At home (Chekhov)

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Anton Chekhov

At home ( Russian Дома , Doma ) is a short story by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on March 7, 1887 in the St. Petersburg daily Novoje wremja .

After a hard day's work, Yevgeny Petrovich Bykowskij, public prosecutor at the district court, would like to enjoy a well-deserved evening in his study at home. The governess calls for help in bringing up his son Serjoscha. The little schoolboy smoked a cigarette. Bykowskij buttons his offspring in private and shows him lies and theft in a professional manner, as is customary before the bar of the court . Theft: Serjoscha has seized on someone else's property, his father's tobacco. And a lie: Serjoscha asserts that he smoked only once. The lawyer shows the kid that he has twice. Affectionate as the boy is, he crawls on his father's lap and wraps his beard. The father is touched to discover that the boy looks like relatives he loves - a little like Bykovsky's mother and a little like Bykovsky's wife.

The shrewd lawyer finds that he is not suitable as an educator. Bykovsky ponders. Then the idea occurs to him. Sometimes he quiets the boy in the evenings with a fairy tale he invented himself. So now too. His fairytale punch this time: "The prince became consumptive from smoking and died when he was only twenty years old". Serjoscha, convinced by his tutor, does not want to smoke again.

German-language editions

Output used:

  • At home , pp. 97-106 in Anton Chekhov: Happiness and other stories. Translated from the Russian by Alexander Eliasberg . 187 pages. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1962, Goldmann's yellow paperbacks, vol. 868

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 106, 1. Zvo