SUMMARY OF THE LESSON
Lushkoff, the beggar, in this story, used to tell fake stories to evoke sympathy in his listeners to take money from them. One day an advocate named Sergei saw a boy wearing ragged clothes whom the writer had met two days before in Sadovya Street. He found the same person asking him for some money by telling him that his schoolteacher had expelled him from the school for not paying the school fees. Sergei rebuked him and the beggar accepted that he used to tell lies for making his earnings. He said his name was Lushkoff. Now Sergei asked him to do work for livelihood rather than to beg. He asked the beggar to chop the wood for him and brought him home. Sergei called his cook Olga to take Lushkoff into the woodshed to chop the wood. One thing was obvious from his gait that he had not consented to chop the wood as he was hungry and wanted work, but simply from pride and shame and because he had been trapped by his own words. It was also clear that vodka had eaten up his strength and that he was unhealthy.
After getting the wood chopped, Sergei felt happy that he had helped a needy man and also reformed a beggar. Then Sergei asked Lushkoff to come on the first of every month and to chop the wood for money. One day, Sergei wrote a letter to one of his friends and told Lushkoff to find the job there of copying the written matter.
After this incident, Sergei was not able to meet Lushkoff for two years. Then one day Sergei saw Lushkoff standing at the ticket window of a theatre, paying for a seat. Lushkoff told him that now he was a notary and getting 35 roubles a month. Sergei congratulated him on getting such success in life. At this, Lushkoff disclosed the truth that he never chopped a single wood but Olga had done all the work for him. Olga’s generosity and kindness changed his heart as well as his life forever.
Related Articles: