Love (Chekhov)
Love ( Russian Любовь , Lyubow ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on April 7, 1886 in the daily newspaper Peterburgskaja Gazeta under the heading Fleeting Notes .
The narrator fell in love with 19-year-old Sascha, wrote her a love letter and cannot sleep on that wonderful April night. The written answer is prompt and disillusioned. Sascha has a weak spelling. Swam over it! The narrator arranges a rendezvous in the park. Sascha appears and lets herself be led into the narrator's bachelor apartment. The next disillusionment: Sascha is hardly interested in obvious love affairs, but rather in old stamps on envelopes lying around and in the urgently needed inventory of the book inventory on the shelves.
In the next few days, the narrator visits his bride in her apartment every free minute. He is greeted with a happy outcry by several eagerly sewing female beings. At the completion of the dowry the bride is working hard. Sascha hardly has time for the groom. Errands are due in the passage with Mamachen. The narrator has to talk to old Pimenovna, who eats the bread of grace in the household, and is soon fed up with his role as bridegroom.
Sascha and the narrator are married. The audibly chewing young woman does not find the corkscrew when her husband wants to drink. The thirsty man must seek and find himself. The common evening would have to be designed. The narrator recommends reading to Sascha and observes how she moves her lips while reading. He forgives her low forehead and moving lips. The rest of the marriage works like this: the narrator accepts the small mistakes of his wife; is touched and sometimes even delighted at their occasional appearance. The narrator admits that the motive for such generalization is his love. And he broods - albeit without result - over the question: What are the motives of love?
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (ed.), Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes : Love. P. 509–516 in: Gerhard Dick (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: From the rain to the 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
- The text
- Wikisource: Любовь (Чехов) (Russian)
- online at Lib.ru (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 384 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)