HermitshChekhov Entire

Stories · 1880

Fortune-Tellers, Male and Female

Гадальщики и гадальщицы (подновогодние картинки)

Headnote

1 Fortune-Tellers, Male and Female (Гадальщики и гадальщицы, subtitled “New Year’s Eve pictures”) appeared in 1880, among the earliest sketches Chekhov published under the pseudonym “Antosha Chekhonte” while still a medical student in Moscow. It belongs to a genre the comic weeklies of the day printed by the dozen every December and January: little scenes built around svyatochnye gadaniya, the folk divinations traditionally practiced by young Russians – and especially young women – during the Yuletide season between Christmas and Epiphany, when the future husband’s name, face, or fate might be read in a mirror, a passer-by’s answer, or the shapes left in coffee grounds.

2 The piece is built as a set of six miniatures, each a single fortune-telling scene rendered almost entirely in dialogue and gesture: a nanny who reads a journey and a sack of money in her master’s future, a minor clerk who tries and fails to conjure the face of his still-unappointed superior, a young woman who asks a passer-by his name and hears only a bull’s lowing through the gate, a newspaper editor who scries his publication’s fortune in his coffee cup, and a doctor’s wife who sees coffins in her mirror and reads them, with brisk professional pragmatism, as either a death or a windfall of patients. Each vignette is a single joke, delivered and dropped – the fast, sketch-built comedy of the early Chekhonte manner, working by a single absurd premise per scene rather than by developed plot.

3 What holds the sequence together is not narrative but a shared comic logic: each fortune-teller reads the ambiguous sign in the way that best serves their own private hope or anxiety – the quartermaster’s fear of exile reinterpreted as a lucrative journey, the editor’s dread for his paper’s survival read out of coffee-ground mittens and hedgehogs, the doctor’s wife turning a graveyard vision into either tragedy or profit with equal composure. The satire is broad and the tone is light, but the piece already shows the young Chekhov’s eye for how people make the world’s indifferent signs answer to what they already believe.

(New Year’s Eve pictures)
(Подновогодние картинки)
An old nanny tells the fortune of her master, a papa who is a quartermaster.
Старуха-нянюшка гадает папаше-интенданту.
“A journey,” she says.
– Дорога, – говорит она.
“Where to?”
– Куда?
The nanny waves her hand toward the north. Papa’s face goes pale.
Нянюшка машет рукой на север. Лицо папаши бледнеет.
“You are traveling,” the old woman adds, “and on your knees there is a sack of money...”
– Вы едете, – добавляет старуха, – а у вас на коленях мешок с деньгами...
A glow runs across papa’s face.
По лицу папаши пробегает сияние.
* * *
* * *
A petty clerk sits at the table and, by the light of two candles, looks into a mirror. He is telling his fortune: what height, what coloring, what temperament will his new superior have, the one not yet appointed. He looks into the mirror an hour, a second, a third... Little flecks run before his eyes, sticks jump, feathers fly, but no superior appears! Nothing is to be seen, neither superiors nor subordinates. A fourth hour passes, a fifth... At last he grows tired of waiting for the new superior. He rises, waves his hand, and sighs.
Чиноша сидит за столом и при свете двух свеч глядит в зеркало. Он гадает: какого роста, цвета и темперамента будет его новый, еще пока не назначенный начальник. Он глядит в зеркало час, другой, третий... В глазах его бегают мурашки, прыгают палочки, летают перья, а начальника нет как нет! Ничего не видно, ни начальников, ни подчиненных. Проходит четвертый час, пятый... Наконец ему надоедает ожидать нового начальника. Он встает, машет рукой и вздыхает.
“The post remains vacant, it seems,” he says. “And that is not good. There is no greater evil than having no one over you!”
– Место остается вакантным, значит, – говорит он. – А это нехорошо. Нет больше зла, чем безначалие!
* * *
* * *
A young lady stands in the yard behind the gate, waiting for a passer-by. She needs to learn what her betrothed will be called. Someone is coming. She quickly opens the wicket and asks:
Барышня стоит на дворе за воротами и ждет прохожего. Ей нужно узнать, как будут звать ее суженого. Идет кто-то. Она быстро отворяет калитку и спрашивает:
“What is your name?”
– Как вас звать?
In answer to her question she hears a lowing, and through the half-open wicket sees a large dark head... On the head, horns...
В ответ на свой вопрос она слышит мычанье и сквозь полуотворенную калитку видит большую темную голову... На голове рога...
“Well, perhaps it’s true,” thinks the young lady. “The only difference is in the muzzle.”
"Пожалуй, верно, – думает барышня. – Разница только в морде".
* * *
* * *
The editor of a daily newspaper sits down to tell the fortune of his brainchild.
Редактор ежедневной газеты садится погадать о судьбах своего детища.
“Leave it be!” he is told. “What a notion, upsetting yourself! Drop it!”
– Оставьте! – говорят ему. – Охота вам себя расстраивать! Бросьте!
The editor does not listen, and looks into the coffee grounds.
Редактор не слушает и глядит в кофейную гущу.
“There are a great many shapes,” he says. “But the devil himself couldn’t make them out... This one is a pair of mittens... This one looks like a hedgehog... And here’s a nose... Just like my Makar’s... Here’s a calf... I can’t make out a thing!”
– Рисунков много, – говорит он. – Да чёрт их разберет... Это рукавицы... Это на ежа похоже... А вот нос... Точно у моего Макара... Теленок вот... Ничего не разберу!
* * *
* * *
A doctor’s wife tells her fortune before a mirror and sees... coffins.
Докторша гадает перед зеркалом и видит... гробы.
“It’s one of two things,” she thinks. “Either someone is going to die, or my husband is going to have a very large practice this year...”
"Что-нибудь из двух, – думает она. – Или кто-нибудь умрет, или у моего мужа в этом году будет большая практика..."

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