The Order (Chekhov)
The order ( Russian Орден , order ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on January 14, 1884 in the magazine Oskolki . The text was translated into Bulgarian, German, Finnish, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Czech and Hungarian during Chekhov's lifetime.
content
The young high school teacher Lev Nikolayitsch Pustjakow wants to impress his daughters Nastja and Sina with the Stanislaus Order at the New Year's reception of the merchant Spitschkin . He borrows this decoration from a lieutenant friend and sews it firmly to his jacket to be on the safe side.
The medal-decorated Pustyakov comes a little too late. You're already over the soup. The guest is received jovially by the host Spitschkin.
Pustyakov takes a seat and registers that one of his colleagues, the French teacher Juli Augustowitsch Tremblant, is sitting directly across from him - at the side of the lovely Sina. Despite his appetite, Pustyakov cannot spoon off the plate of fragrant soup that has just been served because he has to cover his cheating, the illegally attached medal, in front of Tremblant with his right hand. He cannot hide the medal with the palm of his left hand. That would look too stupid. Etiquette prohibits left-handed spooning. Tremblant looks confused and doesn't eat either.
Pustyakov, meanwhile plagued by hunger, wants the end of the fifth course. He wants to eat in the pub. Then, when a toast is about to be made, it happens. Pustjakov is asked by a gentleman in the neighborhood to pass the glass to beautiful Nastja. The always polite Pustjakov accidentally uses his right hand for this. His counterpart, the French teacher Tremblant, immediately made the same mistake. Both decorated teachers are relieved to enjoy the rest of the New Year's Day. The Frenchman had cheated too; but with an order of the Annen .
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes : The order. S. 160–163 in: Gerhard Dick (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: From rain to 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 . Translator Wladimir Czumikow , Munich 1901
- Wikisource: Орден (Чехов) (Russian)
- online in Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 165 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)