Luck (Chekhov)

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Anton Chekhov

Luck ( Russian Счастье , Stschastje) is a story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on June 6, 1887 in the St. Petersburg daily Novoje wremja .

C. Berger's translation into German was published in 1903 by Gnadenfeld & Co. in Berlin . Other translations: 1888 into Czech ( Šteští ), 1891 into Serbo-Croatian ( Sreća ), 1895 into Slovak ( Šťastie ) and into English ( Happiness ).

action

In the distance rises the burial mound Saur-Mogila . Two shepherds, the young Sanka and the old man, a toothless eighty-year-old, guard their three-thousand-headed herd in the steppe on the Donets plateau at night . Pantelej, the supervisor of the Makarow estate, rode by and is recognized by the old man. You start a conversation. The newcomer says: “There are a lot of buried treasures in this area.” The old man cannot deny it, because it is also written in the manuscripts. But without a talisman one would not get to any of the bewitched treasures. For example, Ilya, the old man's brother, bought a talisman from an Armenian in 1838 , but failed because of a guard and died hapless, i.e. without treasure.

There is narration and narration throughout the night. “It was already meeting. The Milky Way faded; it melted like thawing snow and gradually lost its outline ... the ... burial mounds that loomed here and there on the horizon and in the boundless steppe looked stern and lifeless; in their motionlessness ... one felt the centuries and the complete indifference towards people ... neither ... in the morning ... nor in the boundlessness of the steppe was any sense to be recognized. "

Before Pantelej rides away, he shares two more stories. First, when Peter the Great was building a fleet in Voronezh , he sent a gold caravan there from Petersburg. Robbers killed the carters and buried the gold, but never found it. Second, in 1812, the Don Cossacks captured gold from the French . When the Russian rulers wanted to take their treasures away, the Don Cossacks buried their booty. Nobody has ever found this gold.

When the caretaker is out of earshot, Sanka doesn't give up. Does the old man know the location of the treasure that his brother Ilya had been looking for in 1838 without success? The old man held tight in front of the manager, but now he reveals the spot: In the middle of the three Bogataja gorges (German: gorges of riches). The old man, who has already dug ten times without success, wants to dig again for the treasure. When Sankas asked how he would use the treasure, the old man had no answer.

Sanka wonders why the old are looking for treasure. What else do they want with happiness on the threshold of death?

Quote

[The old man] said bitterly: "There is happiness, but what do you get from it when it's buried in the ground? ... And there is so much luck that it would be enough for a whole circle, just get it not to see a soul! ... The rulers have already started digging up the barrows ... You smell something! You envy the farmers luck! And the state also watches where it stays ... whoever has has. "Then Pantelej to the two shepherds:" So one will probably die without seeing happiness, without having experienced what it actually is ... . "

background

The text is based on one of the episodes that Anton Chekhov processed in his travel description The Steppe . On June 14, 1887, Alexander Chekhov proudly reported the success of the text Das Glück to his brother . Anton Chekhov, who dedicated the short story to Jakow Polonski , wrote to the Russian poet on March 25, 1888: “The story depicts the steppe: plain, night, the pale early red in the east, a flock of sheep and three human figures above talk about happiness. "

reception

German-language editions

Used edition

  • Das Glück , pp. 441–453 in Gerhard Dick (ed.) And Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: The Swedish match . Short stories and early narratives. German by Georg Schwarz. 668 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1965 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian reference to first publication
  2. ↑ Notes on translations
  3. ↑ engl. Happiness (Chekhov / Garnett)
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 451, 1. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 448, 7th Zvu
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 449, 16. Zvu
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 447, 10th Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 449, 13. Zvo
  9. ↑ Russian Полонский, Яков Петрович
  10. ↑ Wolf Düwel (Ed.) In the edition used, p. 653, 14. Zvo to p. 654, 5. Zvo
  11. ↑ Swedish Carin Davidsson

annotation

  1. ↑ Anton Chekhov writes: "В Богатой Балочке, ..." The gorges of riches are probably located in the Polohy area north of the Sea of ​​Azov .