A well-known gentleman
A well-known gentleman , also your acquaintance ( Russian Знакомый мужчина , Snakomy muschtschina ), is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on May 3, 1886 in the weekly Oskolki . During the author's lifetime the text was translated into Bulgarian, German, Polish, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech and Hungarian.
The pretty Wanda, on her prostitute Npass recognized as honorable citizen Nastasya Kanawkina is from the St. Petersburg discharged hospital in a plain dress without a kopeck into homelessness. Wanda sells her only valuable asset - a turquoise ring - for which she receives a ruble. If Wanda wants to catch a paying customer in the Petersburg Café Renaissance , she needs a big red hat, a fashionable jacket and bronze-colored pumps . Wanda wants to borrow the twenty-five rubles required for this from her friend, the dentist Finkel, a former customer. When she is actually admitted by the dentist's staff and faces the dentist, she loses her courage. Wanda asks for treatment. Dr. Finkel pulls out a carious tooth. Wanda has to give up the ruble and finds herself on the street.
The very next day, Wanda had a customer at the Renaissance - wearing a red hat, fashionable jacket and bronze-colored pumps - the young businessman from Kazan was paying.
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in single volumes : Your acquaintances. P. 528–532 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
- The text
- online in the Gutenberg-DE project
- A well-known gentleman. Humorous stories , pp. 6–10 online in the Russian State Library (Translator: Wladimir Czumikow , Verlag Eugen Diederichs, Leipzig 1901)
- Wikisource: Знакомый мужчина (Чехов) (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 389 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)