Headnote
1
On a Dark Night (Темною ночью) appeared in 1883, one of the rapid stream of humoresques the twenty-three-year-old Chekhov was turning out for the Moscow and Petersburg comic weeklies under the signature “Antosha Chekhonte.” It is built on a single device, worked fast and without slack: a blind, drenched night, a drunken driver, a quarreling married couple, and a road that turns out to have a ravine in it.
2
The whole piece runs on dialogue and motion rather than description – sixteen short beats, several of them a single line long, that carry the cart from the dark road to the overturn to the edge of violence and back to safety in the space of a page. The engineer’s fury at the driver, which threatens for a moment to become a real beating, is defused not by argument but by a single name: “Kukuyevka.”
3
The reference would have needed no gloss for Chekhov’s first readers. In June 1882, a passenger train derailed at the Kukuevka station on the Moscow–Kursk line after a section of embankment washed out in heavy rain; more than forty people died, and the disaster was, for a time, the most notorious railway accident in Russia. Chekhov drops the place-name into his engineer’s wife’s mouth with no explanation at all – itself a piece of the story’s method – and lets it do all the work: a wife reminding her husband, in three words, of exactly what a driver’s error on a bad road, in the dark, in the rain, can cost.
4
Slight as it is, the sketch shows the young Chekhov’s instinct for compression already at work: no verdict is delivered on the driver, the marriage, or the night: the fist simply stops, and the story ends.
Translation Original
1 No moon, no stars... Not a contour, not a silhouette, not one point of light however faint... Everything is drowned in a solid, impenetrable murk. You look and look and see nothing, as if your eyes had been put out... The rain pours as from a bucket... The mud is frightful...
Ни луны, ни звезд... Ни контуров, ни силуэтов, ни одной мало-мальски светлой точки... Всё утонуло в сплошном, непроницаемом мраке. Глядишь, глядишь и ничего не видишь, точно тебе глаза выкололи... Дождь жарит, как из ведра... Грязь страшная...
2 Along the country road a pair of post-horses drags itself, worn out. In the cart sits a man in the greatcoat of a
railway engineer. Beside him is
his wife. Both are soaked through. The driver is drunk as a lord. The shaft-horse limps, snorts, shudders, and barely crawls along... The skittish trace-horse keeps stumbling, stopping, and shying to the side. The road is dreadful... Every step a rut, a hillock, a washed-out little bridge. On the left a wolf is howling; on the right, they say, there is a ravine.
По проселочной дороге плетется пара почтовых кляч. В таратайке сидит мужчина в шинели инженера-путейца. Рядом с ним его жена. Оба промокли. Ямщик пьян как стелька. Коренной хромает, фыркает, вздрагивает и плетется еле-еле... Пугливая пристяжная то и дело спотыкается, останавливается и бросается в сторону. Дорога ужасная... Что ни шаг, то колдобина, бугор, размытый мостик. Налево воет волк; направо, говорят, овраг.
3 “Haven’t we lost the road?” sighs
the engineer’s wife. “What a dreadful road! Don’t tip us over!”
– Не сбились ли мы с дороги? – вздыхает инженерша. – Ужасная дорога! Не вывороти нас!
4 “Why would I tip you over? Ehh... t! What use would it be to me to tip you over? Ah, you sc... scoundrel! Shake yourself! De... dear one!”
– Зачем выворачивать? Ээ... т! Какая мне надомность вас выворачивать? Эх, по... подлая! Дрожи! Ми... лая!
5 “I think we’ve lost the road,” says the engineer. “Where are you taking us, devil take you? Can’t you see? Is this really a road?”
– Мы, кажется, сбились с дороги, – говорит инженер. – Куда ты везешь, дьявол? Не видишь, что ли? Разве это дорога?
6 “Of course it’s a road!...”
– Стало быть, дорога!..
7 “This isn’t the right ground, you drunken mug! Turn! Turn right! Come on, drive on! Where’s the whip?”
– Грунт не тот, пьяная морда! Сворачивай! Поворачивай вправо! Ну, погоняй! Где кнут?
8 “L... lost it, your high...”
– По... потерял, ваше высоко...
9 “I’ll kill you, if anything happens... Remember that! Drive on, you scoundrel! Stop, where are you going? Is that really the road there?”
– Убью, коли что... Помни! Погоняй, подлец! Стой, куда едешь? Разве там дорога?
10 The horses stop. The engineer jumps up, leans over the driver’s shoulders, pulls the reins, and hauls on the right one. The shaft-horse splashes through the mud, wheels sharply, and suddenly, for no reason at all, begins to thrash about strangely... The driver tumbles off and vanishes, the trace-horse catches on some rock, and the engineer feels the cart, with its passengers, flying off somewhere to
the devil...
Лошади останавливаются. Инженер вскакивает, нависает на ямщицкие плечи, натягивает вожжи и тянет за правую. Коренной шлепает по грязи, круто поворачивает и вдруг, ни с того ни с сего, начинает как-то странно барахтаться... Ямщик сваливается и исчезает, пристяжная цепляется за какой-то утес, и инженер чувствует, что таратайка вместе с пассажирами летит куда-то к чёрту...
11 ...................................
...................................
12 The ravine is not deep. The engineer gets up, gathers his wife into his arms, and scrambles up out of it. At the top, on the edge of the ravine, sits the driver, groaning. The railwayman springs at him and, raising his fists, is ready to tear him apart, destroy him, crush him...
Овраг не глубок. Инженер поднимается, берет в охапку жену и выкарабкивается наверх. Наверху, на краю оврага, сидит ямщик и стонет. Путеец подскакивает к нему и, подняв вверх кулаки, готов растерзать, уничтожить, раздавить...
13 “I’ll kill you, you rrrobber!” he shouts.
– Убью, ррразбойник! – кричит он.
14 His fist swings and is already halfway to the driver’s mug... Another second and...
Кулак размахнулся и уже на половине дороги к ямщицкой физии... Еще секунда и...
15 – Миша, вспомни
Кукуевку! – говорит жена.
16 Misha gives a start, and his menacing fist stops halfway. The driver is saved.
Миша вздрагивает и его грозный кулак останавливается на полпути. Ямщик спасен.
