MEZZANINE
1. N. A. Amosov (1787–1868) was an artillery officer and engineer. He invented a kind of stove that functioned pneumatically, which was introduced on the market in 1835. An Amosov heating system was installed in the imperial Winter Palace in Petersburg, bringing the inventor a reward of 5,400 acres of land.
2. See note 4 to “Ward No. 6.”
3. A sign of protest; it was considered improper for a girl or woman to go out without covering her head.
4. Baikal is a sea-sized freshwater lake in Siberia famous for the depth and purity of its water; the Buryat are an Oriental nationality inhabiting the region around Baikal.
5. A folk motif: the hero cannot recover his lost beloved until he wears out a pair of iron shoes.
6. See note 19 to “Ward No. 6.”
7. For Rurik see note 2 to “The Student.” Petrushka, the peasant servant of Chichikov, hero of Gogol’s
8. A health spa in central France, known for its mineral waters.
9. A line from the fable “The Crow and the Fox,” by I. A. Krylov (see note 24 to “A Boring Story”). The end of the fable is well known: the crow fails to hold on to the God-sent piece of cheese.
THE MAN IN A CASE
1. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–89) was a liberal journalist and satirist best known for his dark novel
2. Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–94) was a liberal historian, author of
3. Fish is “lenten” but butter is not—thus Belikov strikes a middle path. In addition to the four major fast periods during the year (the Advent fast before Christmas, the Great Lent before Easter, the Peter and Paul fast, and the Dormition fast), Wednesdays and Fridays are also fast days in the Orthodox Church.
GOOSEBERRIES
1. Cantonists were sons of career soldiers, who were assigned to the department of the army from birth and educated in special schools at state expense.
2. Bast is the pliant inner bark of the linden tree, which when stripped from the outer bark was put to a variety of uses in Russia, as material for roofing, shoes, wagon covers, and so forth.
3. An altered quotation from the poem “The Hero,” by Alexander Pushkin; it should read, “Dearer to me than a host of base truths is the illusion that exalts.”
A MEDICAL CASE
1. The reader will realize from this and other stories in the collection that summer nights in northern Russia are extremely short and dawn may come as early as two o’clock in the morning.
2. See note 16 to “A Boring Story.” Tamara is the heroine of the long poem
THE DARLING
1.
ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS
1. See note 4 to “Ward No. 6.”
2. That is, the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.
3. A line from
4. “A little glass of Cliquot” (French). Cliquot is one of the finest champagnes.
5. “The Queen of Spades,” a short story by Pushkin, was made into an opera by Tchaikovsky.
THE LADY WITH THE LITTLE DOG
1. See note 4 to “Gusev.”
2. Selyanka is a casserole of cabbage and meat or fish, served in its own baking pan.
3. The Slavyansky Bazaar was a highly respectable hotel and restaurant in Moscow, frequented in Chekhov’s time by artists, actors, and writers.
AT CHRISTMASTIME
1. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–93), a French doctor known for his work on nervous ailments, invented a method of treatment by means of cold showers.
IN THE RAVINE
1. Krasnaya Gorka (“Pretty little hill”) is the Tuesday of the second week after Easter, when the graves of dead relations are visited and decorated. It was usual to celebrate weddings after Easter, because they could not be celebrated in church during Lent.
2. The Flagellants were a sect in Russia (with its counterparts elsewhere) that believed in flagellation as a means of spiritual purification. They had their own prophets and scriptures, and were always rejected by the Orthodox Church.
3. A Persian term meaning “plenipotentiary,” the title of the highest Persian ministers, but here used simply by association with things Middle Eastern.
