Fifty-Two Stories

Marie Godefroy was a circus equestrienne whom Chekhov had once seen perform and found disappointing.

3.

the Third Department:

The imperial secret police, created by the tsar Nicholas I in 1825.

4.

Shchedrin:

See note 7 to “The Name-Day Party.”

5.

Onegin…Boris Godunov

:

For

Onegin

see note 1 to “After the Theater.”

Boris Godunov

(1831) is Pushkin’s drama about the man who ruled Russia as regent (1585–1598) and then tsar (1598–1605).

6.

Lermontov:

See note 1 to “On the Road.”

7.

Of his kingdom there shall be no end:

The angel Gabriel’s words to the Virgin Mary in Luke 1:33.

8.

“The Sinful Woman”:

A very popular narrative poem (ca. 1857) by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817–75), poet, novelist, playwright, and satirist.

9.

Lessing’s

Hamburg Dramaturgy

:

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), writer, dramatist, and thinker, was a major figure of the Enlightenment in Germany.

Hamburg Dramaturgy

(1767–69) is a collection of essays written during the years when he served as dramaturg for the Hamburg National Theater.

10.

Oh, not in vain…doth remain:

Nikitin plays on lines from a poem by Lermontov (see note 1 to “On the Road”).

11.

Kalka…Chukotsky Noses:

The battle between invading Mongols and a coalition of Russian forces on the Kalka River in southern Ukraine took place in 1223. Chukotka, a peninsula on the far northeastern coast of Siberia, is said to look on the map like a nose cut off from a face.

12.

The Messenger of Europe

:

See note 3 to “The Kiss.”

13.

after the Dormition:

See note 3 to “The Witch.”

14.

sang “Holy God” all the way to the cemetery:

The chant is called the Trisagion (the “thrice holy”): “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.”

15.

Theophany:

The Orthodox feast of the Theophany, celebrated on January 6, commemorates the baptism of Christ in the Jordan by John the Baptist, at which the Trinity was made manifest.

16.

the Great Lent:

See note 3 to “Reading.”

IN A COUNTRY HOUSE

1.

a bad Sobakevich:

Mikhailo Semyonovich Sobakevich, a solid, bear-like landowner, is one of the main characters in Nikolai Gogol’s novel

Dead Souls

(1842).

2.

Goncharov:

The writer Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812–91), best known for his novel

Oblomov

(1859), was indeed from a wealthy merchant family in Simbirsk, on the Volga, some 400 miles east of Moscow.

3.

Flammarion:

Nicolas Camille Flammarion (1842–1925) was an astronomer and writer, author of many books, including early science fiction novels, and interested also in psychic research, spiritism, and reincarnation.

THE PECHENEG

1.

Pecheneg…Zhmukhin:

The Pechenegs were a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia, considered cruel and uncultivated, who migrated westwards during the Middle Ages and in the tenth century laid siege to Kiev. Zhmukhin, the central character of the story, is dubbed a “Pecheneg” by his neighbors. The name Zhmukhin is a plausible Russian name, but has suggestions of pushing, squeezing, oppression.

2.

the Donetsk line:

The railway line to Donetsk, a major industrial city in the Ukraine, was opened in 1870.

3.

Novocherkassk:

A new city founded by the leader of the Don Cossacks in 1804 as an administrative center in the Rostov region, bordering the Ukraine, and developed with the help of a French engineer, who nicknamed the city “little Paris.”

4.

passports:

Russians were required to carry “internal passports” when traveling within Russia.

IN THE CART

1.

the zemstvo office:

See note 13 to “The Name-Day Party.”

ABOUT LOVE

1.

This story is the third in what is known as the “little trilogy.” The first two are “The Man in a Case” and “Gooseberries.”

2.

this is a great mystery:

See Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 5:31–32: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two will be one flesh. / This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

3.

The Messenger of Europe

:

See note 3 to “The Kiss.”

IONYCH

1.

zemstvo doctor:

A doctor officially appointed to work under the auspices of the local government assembly (zemstvo).

2.

Ascension:

The feast celebrating Christ’s ascent to His Father forty days after Easter.

3.

When I’d not yet drunk tears:

Words from an elegy by the poet Anton Antonovich Delvig (1798–1831), a fellow student of Pushkin’s at the lycée in Tsarskoe Selo, set to music by Mikhail Lukyanovich Yakovlev (1798–1868), also a student at the lycée.

4.

Jeanchik…dites…du thé

: