Nightmare (Chekhov)
The nightmare ( Russian Кошмар , Koschmar ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which was published on March 29, 1886 in the Novoje Vremja .
The text was translated into Finnish in 1901 ( Painajainen ).
content
The old around 30 years Pavel Mikhailovich Bunin, in Zemstvo in charge of his own circle Bauer matters, ordered the 28-year-old clergyman father Yakov Smirnov from the nearly eight versts distant Sinkowo to his Borissowo. Bunin, who wants to cooperate with the clergyman, would like to overlook his unkempt and pathetic appearance, but treats the summoned person from above. Bunin wants the parish school in Sinkowo to finally open. Father Yakov plays the ball back: this requires at least two hundred rubles . Bunin doesn't have the money. His property was seized . While Bunin thinks out loud about the next tasks together, he watches the expression on the silent clergyman's expression: 'Not one of the brightest. Is unusually shy and simple-minded, 'thinks Bunin and says, maybe he can pass the buck to the church leadership. Father Jakow does not make a face at such intrigues and enjoys the tea that is served. When the tea drinkers a kringle pilfered, the host falls from the clouds and think, 'Ugh! Which bishop ordained the tea thief as a priest? If I were the spiritual shepherd in Sinkowo, I would have opened this school long ago. '
Bunin goes to Sinkowo the following Sunday. The matter cannot be delayed. He has to see to it that everything is right. Only a few children and old people showed up for the service in the old, unsightly wooden church. Father Jakow - in his shabby chasuble - celebrates mass without a deacon . Jakow's lecture appears to the visitor as in some respects worthy of criticism and is not in sync with the actions of the apparently half-deaf sexton . 'The religious feeling of the peasants is going downhill. No wonder with such priests ! ' says the visitor to himself.
After the mass, Bunin seeks the priest in his poor peasant cottage. The guest asks for a cup of tea. It cannot be served because there is no samovar in the house.
After returning to Borissowo, Bunin denounced his father Jakow in a letter to the bishop as a clergyman unfit for office. The next day, Father Jakow called on Bunin in vain, but he was not turned away. Father Jakow absolutely needs ten rubles a month. He would like to give the money to his ailing predecessor, Father Awraami. As Bunin's clerk, father Jakow wants to earn his living. During the conversation it comes out - not only father Avraami, but also father Jakow and his wife are starving. That's why the clergyman secretly took the ring for his wife.
Kunin is frightened by the misery and he almost screams. When Father Jakow continues to talk about the poverty in Sinkowo, the Bunin can no longer answer and wants to help, wants to give away his next salary, which he will receive from Zemstvo - at least two hundred rubles - to these vegetating people. But that will not stop there, fears Kunin.
Anton Chekhov closes his story: “Then Kunin suddenly remembered the denunciation that he had sent to the bishop about Father Jakow, and he started as if from an icy cold shower. A feeling of unbearable shame for himself and for the invisible truth filled his inner being ... "
reception
Some of the contemporary Russian reviewers compare Anton Chekhov's work with a prose work by Ignati Potapenkos, published four years later, in which the Russian writer and dramaturge also revealed how the Russian village priest eke out his existence at the end of the 19th century.
Used edition
- Der Alpdruck , pp. 89-105 in Gerhard Dick (ed.) And Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: The Swedish match . Short stories and early narratives. German by Wolf Düwel. 668 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1965 (1st edition)
Web links
- The text
- Кошмар (Чехов) (Russian)
- A Nightmare (Chekhov )
- online in FEB (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru / Classic (Russian)
- online at chehov.niv.ru (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 380 (Russian)
- Comments at e-reading.club (Russian)
- Telespectacle for Die Feinde and The Nightmare on YouTube (Russian, 75 min)