French Phrases in Russian Society Speech

Reading notes

• A Long Tongue §9 "between ourselves" (French)

  Natalya lapses into French (entre nous) at the exact moment she is about to share her scandalous confidence, a period marker of the drawing-room polish she is performing for her husband even as her story undoes that very respectability.

• The Poison §15 Vous comprenez?

  Lysov drops a scrap of French into his excited planning of the furniture -- a small, self-conscious flourish of gentility from a minor clerk, typical of the aspirational half-polish of the Russian lower-middle class and civil-service world that Chekhov often gently mocks.

• Drowsy Stupor §7 говорить по-французски / talk French

  Educated Russian households of the period routinely code-switched into French for polite or refined conversation, reserving Russian for blunter, more emotionally direct speech -- here comically inverted, as the mother-in-law drops into Russian specifically to insult her son-in-law, since French is deemed too delicate a vehicle for reproach.

• An Enigmatic Nature §6 vous comprenez

  French for "you understand" -- a stock society tic: sprinkling French phrases into Russian conversation signaled gentility, a habit Chekhov gently mocks by having the self-styled tragic heroine reach for it mid-confession.