Anton's favourite improvisations was a scene in which the Governor of the
town attended church parade at a festival and stood in the centre of the
church, on a rug surrounded by foreign consuls. Anton, dressed in his
high-school uniform, with his grandfather's old sabre coming to his
shoulder, used to act the part of the Governor with extraordinary subtlety
and carry out a review of imaginary Cossacks. Often the children would
gather round their mother or their old nurse to hear stories.

Chekhov's story "Happiness" was written under the influence of one of his
nurse's tales, which were always of the mysterious, of the extraordinary,
of the terrible, and poetical.

Their mother, on the other hand, told the children stories of real life,
describing how she had travelled all over Russia as a little girl, how the
Allies had bombarded Taganrog during the Crimean War, and how hard life had
been for the peasants in the days of serfdom. She instilled into her
children a hatred of brutality and a feeling of regard for all who were in
an inferior position, and for birds and animals.

Chekhov in later years used to say: "Our talents we got from our father,
but our soul from our mother."

In 1875 the two elder boys went to Moscow.

After their departure the business went from bad to worse, and the family
sank into poverty.

In 1876 Pavel Yegorovitch closed his shop, and went to join his sons in
Moscow. While earning their own living, one was a student at the
University, and the other a student at the School of Sculpture and