# Expensive Lessons explained — Short Fiction

> Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Anton Chekhov.

## What happens

Vorotov, a scholarly man in need of learning French, hires the elegant but cold French teacher Alice Osipovna Enquête. Despite his growing infatuation and a clumsy declaration of love, she remains businesslike and distant, continuing to give lessons without any change in her demeanor. Vorotov's romantic hopes are dashed, and he makes no progress in his language studies.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Marriage

Vorotov's unrequited love for Alice, expressed in a clumsy declaration, highlights the theme of romantic longing and the barriers of social and economic difference.

### Social Class and Inequality

The gulf between Vorotov's scholarly, comfortable life and Alice's need to work for a living, as well as her embarrassment at being seen with a pupil, underscores class and economic divides.

### Hypocrisy and Moral Failure

Vorotov's initial judgment of Alice as possibly having another calling, and his own self-deception about his motives for attending the theatre, reveal hypocrisy and moral weakness.

## Character check-ins

### Vorotov

A stout, scholarly man who hires a French teacher and becomes infatuated with her.

### The Stranger

Alice Osipovna Enquête, the French teacher, cold and businesslike, who treats Vorotov as a pupil.

## Key lines

> She was so cold and businesslike with him, and treated him as a pupil, never smiling and seeming afraid that he might accidentally touch her.

Alice maintained a strictly professional demeanor, avoiding any personal warmth or physical proximity.

_Highlights the emotional distance between teacher and pupil._

> He could not admit that a serious man, preparing for a learned career, lethargic in his habits, could fling up his work and go to the theatre simply to meet there a girl he knew very little, who was unintelligent and utterly unintellectual.

Vorotov refused to acknowledge that his attraction to Alice, whom he considered beneath him intellectually, could disrupt his disciplined life.

_Reveals Vorotov's internal conflict and self-deception._

> And Vorotov felt there was a terrible gulf between himself and that circle.

Vorotov perceived an insurmountable social divide between himself and Alice's world.

_Emphasizes the theme of social class and inequality._

> She still comes to this day. Four books have already been translated, but Vorotov knows no French but the word Mémoires.

Despite many lessons, Vorotov has learned almost no French, illustrating the futility of his romantic distraction.

_Ironic conclusion showing the failure of both his language study and his romantic pursuit._

## Links

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