A joke

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Anton Chekhov

A joke ( Russian Шуточка , Schutotschka ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on March 12, 1886 in the Moscow magazine Swertschok (German: Die Grille ). During the author's lifetime, the text was translated into Bulgarian, German, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Slovak.

The narrator tells a story from his younger years. On a clear winter noon he climbed the high toboggan hill with Nadeshda Petrovna - called Nadenka or simply Nadja. Once at the top, the fearful Nadenka is uneasy about the upcoming journey into the breathtaking abyss. The young girl finally gives in, pale and trembling. The sledge rushes down the toboggan run with the two of them. When the vehicle has reached its top speed, the narrator whispers in his passenger's ear: “I love you, Nadja.” Arriving safely below, the narrator reads something from Nadenka's facial expressions: 'Was that the howling, whistling wind, the whirring the runners or a declaration of love? ' In any case, the girl pulls herself together and asks for another ride without being asked. Nadenka then confesses that she likes tobogganing. Every time - also in the next winter days on new sledge rides - the sledge driver blows the above-mentioned unmistakable explanation half aloud into your ear at the height of the windy descent.

The narrator's departure to Petersburg - probably forever - is imminent the following spring . When the spring wind, which no longer howls, has blown away the snow, Nadenka stands in front of her house. The narrator sneaks up. At the next gust of wind he calls out his sentence about love to the girl through a crack in the protective wooden fence. And Nadenka "screams, she smiles all over her face, she stretches her arms towards the wind, happy, happy and so beautiful."

The narrator leaves.

Used edition

  • Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in single volumes : A joke. P. 497–501 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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Сверчок (журнал)
  2. ↑ Note on first publication as well as translations in the Labor der Fantastik (Russian)
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 501, 15. Zvu
  4. ↑ Entry in WorldCat
  5. ↑ Russian Shuravlyov, Dmitri Nikolajewitsch , master of the spoken word (Russian мастер художественного слова, master chudoschestwennowo slovakia)