The Guest (Chekhov)

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Anton Chekhov

The guest ( Russian Гость , Gost ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on August 5, 1885 in the daily newspaper Peterburgskaja Gazeta .

content

Lawyer Selterski, the master of the house, closed his eyes while listening to his neighbor, the retired Colonel Parfeni Savvich Peregarin. Selterski's wife and the servants have long since retired to the bedrooms of the summer house. The colonel has been letting one story follow another since lunch. He has just over, as it anno 1842 in Kremenchug a rabidDog had bitten. After the guest has repeated the dog story for the umpteenth time, the lawyer rudely interrupts him with the unmistakable reference to his headache, which will plague him the next morning after he has not had enough night sleep. Apparently the Colonel doesn't want to understand him because he's digging out a precedent. Now it is about a certain staff captain Klyushkin from Serpukhov . Dead tired, the lawyer pulls out a larger gun; refers to his contagious disease: diphtheria . No result, the colonel survived his stay in the typhus hospital, is not at all afraid of something like that and tells the appropriate story of the sick lieutenant colonel Trèsbien. The impolite host interrupts again - the night has gone on - with the suggestive question of when the person opposite usually goes to bed. The answer is sobering: sometimes at three and sometimes not at all. For example, in 1829, before Achalzych , he hadn't gotten into trouble for weeks. The desperate lawyer fakes seizures. Occasionally, if he doesn't get to bed by twelve, he becomes a knife thrower.

Dangerous, he admits, Colonel, and talks about plague , cholera and all kinds of attacks. All of this has to be dealt with. In his leaden tiredness, the lawyer can no longer think of anything. So he gets his youthful folly, the five-part novel ocean waves , out of the drawer and begins the reading of the obese boredom. The tireless colonel is very enthusiastic. He love that.

When the lawyer can no longer read because of the weight of the bed, the lively colonel suggests some more entertaining chat. The lawyer fears that he's still sitting there at four in the morning and finally has the brilliant idea: When he pumps the Colonel, he gets up, says goodbye and leaves straight away.

filming

Used edition

  • Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes : The guest. P. 359–364 in: Gerhard Dick (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: From the rain to the eaves. Short stories. Translated from Russian by Ada Knipper and Gerhard Dick. With a foreword by Wolf Düwel. 630 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian ВИD
  2. ↑ Russian Чехов и Ко
  3. ↑ Russian Ройзман, Зиновий Александрович
  4. ↑ Russian Брусникин, Дмитрий Владимирович
  5. ↑ Russian Сергачёв, Виктор Николаевич
  6. ↑ Entry in WorldCat