The Chameleon Story Text

The Chameleon Story Text

The Chameleon

- the story -

The Chameleon

Anton Chekhov

A chameleon is a small animal which changes its colour to suit its surrounding. In this way it avoids danger and is hardly noticed. But Chekhov’s chameleon was a person.

1 / The police superintendent Ochumyelof, wearing his new cloak and with a parcel under his arm, is walking across the market-place. He is followed by a red-haired policeman carrying some confiscated fruit in his hands. Silence reigns all around. Not a soul in the market-place. The open doors and windows of the shops and taverns looked out desolately like wide open hungry mouths. There was not even a beggar near them.
2 / All of a sudden Ochumyelof heard someone shouting. ‘So you bite, you damned beast! Nowadays dogs are not allowed to bite. Stop it! Oh, oh!’
3 / The yelping of a dog was heard. Ochumyelof looked in the direction of the sound and saw a dog, limping on three legs, run out of the timber-yard. A man in an unbuttoned white shirt was chasing him. The man was close at the dog’s heel. Suddenly he stumbled but when he fell, he sprang forward and seized the dog by the hind leg. Again the dog’s yelping was heard and again the shout. Sleepy faces appeared at the windows of the shops, and in no time a crowd gathered around the timber-yard as if it has sprung out of the ground.
4 / ‘It looks like a fight, sir,’ said the policeman.
5 / Ochumyelof turned and strode towards the crowd. Near the gate of the timber-yard he saw the man in the unbuttoned white shirt holding up his right hand and showing the crowd a bleeding finger. On his half-drunken face there was an expression as though he was saying, ‘Wait. I will make you pay for this, you rogue!’ Ochumyelof recognised the man. He was Khriukin, the goldsmith. In the centre of the crowd, with its forelegs spread out and trembling from head to foot, lay the culprit of the whole trouble — a white puppy with a pointed nose and a yellow spot on his back. In its tearful eyes there was an expression of misery and terror.
6 / ‘What’s it all about?’ asked Ochumyelof, shouldering his way through the crowd. ‘What are you here for? What’s the matter with your finger? Who has been screaming?’
7 / ‘I was just walking along, sir, as quiet as a lamb,’ said Khriukin, ‘I wasn’t touching anybody or anything, when suddenly this accursed beast bit my finger. Excuse me, sir. I’m a working man; I have very delicate work to do, and somebody will have to pay me, for I won’t be able to use this finger maybe for a week! There is nothing in the law, sir, about having to put up with dogs that bite. If they are allowed to bit, life is not worth living.’
8 / ‘H’m. Very good,’ said Ochumyelof sternly, moving his eyebrows up and down. ‘Now, whose dog is this? I won’t let the matter rest. I will teach you people not to let your dogs run about loose! It’s time that something was done about people who don’t obey regulations. I will punish the owner. I will show him who I am! Yeldyrin,’ turning to the policeman, ‘find out whose dog it is and draw up a report. The dog will be killed without delay. He is probably a mad dog, in any case. Whose dog is it?’
9 / ‘He looks like the General’s dog,’ said someone in the crowd.

10 / ‘The General? Hm! Yeldyrin, take off my cloak. It’s terribly hot! It is probably going to rain. …‘ Turning to the goldsmith, he continuted, ‘There is one thing that I do not understand, Khriukin --- how could that dog bite you? He does not come up to your fingers. He is such a little dog and you are such a big man. You have probably hurt your finger on a nail, and then the idea of the dog occurred to you and you are trying to get some money. I know you people. You cheating scoundrel!’
11 / ‘He poked a cigarette into the dog’s face; that’s why the dog snapped and bit him, sir.’

12 / ‘That’s a lie! You did not see me do it, so why lie? His Honour is a wise gentleman. He knows who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. If I am lying, let the court decide. The law says that nowadays we are all equal. I have a brother in the police. Let me tell you —’
13 / ‘Stop arguing!’
14 / ‘No, that’s not the General’s dog,’ said the policeman thoughtfully. ‘The general does not have dogs like that. His dogs are different.’
15 / ‘Are you sure of that?’
16 / ‘Yes, sir, quite sure.’
17 / ‘I know it myself too. The General has expensive breed-dogs, but this dog! He has neither hair nor shape. Why do people keep dogs like that? If such a dog turns up in Petersburg or Moscow, do you know what will happen? Nobody will worry about the law and the dog will be strangled right away! Khriukin, you are a victim and you’ve suffered. I will not let this matter rest. I must teach the owner a lesson!’

18 / ‘But perhaps it is the General’s dog after all,’ the policeman was thinking aloud. ‘The other day I saw a dog like that in the general’s yard.’
19 / ‘Of course it belongs to the General,’ said a voice in the crowd.
20 / ‘Yeldyrin, help me put on my coat. It is cold. The wind is getting up. I’m shivering. Take the dog to the General’s and find out there. Say that I found it and sent it. And tell them not to let the dog out in the street. It is probably an expensive dog, and if every swine goes poking him with a cigarette, he will soon be ruined. A dog is a delicate creature. And you, stupid fellow, put down your hand! Don’t show me that silly finger of yours again. It is your own fault.’
21 / ‘Here comes the General’s chef. Let us ask him. Hi there, Prokhor, come here a minute! Look, is that dog yours?’
22 / ‘What dog? … We never had such a dog in our lives!’
23 / ‘There’s no need wasting time asking around,’ said Ochumyelof. ‘It’s a tramp dog. There is nothing more to be said. If I say he is a tramp dog, he is a tramp dog! He will be killed!’
24 / ‘It’s not our dog,’ continued Prokhor, ‘but it belongs to the General’s brother, who arrived from Moscow the other day. My master doesn’t like this kind of dog, but his brother does.’
25 / ‘So his brother has arrived?’ asked Ochumyelof, and a delighted smile spread over his face. ‘Fancy that! And I did not know it! Is he here on a visit again?’
26 / ‘Yes, sir, on a visit.’
27 / ‘Well, well, well. I never knew … So it is his dog, you say? Very good, I’m very glad. Take him! A lively little dog. A quick little dog, snapping at this fellow’s finger! Ha-ha-ha. Why are you trembling, dear little thing? Rrr … Rrrr … That man is a villain.’
28 / Prokhor called the dog and walked away with it. The crowd laughed at Khriukin.
29 / ‘I will catch you some day!’ Ochumyelof threatened him, and wrapping himself in his cloak, he continued on his way across the market-place.

The End

- 6 -