Talent (Chekhov)
Talent ( Russian Талант , Talant ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on September 6, 1886 in the weekly Oskolki .
The 20-year-old Katja wants to be married by the young Yegor Sawwitsch because she admires his talent as a genre painter and also thinks that her mother, an officer's widow, expects this connection. Katja's marriage wish is one-sided. Sawwitsch, who sees his great painting career in clear pictures, does not waste a thought on marriage. Because all great artists remained unmarried. The reader can hardly believe in that career, because in the last summer months, in which Savvich lived at the expense of his landlady - that is Katja's mother - only a sketch with Katja at the window was made; a work that Sawwitsch's friend, the landscape painter Uklejkin, unfortunately has to criticize. Despite such weakness, the three friends, always in good spirits - the history painter Kostylew completes the trio - rave about their upcoming painting career.
But the narrator, who is experienced in art, is certain that it will not go steeply upwards. All three are "victims of that inexorable law ... according to which of the hundreds of beginners who give reason to hope, only two or three work their way up, but all the rest are thrown to the scrap heap and perish ...".
Used edition
- Gerhard Dick (ed.), Wolf Düwel (ed.): Anton Chekhov: Collected works in individual volumes : Talent. P. 560–566 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
- The text
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Stories No. 417 (Russian)
- Notice of first publication in the Labor der Fantastik (Russian)