Three deaths
Three Deaths ( Russian Три смерти , Tri smerti ), also The Three Deaths , is a short story by Lev Tolstoy , which was written in January 1858 and published a year later in the Biblioteka dlja tschtenija .
The deaths of three living beings are discussed. The consumptive landlady from Schirkino, the sick coachman Uncle Fyodor and a young tree have to die.
content
The landlady travels from Russia to Italy believing that there in the sunny south she will get well. The doctor makes it clear to the landlord Vasily Dmitritsch who is accompanying her that his wife's lungs are "gone" and that all she needs is a confessor. Before the inevitable death, the landlady does not accept her death, but reluctantly reproaches the landlord: the doctor is out of place. A healer could certainly have helped her.
Tolstoy now takes Serjoga, the landlady's young coachman, as a link to the other deaths:
In the next break , the terminally ill coachman Uncle Fyodor lies coughing forever on the stove, accepts his fate and dies. Before that, his nephew, the coachman Serjoga, asks him for the new boots. The dying man hands them over to the young man on one condition: Serjoga should buy his uncle a tombstone. The boy promises and puts on the new boots.
Time flies. Serjoga doesn't buy a tombstone. He's always finding an excuse. When he made the promise to the dying man, a witness had been present. It is hard on him. After all, Serjoga can't help it. A cross made from a young ash tree is needed. If the reader thinks that Uncle Fjodor’s relentless death cannot be surpassed in unpretentiousness, he is wrong. One early morning the young ash falls without complaint under Serjoga's strong ax blows in the forest.
German-language editions
- Three deaths. German by Alexander Eliasberg . P. 295-312 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Second volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
- Three deaths. Translated from the Russian by Hermann Asemissen . P. 250–272 in: Lew N. Tolstoi: The death of Iwan Iljitsch . Stories. Selected and with an afterword by Dr. Karl Runge. Reclam jun. Leipzig 1962 (edition used, still contains: Lucerne . Albert . The snowstorm. Aljoscha the pot . The canvas knife . Sevastopol in December 1854 )
Web links
- The text
- online in the Gutenberg-DE project , translator: Alexander Eliasberg
- Три смерти (Толстой) (Russian)
- Three Deaths (English), translator: Nathan Haskell Dole (1887), Robert Nisbet Bain (1902)
- Trois Morts (French), translator: Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé (1882)
- online at Lib.ru / Classic (Russian)
- online at RVB.ru (Russian)
- Entry in the work list
- Entry at fantlab.ru (Russian)
- Prof. Dr. Vladimir Jakowlewitsch Linkow: Comment on RVB.ru (Russian)
- November 14, 2010: Hanns-Martin Wietek: Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj. Part II. The writing genius at russland.ru
- February 2012: Dieter Lamping : Talking about dying. Realism and fantasy in the fictional death story at literaturkritik.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Adopted from Russian. Three deaths
- ↑ Russian Ширкино
- ↑ engl. Nathan Haskell Dole
- ↑ Russian Владимир Яковлевич Линков, entry at istina.msu.ru in 2016