Eve — the household leaves for church — Vanka kneels and writes — the beatings, the hunger, the plea — the envelope and its impossible address — the postbox — the dream.
Keep the whole retelling in the present tense, and work in at least five key words (apprentice, orphan, secrecy, beating, mock, sigh, watchman, dawn, envelope, beg).
The letter can never arrive — yet Vanka falls asleep happier than at any other moment in the story. Build an argument: is this ending an act of mercy by Chekhov, or the cruellest thing in the whole story? Take one side, argue it fully, then briefly argue the other side as fairly as you can.
Vanka's letter goes into the world and vanishes. Tell a story — true or invented — about a message, and what happened to it.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: