Subject
akula (shark) in Chekhov
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As I mentioned earlier, there is akula (shark) in Vakula (the hero of Gogol's The Christmas Eve). A shark appears in the penultimate paragraph of Chekhov story Gusev (1890):
After that another dark body appeared. It was a shark. It swam under Gusev with dignity and no show of interest, as though it did not notice him, and sank down upon its back, then it turned belly upwards, basking in the warm, transparent water and languidly opened its jaws with two rows of teeth. The harbour pilots are delighted, they stop to see what will come next. After playing a little with the body the shark nonchalantly puts its jaws under it, cautiously touches it with its teeth, and the sailcloth is rent its full length from head to foot; one of the weights falls out and frightens the harbour pilots, and striking the shark on the ribs goes rapidly to
the bottom. (http://www.readprint.com/work-348/Gusev-Anton-Chekhov)
Gusev (and Gusinykh, Gusiadi, gus' being Russian for goose) was Chekhov's name for his brother Alexander. The latter probably received it, because he suffered from alcoholism and had a bad liver (poor geese are deliberately fed to spoil their livers for foie gras). In Ada (1.13), Colonel Erminin (who, according to Van, liked to pass for a Chekhovian colonel) says in a note that his liver (pechen') is behaving like a pecheneg (savage). The pechenegs (a mysterious tribe that in the pre-Tartar times populated the steppe north of the Black sea) are mentioned in Pushkin's Ruslan and Lyudmila. On the other hand, Pecheneg ("The Savage") is a story by Chekhov (1897). It is about a man who invites a stranger met on the train to spend the night at his place but then tires his guest out with his endless stories and silly questions robbing him of his sleep.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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After that another dark body appeared. It was a shark. It swam under Gusev with dignity and no show of interest, as though it did not notice him, and sank down upon its back, then it turned belly upwards, basking in the warm, transparent water and languidly opened its jaws with two rows of teeth. The harbour pilots are delighted, they stop to see what will come next. After playing a little with the body the shark nonchalantly puts its jaws under it, cautiously touches it with its teeth, and the sailcloth is rent its full length from head to foot; one of the weights falls out and frightens the harbour pilots, and striking the shark on the ribs goes rapidly to
the bottom. (http://www.readprint.com/work-348/Gusev-Anton-Chekhov)
Gusev (and Gusinykh, Gusiadi, gus' being Russian for goose) was Chekhov's name for his brother Alexander. The latter probably received it, because he suffered from alcoholism and had a bad liver (poor geese are deliberately fed to spoil their livers for foie gras). In Ada (1.13), Colonel Erminin (who, according to Van, liked to pass for a Chekhovian colonel) says in a note that his liver (pechen') is behaving like a pecheneg (savage). The pechenegs (a mysterious tribe that in the pre-Tartar times populated the steppe north of the Black sea) are mentioned in Pushkin's Ruslan and Lyudmila. On the other hand, Pecheneg ("The Savage") is a story by Chekhov (1897). It is about a man who invites a stranger met on the train to spend the night at his place but then tires his guest out with his endless stories and silly questions robbing him of his sleep.
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/