Summary of the chapter "The Beggar"
Answers
During the Christmas holidays, Patrick takes Rose to visit his family’s luxurious home in British Columbia. Rose feels completely out of place among Patrick’s parents and sisters, but so does Patrick. After returning to the university, they become engaged, and Rose takes Patrick to meet her family in Hanratty, where Patrick is taken aback by the working-class culture and the country accents. Rose increasingly wonders what Patrick sees in her or wants from her. Nevertheless, she finds herself saying all the right things to people who ask to see her engagement ring and ask about her wedding plans. As year-end exams approach, she breaks off her relationship with Patrick but relents when she meets him to return his ring.
They marry and have children but continue their pattern of separation and reconciliation, with subtle variations, for a decade. Eventually, they divorce. Another decade later, when Rose is a successful television interviewer and Patrick is a successful professor, they see each other in an airport. Rose smiles, realizing that she could throw herself at Patrick again but knowing better. He makes an ugly face. What remains of their relationship is this story, which she tells to many friends and lovers in the new age of honesty.
This is a story about a beggar, Lushkoff who used to beg as a school teacher ora student. He met an advocate named Sergei who offered him a job at his house. Sergei asked Lushkoff to chop woods for him. He asked his servant, Olga, to look after him. Lushkoff was very weak. He could not do any work. Olga found him incapable of chopping the wood. She rebuked him but she was very sympathetic to him. She wept for him. Olga decided to help him. She worked in his place and informed Sergei that he had done his work. She made him get half a rouble. Sergei asked Lushkoff to come to work on the first of every month. Lushkoff was always rebuked by Olga for his inefficiency. But it was Olga only who helped him in his work. Once Sergei asked Lushkoff to help in the shifting of the house, he looked weak and unhealthy. Sergei thought that he should not put him to hard work and decided to send him to his friends for an easier job. Lushkoff got a more respectable job. After two years, Sergei met Lushkoff in a theatre. He was well-dressed and look healthier. He had become a notary and was earning thirty-five roubles a month. Sergei felt good. Lushkoff thanked Sergei for his kind words and deed. He disclosed that it was Olga who helped and set him right. He would never forget her. Olga’s words and actions had brought a change in him. She made him quit drinking. Lushkoff expressed his gratitude towards Sergei and Olga. He bade him goodbye and departed for work.