35. A kind of Onegin: Reference to the disenchanted hero of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1831). One of the first exemplars of the Superfluous Man in Russian literature, disillusioned and at odds with society.
36. Homo sum: (Lat.) possible reference to the Roman playwright Terence: Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto (I am a man, I count nothing human indifferent to me).
37. Pukirev’s picture: The painting referred to is Misalliance (1862), by V. V. Pukirev (1832–90), a savage denunciation of women’s lack of rights and of the treatment of marriage as a commercial transaction. The painting had far-reaching social repercussions.
38. bon vivant: Person indulging in good living.
39. He was as impressive as forty thousand best men put together: A humorous periphrasis of Hamlet’s words after Ophelia’s death:
I lov’d Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.
Hamlet, Act V, Scene I
In his early stories Chekhov liked to refer to this ‘forty thousand’ in a humorous context, for example in ‘Night in a Cemetery’ (1886) where he writes: ‘… I got as drunk as forty thousand brothers.’
40. Like Risler Senior in Alphonse Daudet’s novel: The novel is Fromont jeune et Risler Aîné (1874), which tells of a senile, wealthy proprietor of a Paris wallpaper factory marrying a young girl.
41. Krylov’s fable: Reference to Hermit and Bear (1804) by I. A. Krylov (1769–1844). In this fable a bear befriends a hermit, who when sleeping is pestered by a fly. When all other efforts to drive it away have failed, the despairing bear hurls a rock at it, thus smashing his friend’s skull. Chekhov frequently refers to Krylov’s fables.
42. infusoria: A class of Protozoa, so called because they are found in infusions of decaying animal or vegetable matter.
43. jeune premier: Leading man/character.
44. like Pushkin’s Tatyana: The heroine of Eugene Onegin who thrusts her love upon the uninterested, blasé hero.
45. ‘your hand in mine’: Line from aria in Act 4 of Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor.
46. nolens volens: (Lat.) willy-nilly, perforce.
47. barely time to wear out her wedding shoes: Periphrasis of words spoken by Hamlet, in A. Kroneberg’s Russian translation. The actual lines are:
… or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears.
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2
48. She’s in a hurry to live!: Possibly a reference to First Snow (1819), by Pushkin’s close friend Prince P. A. Vyazemsky (1792–1878). The epigraph to Chapter 1 of Eugene Onegin runs: ‘He hurries to live and hastens to feel.’
49. tussore: A strong, coarse silk made in India.
50. Nevsky Prospekt: Famous thoroughfare in St Petersburg, running for about two and a half miles from the Admiralty to the Aleksandr Nevsky Monastery.
51. ‘As Hamlet… the sin of suicide’: The actual lines are:
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter!
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 2
Chekhov often quotes from Hamlet in his stories.
52. Hofman drops: In a letter of 20 June 1891 to Lidiya Mizinova (who was not well) Chekhov writes (after giving dietary advice): ‘Take something bitter before food: Hofman’s elixir (Elixir vis-ceralis Hofmani) or tincture of quinine.’ And in a letter to his sister Masha of 23/24 July 1897 he writes: ‘Tell Mother if she has dizzy spells to take 15 Hofman drops at a time.’
53. à la Le Coq: See note 3.
54. of Gaboriau and our own Shklyarevsky: See notes 3 and 4.
55. three leaves: Like stukolka (see note 13), a popular card game.
56. Sapienti sat: (Lat.) enough for a wise man.
57. habitus: (Lat.) general aspect.
58. humanum est errare: (Lat.) to err is human.
* I apologize to the reader for using such expressions. The unfortunate Kamyshev’s story abounds with them, and if I haven’t deleted them it’s only because I considered it necessary, in the interests of providing the reader with a complete portrait of the author, to print his story in toto (without omissions). A. C.
* Here 140 lines of Kamyshev’s manuscript are crossed through. A. C.
† At this point in the manuscript there’s a pen and ink drawing of a pretty girl’s head, her face distorted in horror. All that is written underneath has been meticulously blotted out. The upper half of the following page is also blotted out and through the dense ink blots only one word – ‘temple’ – is decipherable. A. C.
* This has also been blotted out. A. C.
* Here almost a whole page has been carefully crossed out. Only a few words that provide no clue to deciphering what’s been crossed out have been spared. A.C.
† Unfortunately everything is crossed out here. It is clear that Kamyshev did not cross any words out at the time of writing, but afterwards. I shall pay special attention to these crossings-out towards the end of this story. A. C.
* This last phrase is written over a crossed-out line, in which one can make out: ‘I would have torn his head from his shoulders and broken all the windows.’ A.C.
* There follows a strikingly pretentious interpretation of the author’s emotional resilience. The sight of human misery, blood, autopsies apparently left him completely unmoved. The whole of this passage is tinged with boastful naïveté, insincerity. It is startlingly crude and I have deleted it. As far as characterization of Kamyshev is concerned, it’s of no importance. A. C.
* Here two lines are crossed out. A. C.
* I draw the reader’s attention to one circumstance. Although Kamyshev is so fond of holding forth to all and sundry about the state of his soul, even when he’s describing his clashes with Polikarp, he says nothing about the impression the dying Olga made on him. I think that this omission is deliberate. A. C.
* I must direct the reader’s attention to yet another very important circumstance. For two or three hours all Mr Kamyshev does is pass from room to room, becomes exasperated (together with the doctors) at the servants, and liberally bestows clouts on the ear, etc. Would you recognize this person as an investigating magistrate? Evidently he’s in no hurry and is only trying to kill time somehow. Obviously he knew who the murderer was. What’s more, that needless search of Owlet’s room, the questioning of the gipsies (described a little further on) – more like mockery than cross-examination – could only have been carried out as a delaying tactic. A. C.
* This evasion of a question of the first importance could have had only one objective: to drag the time out and await loss of consciousness, when Olga would no longer be able to name the murderer. A trick that’s quite in character and it’s amazing that the doctors didn’t see through it. A. C.
† All this seems naïve only at first glance. Evidently, Kamyshev had to make Olga aware of the serious consequences any declaration on her part would have for the murderer. If the murderer was dear to her, ergo, she had to keep quiet. A.C.