PEASANTS
'Whosoever shall smite thee .. . .' Matthew 5:39.
'Come unto me all ye that labour... .' Matthew i 1:28.
'Vladimir.' Provincial capital about i20 miks cast of Moscow.
'since the days of serfdom.' Since i86i, the year of emanci- pation.
14^50 'at the Hermitage Garden Theatre.' The Hermitage Variety Theatre in Karetny ryad in Moscow (not to be confused with the Hermkage Restaurant in Trubny Place in Moscow or t'he Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg).
150 'And when they were departed... . ' Matthew 2:13.
155 'the Assumption.' 15 August, the end of the harvest.
'huntsmen skilled in driving wolves towards the guns.' Transla- tion of Russian pskovichi. These are not 'retrievers', as in some earlier translations, but specialists in wo!f- or fox-hunting— their function being to drive the beasts from cover while the guns wait at a pre-arranged spot. The pskovichi originally came from Pskov Province, whence their name, and usually worked in teams of three.
'Tver.' Town about 140 miles north-west of Moscow, named Kalinin in 1931.
163 'Alexander of Battenberg' (1857-93). Prince of Bulgaria 187^86. He was forced to abdicate by Alexander lll of Russia. 'This detail . . . indicates perhaps the elder's ignorance, for one so loyal would not otherwise have given the place ofhonour to an enemy of his Tsar.' (W. H. Bruford, Chek/zov a»d his Russia, p. 55-)
'Elijah's Day.' 20 July, the beginning of the harvest.
16(r.7 'Holy Cross Day.' 14 September.
'The Feast ofthe Intercession' [of the VirginJ. i October.
ANGEL
173 'Bryansk.' Town about 250 miles south-west of Moscow.
173 'Faust /wside Om.' Perhaps a burlesque of the opera Fa/zst (1859) by Charles Gounod (1818-93).
173 'Orpheus i» the Underwor/d.' The operetta Orfee aux en/ers (1858, revised 1874) by Jacques Offenbach (181^80).
175 'Mogilyov.' Town about 350 miles west-south-west of Moscow.
180 'Kharkov.' Large city in the Ukraine.
THE RUSSIAN MASTER
183 'Count Nulin.' The horse is named after the hero of Pushkin's comic poem Count Nu/itr (1825).
183 'Marie Godefroi.' A well-known equestrienne of the period, of whom A. A. Suvorin had written to Chekhov from Feodosiya in the Crimea, on 6 September 1888, as 'that prima domw of the ring, a rather handsome, well-built brunette—a truly fabulous horsewoman and a devastating trick rider' (Works, 1944-51, xiv, 512).
186 'Shchedrin.' See note to p. 116 above.
'Dostoyevsky.' F. M. Dostoyevsky (1821-81), the novelist.
'Eugene Onegin.' See note to p. 36 above.
187 'Boris Codunov.' Pushkin's historical play (1824-5).
187 'Lermontov.' See note- to p. 36 above.
'Alt:xis Tolstoy's poem "The Sitifnl Woman".' This work by A. K. Tolstoy (1817-75) also figures in Act Three of Chekhov's Cherry Orchard—see The Oxford Chekhoi', iii, 181.
'Lessing's Hambnrgische DramaturS!ie.' The treatise on drama ( 1769) by the German critic and dramatist G. E. Lessing (1729-81).
190 'Battle of Kalka.' At the battle by the River Kalka in south Russia, on 3 I May 1223, the Russians were routed by a Mongol-Tatar army.
'Siberian capes.' Literally, 'Cape Chukotskys'—rcference being to the Chukotsky Peninsula in the far north-cast of Siberia, opposite the Bering Straits.
'European Herald.' See note to p. 137 above.
'Neglinny Drive.' Street leading north from the Maly Theatre in central Moscow.
'Gogol.' N. V. Gogol (1809-52), the novelist and short-story wnter.
198 'the Consecration of the Waters.' Annual ceremony of the Orthodox Church held on 5 January, the Eve of Epiphany.
204 'Klushino.' Name of a locality about a hundred miles west of Moscow.
206 'in that sleep of death . .. ' From the soliloquy 'To be, or not to be' in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene i.
209 'The mood which h«id banished so many gifted young people to the countryside.' The reference is to a recurrent tendency for young Russian intellectuals to attempt to help (or 'repay their debt to') the peasantry by working as village teachers, doctors, political agitators, etc.
'How sweet the moonlight . ..' Shakespeare, Merchant of Venicc, Act V, Scenc i.
'1 was born a gentleman.' A deliberately loose translation for literal '1 am a hereditary honorary citizen' (pofomsn't'»//)' pochotuy r:razhdaiiin). This was one of the many categories to which Imperial Russian citizens were assigned. In the present instance 'Forty Martyrs' was neither a gentleman (since his father had been a priest) nor a cleric (since he himself had not entered the church). As an 'honorary citizen' he retained certain privileges denied to peasants and other members of the lower classcs.
214 'The Order of St. Anne' and 'the Order of St. Anne, second class.' Sec note to p. 28. The Order of St. Annt', third class, was worn in the button-hole, while the Order of St. Anne, second class, was worn on a ribbon round the neck.
225 'the Order of St. Vladimir, fourth class.' This rated just above the Order of St. Anne, second class.