Sleepy

by Anton Chekhov

Varka, a thirteen year-old girl, is moving the baby’s cradle, and singing quietly to him.

A little lamp is burning. The baby-clothes and a big pair of black trousers are hanging from the ceiling. The lamp makes a large shadow, and the baby-clothes and the trousers make others across the room. The lamp makes the shadows move around, like they are blown about by the wind. There is a smell of soup.

The baby is crying. He has been tired of crying for a long time, but he continues to scream. Who knows when he’ll stop? Varka is tired. Her eyes are closing, her head falls forward and her neck hurts. She can’t open her eyes or her mouth, and she feels like her head is becoming smaller and smaller. She sings quietly to the baby.

In the next room, the baby’s father and the student Afanasy are snoring. Varka sings quietly. These sounds create a soft music of the night that is sweet to hear when you are lying in bed. But now that same music makes Varka unhappy, because it makes her fall asleep... and she must not sleep. If she goes to sleep, her employer will hit her.

The light from the lamp moves the shadows around, in front of Varka's half-open eyes. In her tired mind the shadows become dark clouds, racing across the sky, and crying like the baby. But then the wind blows and the clouds are gone. Varka is awake but in a dream... she sees a road, and a line of horse-carts. People with bags on their backs are walking slowly and shadows dance around. On both sides she can see many trees in the cold mist. Suddenly the people fall on the ground. "What’s that for?" Varka asks. "To sleep, to sleep!" they answer her. And they fall into deep sleep, while birds sit on the telegraph wires and cry like the baby, trying to wake them.

Varka sings quietly to the baby, and now she sees herself in a dark little house.

Varka’s dream continues... her dead father, Yefim, is moving on the floor. She does not see him, but she hears him crying with pain. "My stomach has burst," he tries to say. But the pain is so bad that he can’t say anything.

"Aaagh. . . ."

Now Varka sees her mother running to the baby’s father, to tell him that Yefim is dying. She has been gone a long time, and she should be back now. Varka listens to her father’s pain and then she hears someone arriving at the house. It is a young doctor from the town. He comes in. Varka can’t see him in the dark, but she can hear him at the door.

"Light a candle," he says.

"Aaagh," Yefim answers.

Her mother starts looking for the matches. A minute passes without a sound. The doctor lights a match.

"In a minute, sir, in a minute," says her mother. She runs out of the house and soon comes back with a candle.

Yefim's face is pink and his eyes are sharp – like he could see through the house and the doctor.

"What is it?" asks the doctor. "How long have you been sick?"

"What? I’m dying, Doctor. My hour has come... I cannot stay here with living people."

"Don't talk like that! We’ll make you better!"

"Thank you, Doctor. But I understand... death has come, there’s nothing we can do."

The doctor spends some time with Yefim, then he stands up and says:

"I can’t help. You must go to the hospital. They will make you better. Go now... You must go! It's late – everybody will be asleep in the hospital. But I will give you a note. Do you understand?"

"But Doctor – how can he travel?" her mother asks. "We don’t have a horse."

"That’s no problem. I'll ask your employer. He will lend you a horse."

The doctor leaves and the candle goes out. Again there is the sound, "aaagh." Half an hour later, someone arrives at the house with a horse-cart to take Yefim to the hospital. He gets ready and goes…

But now it’s suddenly morning and the sun is shining. Her mother is not at home. She has gone to the hospital to see Yefim. Somewhere there is a baby crying. Varka hears someone singing quietly with her own voice.

Her mother comes back. She says, "They looked after him last night, but he didn’t live until the morning. I hope he’s in Heaven and that he will always be at peace. They say he arrived too late. He should have gone sooner."

Varka goes out into the road and cries there, but suddenly someone hits her on the back of her head – so hard that she falls against a tree. She looks up and sees her employer in front of her.

"What are you doing?" he says. "The child is crying and you are asleep!"

He hits her again, behind her ear. She moves the cradle and quietly sings to the baby. The moving shadows start to control her mind again.

Again, in her dream, Varka sees the road. The people are lying in deep sleep. Looking at them, Varka would also love to lie down. She wants to sleep more than anything in the world. But her mother is making her walk faster. They are going together to the town to find work.

"Give us charity, please!" her mother begs the men and women on the road. "Please be kind to us!"

"Give the baby here!" says another voice. "Give the baby here!", the same voice says again, this time hard and angry. "Are you sleeping, you lazy girl?"

Varka jumps up and, looking round, understands what is happening. There is no road, no mother, no horse-carts. There is only her employer’s wife. She has come to feed the baby, and is standing in the middle of the room. The big, heavy woman takes the baby in her arms. Varka stands looking at her, waiting until she has finished. Outside, the air is becoming blue, and the shadows on the ceiling are slowly disappearing. Soon it will be morning.

"Take him," says her mistress. "He’s crying. What’s wrong with him?"

Varka takes the baby. She puts him in the cradle and begins moving it again. The green shadows slowly go away, and now there is nothing dancing in front of her eyes and clouding her brain. But she’s as sleepy as before, very sleepy! Varka puts her head on the cradle, and moves her whole body to wake up. But her eyes are still closing and her head is heavy.

"Varka, heat the stove!" she hears the employer’s voice through the door.

It’s time to get up and start working. Varka leaves the cradle and runs to get firewood. She is happy now. Moving and running, she is not so sleepy as when she was sitting down. She brings the wood, heats the stove, and feels that her wooden face is softer again, and that her mind is becoming clearer.

"Varka, make the tea!" shouts her employer’s wife.

Varka breaks pieces of wood and lights the stove. But then she hears another order: "Varka, clean these shoes!"

She sits down on the floor and cleans the shoes. She thinks “How nice it would be to put my head into a big deep shoe, and have a little sleep inside it...” Then, suddenly, the shoe starts to grow, and fills the whole room. Varka drops the brush. She shakes her head and opens her eyes wide. She tries to look at things so that they do not grow big and move in front of her eyes.

"Varka, wash the steps outside... I don’t want the customers to see them so dirty!"

Varka washes the steps and cleans the rooms. Then she heats another stove and runs to the shop. There is a lot of work to do, and she doesn’t have even one free minute.

But it is so difficult to stand at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes. Her head falls forward, the potatoes dance in front of her, and the knife falls out of her hand. The employer’s fat and angry wife is talking so loud that it makes Varka's ears hurt. It is painful to make dinner, to clean the dishes and to sew. She wishes she could just lie down on to the floor and forget everything and go to sleep.

The day passes. The windows have become dark, and Varka’s head again feels like wood. She smiles, but she does not know why. Her eyes that will not stay open – but the evening light promises that she will soon sleep.

But then some visitors arrive.

"Varka, make the tea!" shouts the employer’s wife. She has to make the tea five times before the visitors are satisfied. After tea Varka stands for a whole hour in the same place, looking at the visitors and waiting for orders.

"Varka, go and buy us some snacks!"

She goes, and tries to run as quickly as she can, to forget her sleepiness.

"Varka, bring us some drinks! Varka, where are the glasses? Varka, cook some food for us!"

But now, at last, the visitors have gone. The lights go dark and her boss and his wife go to bed.

"Varka, move the cradle!" – she hears the last order.

The shadows on the walls are dancing in front of Varka's eyes again. They laugh at her and cloud her mind.

She quietly sings to the baby.

The baby screams. Again Varka sees the road, the people, her mother and her father, Yefim. She understands everything, she knows everyone. But in her half-sleep, she cannot understand what it is that controls her and stops her from living. She looks around to see what it is, because she wants to escape from it. But she cannot find it. At last, tired to death, she looks up and listens to the screams. She has found the enemy who does not allow her to live.

That enemy is the baby.

She laughs. It seems strange to her that she has not understood such a simple thing before. The shadows seem to laugh and wonder too.

Varka is awake, but in a dream. She gets up from her chair. With a smile on her face and wide eyes, she walks up and down the room.

She feels happy – soon she will be free of this thing that controls her life.

Laughing, Varka walks softly up to the cradle and looks at the crying baby. She puts her hands around the baby’s neck, and closes her fingers.

When the baby is silent and moving no more, she lets go. She lies down on the floor, quietly laughing with happiness.

In a minute she is sleeping as deeply as the dead.