In the Dark (1886)
In the Dark ( Russian В потёмках , W potjomkach ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on September 15, 1886 in the daily newspaper Peterburgskaja Gazeta .
Councilor Gagin spends the summer at the dacha with his fearful wife, Marja Michailovna. Before dawn, Marja is woken up by Gagin's sneezing and cannot go back to sleep. The woman goes to the window and watches to her horror as something like the silhouette of a person enters through the kitchen window in the dark. The night's rest is gone. Marja shakes Gagin awake. The tormented husband has to go to sleep in the kitchen to see if everything is going well. To make matters worse, the dressing gown - which can be brushed out - is not at hand. Gagin wakes the cook and tells her to send her fireman away as quickly as possible. But then he gets to hear something from the angry woman who is gripped by her honor. Gagin withdraws sullenly. In the kitchen, while still in the dark, he reaches for his dressing gown, which has been freshly brushed by the female staff, gets hold of an item of clothing and puts it around his shoulder. Marja has lit a light in the bedroom. The woman screams heartbreakingly. The entering gagin wears a firefighter's coat.
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.), Wolf Düwel (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in single volumes : Im Finstern S. 572-578 in: Gerhard Dick (Hrsg.): Anton Chekhow: Vom Regen in die Traufe. 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
- Wikisource: В потёмках (Чехов) (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- online in the Komarow library (Russian)
- 1982 Anatoli Papanow : Reading on YouTube (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 420 (Russian)
- Notice of first publication in the Labor der Fantastik (Russian)