Antisemitic folk-carol couplet (На пути, sections 88-91)

Reading notes

• On the Road §88 Hey there, little lad, / Take your slender knife, / Let's kill, let's kill the Jew, / That wretched son...

  This four-line snatch (sections 88-91) is presented by Chekhov as one verse overheard, indistinctly, from the crowd of carolers' otherwise unintelligible roar -- background genre detail rather than a scene given weight or commentary by the narrator or by Likharev, who is shown reacting only with general approving delight at the singing as a whole. Such antisemitic couplets are a documented, if disturbing, feature of some 19th-century Ukrainian/Russian folk-carol repertoire; the translation renders the verse faithfully, without softening or omission, per Hermitsh Press's practice of translating from source without editorial suppression.