Kalchas (Chekhov)

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Kalchas is startled at the prompter. Drawing by Leonid Pasternak from 1895.

Kalchas ( Russian Калхас ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on November 10, 1886 in the Peterburgskaja Gazeta . At the beginning of January 1887, the author staged the story in his one-act swan song . This piece, translated in 1901 under the title Das Schwanenlied des Komikers , hit the German stage in 1960, the Chekhov year.

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In the middle of the night, 58-year-old aristocratic comedian Vasily Wassiljitsch Svetlovidow wakes up in the costume of Kalchas . At the performance the previous evening he had been successful and then mixed up red wine, beer and cognac with his admirers in far too large quantities. Svetlovidov doesn't understand that. None of his numerous admirers brought him home. He is and remains alone; pats through the empty house. The mime has been on stage for thirty-five years and today he experiences the theater for the first time at night. The auditorium appears as a black hole. A white ghost rises in the honor box. Svetlowidow, initially frightened, finally approaches slowly and curiously. That's the prompter Nikita Ivanytsch in underwear! The prompter has no place to stay and asks the comedian to keep quiet. The director may not find out anything about the night in the box. The lonely Kalchas goes to the prompter and hugs him trembling. Svetlovidov doesn't want to know anything about going home because he has no wife, children or other relatives. Rather, the comedian pours his heart out to the prompter: from a good family he had served as a dashing young officer in the artillery. What kind of actor had he been after that - still at a young age! A beautiful girl fell madly in love with this actor. The marriage had not come about. The girl had made one thing in vain from the mime: First you have to give up your job.

Svetlovidov had always kept playing. He was always alone; had finally made himself the buffoon of the idlers. The bad thing - he hadn't felt it earlier, but only now, when he got old in one night: Life is wasted, because there is obviously no sacred art.

Used edition

  • Kalchas. P. 296–301 in Gerhard Dick (Ed.) And Wolf Düwel (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: The Swedish match. Short stories and early narratives. German by Gerhard Dick. 668 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1965 (1st edition)

literature

  • Swan song. Dramatic etude in one act. Translated from the Russian by Gudrun Düwel. P. 37–48 in: Wolf Düwel (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: Der Kirschgarten. Dramas. 719 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Translation of Gudrun Düwel under Literature and Russian Лебединая песня (Калхас)
  2. ↑ Note under Kalchas (Russian) in the FEB on pp. 663–664