Selected plays

court councilor: Rank 7 in the Table of Ranks for the Civil Service

Feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes: I have done my best; let others do better if they can

mens sana in corpore sano: A healthy mind in a healthy body

my good girl: Lit., Matushka, an old-fashioned word for mother; the implication is that Masha is trying to treat him like a child

with a lisp: Lit., with exaggerated r's

That phrase has been haunting me all day: Educated Russians would immediately recall the next two lines: 'And linked to the chain with a scholarly mien/ A tomcat is seen going round and round. . .' (Bristow translation) Act II

Act II: Bristow suggests that this act begins at 8 p.m., winter of 1899

It's Carnival: Carnival Week was celebrated just before the beginning of Lent

Bobik: The nickname of Natasha's first child

mummers: masked and costumed persons who paraded through the streets or visited houses on holidays; in Russia mummers are called skomorokhi and trace their origins to the 10th century

Andryushantchik: A diminutive for Andrey

Tyestov's or the Bolshoy Moskovsky: Two famous Moscow restaurants

Venez ici: Come here (French)

the Military Academy: Before 1914 almost all major Russian cities had military schools; the Moscow Military Academy was founded in 1832

Gogol says it's dull living: From the short story 'How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarreled with Ivan Nikoforovitch'; N. V. Gogol (1809-1852), famous Russian novelist and dramatist

Balzac was married at Berditchev: At the time of the play, Berditchev was part of the Russian Empire

another kind of patience: patience is a type of solitaire card game

the game is working out right: Russians often used a game of patience to decide questions (as Pierre does in Book 10 of War and Peace)

Tsitsikar: A city in northeast China

Masha, come to tea, my dear: Lit, Mataushka, come to tea

minister was condemned for the Panama affair: Baihot, French minister of public works, was sent to prison in 1893 for accepting a bribe from developers who hoped to build a canal in Panama

Je vous prie...: I beg of you, excuse me, Masha, but your manners are a little unrefined (Natasha consistently uses clumsy French)

Il parait...: It seems my Bobik is no longer asleep

I am strange, who is not strange: From the play Woe from Wit by A. S. Griboyedov (1795-1829)

Be not wrath, Aleko!: From Pushkin's poem 'The Gypsies' (1824); Aleko is the hero, but the exact words that Solyony quotes do not occur in the poem

temperament of Lermontov: Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) was a poet who was sometimes called the Russian Byron; Lermontov was killed in a duel

Oh my porch, oh my new porch: A popular Russian folk song; Paul Schmidt prints the music and words in the notes to his translation of the play (The Plays of Anton Chekhov, HarperCollins, 1997, p. 321)