The Wolf (Chekhov)
The wolf ( Russian Волк , Wolk) is a humoresque by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which was published on March 17, 1886 in the Peterburgskaja Gazeta . The author makes fun of a number of articles in Russian newspapers at the time that reported attacks by rabid dogs or wolves on people.
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The squat, stocky landowner Nilow, a broad-shouldered giant, rests on the long evening drive home from the hunt in the mill with old Maxim. The miller Maxim asks his grace for a shotgun because a mad wolf is roaming around the mill in the area. Nilow does not respond to the miller's request. The main thing is that he, the landlord, is protected. He might kill the wolf with the butt of his rifle.
Nilow needs fresh air and goes outside. It is now night when he meets the wolf on the mill weir. The landlord has neither his shotgun nor a stick with him. So he has to strangle the enemy. Thought and done. Nilow kills the wolf with his bare hands, but the animal inflicts a significant bleeding bite wound on the right shoulder during the duel.
Maxim reveals himself to be a healer . The miller gives Nilow a liquid medicine that tastes like wormwood. The next day the landlord went to the hospital because his right arm was in terrible pain. The doctor Grigory Ivanych Ovchinnikow prescribes Belladonna pills and bed rest.
Four days later Nilow wants poison from the doctor. When he is refused, he wants to shoot himself with his revolver, because he can no longer take it - because he has rabies, he says. Nilow wants to give his entire fortune to the doctor if he cures him. Ovchinnikov waves it away. The wolf bit the landlord through his clothes. And only thirty percent of those bitten get sick. In addition, the blood washed the wolf's saliva out of the shoulder. One could assume the wolf wasn't rabid at all, the doctor reassured.
“It was child's play!” Laughs Nilow when he recounts how he fought with the wolf on the weir.
Used edition
- Der Wolf , pp. 80–89 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
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 376 (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Russian entry at fantlab.ru
- ↑ Russian Примечания - Notes on the story at chehov.niv.ru
- ↑ Russian Некрасов, Денис Александрович