Mumu recap

Gerasim, a deaf and non-speaking serf of great strength, is taken from rural field work to serve an arbitrary elderly mistress in Moscow. He grows attached to the laundress Tatiana, but the mistress decides Tatiana should marry the drunken shoemaker Kapiton. The servants frighten Gerasim away by making Tatiana pretend to be drunk, and the married couple is later sent to the country. Gerasim then rescues a puppy from a river, names her Mumu, and devotes himself to her. When Mumu barks at the mistress, the household is ordered to get rid of the dog. Mumu returns after being sold, and a second order demands her death. Gerasim feeds her, rows into the river, and drowns her himself. He then leaves Moscow without permission and walks back to his village. There he resumes hard farm work but never again forms the attachments that his mistress used her power to destroy.

An elderly Moscow landowner has Gerasim, a deaf and non-speaking serf of immense strength, brought from his village to work as her porter. Cut off from the fields and isolated among servants who fear him, he performs his duties with exactness. He becomes attached to the timid laundress Tatiana. The mistress instead orders Tatiana to marry Kapiton, a drunken shoemaker, hoping marriage will reform him. Because Gerasim hates drunkenness, the servants make Tatiana pretend to be drunk so that he will reject her. The couple later leaves for the country. Gerasim then rescues a drowning puppy, names her Mumu, and gives her the affection denied expression elsewhere. Mumu's bark displeases the mistress, who orders the dog removed. After being sold, Mumu finds her way back. The renewed order is unmistakable: she must be killed. Gerasim takes responsibility, gives the dog a final meal, rows out, and drowns her with weights. He immediately abandons the Moscow household and returns on foot to his native village, where he works alone and never again keeps a dog or courts a woman.

When Mumu returns after the servants' first attempt to remove her, the mistress demands that the dog be destroyed. Gerasim understands the order and insists on carrying it out himself. He gives Mumu a final meal, rows into the river, binds weights to her, and lets her sink. He then returns to the house, gathers his few possessions, and walks through the night to his native village without requesting permission. His strength and determination make pursuit useless. Back in the country he resumes field labor and lives alone, never again showing interest in women or keeping a dog. The mistress is initially enraged by his departure, then declares that she never needed him and makes no serious attempt to recover him. Gerasim's escape ends her direct control over him, but it comes only after obedience has forced him to destroy the creature he loved most.