Short Fiction · Chapter
A Tripping Tongue explained
Natalya Mihalovna returns from Yalta and regales her husband Vassitchka with tales of the Crimea, inadvertently revealing her own flirtatious behavior with a Tatar guide named Suleiman while condemning her friend Yulia Petrovna's similar co
What happens
Natalya Mihalovna returns from Yalta and regales her husband Vassitchka with tales of the Crimea, inadvertently revealing her own flirtatious behavior with a Tatar guide named Suleiman while condemning her friend Yulia Petrovna's similar conduct. Her husband grows suspicious and irritated by her contradictions and evasions.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Moral Failure
Natalya Mihalovna condemns her friend Yulia's behavior while revealing her own similar flirtations, exposing her double standards.
Illusion vs. Reality
Natalya's contradictory accounts of her interactions with the Tatar guides highlight the gap between her professed innocence and actual behavior.
Characters to notice
- Natalya Mihalovna
The young married lady who returns from Yalta and tells her husband about her trip, including her interactions with a Tatar guide.
- Vassitchka
Natalya Mihalovna's husband, who listens to her stories with growing suspicion and irritation.
Key passages
“The devil is not as black as he is painted.”
Things are not as bad as they are made out to be.
Natalya uses this proverb to downplay the high cost of living in Crimea.
“I always had a prejudice against all such Circassians, Greeks … Moors!”
I have always been biased against people from those ethnic groups.
Natalya expresses her racial prejudice while describing her attitude toward the Tatar guides.