concept
"Человек" (chelovek) pun
chelovek pun
also: человек, chelovek
The Russian word "человек" (chelovek) means both "a human being" in the abstract philosophical sense and, in everyday nineteenth-century usage, the standard form of address for a waiter or manservant (roughly equivalent to calling out "Garcon!" or "Boy!"). Chekhov's sketch turns entirely on this double meaning: a waiter's interior monologue on the indignity of being human is punctured when a woman summons him with the very word he has just been agonizing over. The English translation renders her line as "Waiter" to preserve the joke's logic, at the cost of the pun's wordplay itself.
Reading notes
- A Man (A Bit of Philosophy) §5 Waiter, bring me some water!
The Russian original reads simply "Человек, дайте мне воды!" -- "Chelovek, bring me some water!" "Человек" (chelovek) means both "a human being," the grand philosophical subject of the waiter's monologue, and, in everyday nineteenth-century usage, the standard form of address for calling a waiter or manservant, roughly equivalent to "Garcon!" or "Boy!" The young woman is not philosophizing; she is simply summoning the help in the ordinary way. The English translation renders her line as "Waiter" to preserve the joke's logic for readers without access to the Russian double meaning -- but this is a lossy choice: it clarifies the plot (why he leaps to obey) while sacrificing the pun itself, since in Russian the very word he has just spent five paragraphs agonizing over being is the word used to summon him back to his function.
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