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First recorded in Russian: March 1887
English translation: 1912
Translated by Constance Clara Garnett |
Ivan Dmitritch, a middle-class man who lived with his family for an income of twelve hundred roubles a year and was very satisfied with his lot, sat on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper. 1 |
“I forgot to look at the newspaper today, Look and see whether the list of drawings is there,” his wife, Masha, said as she cleared the table. 2 |
“Yes, it is, but hasn’t your ticket lapsed?” asked Ivan. 3 |
“No. I bought a new one on Tuesday,” said Masha. 4 |
“What are the numbers?” asked Ivan. 5 |
“Series 9499...number 26,” said Masha. 6 |
“All right...We will look...9499...26,” said Ivan. 7 |
Ivan had no faith in lottery luck and would not, as a rule, have consented to look at the lists of winning numbers. Still, as he had nothing else to do and as the newspaper was before his eyes, he passed his finger downwards along the column of numbers. And immediately, as though in mockery of his scepticism, no further than the second line from the top, his eye was caught by the figure 9499! 8 |
Unable to believe his eyes, he hurriedly dropped the paper on his knees without looking to see the number of the ticket, and, just as though someone had given him a douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the pit of the stomach; tingling and terrible and sweet! 9 |
“Masha, 9499 is here!” he said in a hollow voice. 10 |
Masha looked at his husband’s astonished and panic-stricken face and realised that he was not joking. 11 |
“9499?” Masha asked, turning pale and dropping the folded tablecloth. 12 |
“Yes, yes. it is really here!” said Ivan. 13 |
“And the number of the ticket?” asked Masha. 14 |
“Oh yes! There’s the number of the ticket too. But stay! Wait! No! I say! Anyway, the number of our series is there! you understand?” 15 |
Looking at Masha, Ivan gave a broad, senseless smile, like a baby when a bright object is shown. Masha smiled, too. It was as pleasant to her as to him that he only mentioned the series and did not try to find out the number of the winning ticket. Tormenting and tantalising oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet and thrilling. 16 |
“It is our series,” said Ivan after a long silence. 17 |
“So there is a probability that we have won. It’s only a probability, but there it is!” 18 |
“Well, now look!” said Ivan. 19 |
“Wait a little. We have plenty of time to get disappointed. It’s on the second line from the top, so the prize is seventy-five thousand. That’s not a money but power and capital! And I shall look at the list in a minute, and there is 26. Eh? I say, what if we really have won?” Ivan said further. 20 |
The husband and wife began laughing and staring at one another in silence. The possibility of winning bewildered them; they could not have said, could not have dreamed, what they both needed that seventy-five thousand for, what they would buy, or where they would go. They thought only of the figures 9499 and 75,000 and pictured them in their imagination, while somehow, they could not think of the happiness itself, which was so possible. 21 |
Ivan, holding the paper in his hand, walked several times from corner to corner, and only when he had recovered from the first impression began dreaming a little. 22 |
“And if we have won, it will be a new life. A transformation! The ticket is yours, but if it were mine, I should, first of all, of course, spend twenty-five thousand on real property in the shape of an estate; ten thousand on immediate expenses, new furnishing, travelling, paying debts, and so on, The other forty thousand I would put in the bank and get interest on it.” Ivan said. 23 |
“Yes, an estate, that would be nice,” said Masha, sitting down and dropping her hands in her lap. 24 |
“Somewhere in the Tula or Oryol provinces. In the first place, we shouldn’t need a summer villa; besides, it would always bring in an income,” Masha further added. 25 |
And pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious and poetical than the last. And in all these pictures, he saw himself well-fed, serene, healthy, and felt warm, even hot! 26 |
After eating a summer soup cold as ice, he lay on his back on the burning sand close to a stream or in the garden under a lime tree. It is hot. His little boy and girl crawl near him, digging in the sand or catching ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing and feeling all over that he need not go to the office today, tomorrow, or the day after. 27 |
Or, tired of lying still, he goes to the hayfield or the forest for mushrooms or watches the peasants catching fish with a net. 28 |
When the sun sets, he takes a towel and soap and saunters to the bathing shed, where he undresses at his leisure, slowly rubs his bare chest with his hands, and goes into the water. And in the water, near the opaque soapy circles, little fish flit to and fro and green water-weeds nod their heads. 29 |
After bathing, there is tea with cream and milk rolls. In the evening, a walk or vint with the neighbours. 30 |
“Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate,” said Masha, also dreaming. Her face revealed that she was enchanted by her thoughts. 31 |
Ivan pictured himself in autumn with its rains, cold evenings, and St. Martin’s summer. During that season, he would have to take longer walks around the garden and beside the river to get thoroughly chilled. 32 |
Then return home drink a big glass of vodka, eat a salted mushroom or a soused cucumber, and drink another. 33 |
The children would come running from the kitchen garden, bringing a carrot and a radish smelling of fresh earth. And then, he would lie stretched full length on the sofa and in leisurely fashion, turn over the pages of some illustrated magazine or, covering his face with it and unbuttoning his waistcoat, give himself up to slumber. 34 |
Now, here, The St. Martin’s summer is followed by cloudy, gloomy weather. It rains day and night, the bare trees weep and the wind is damp and cold. The dogs, the horses, the fowls are all wet, depressed, downcast. There is nowhere to walk; one can’t go out for days together; one has to pace up and down the room, looking despondently at the grey window. It is dreary! 35 |
Ivan, who was walking up and down, stopped and looked at Masha. 36 |
“I should go abroad, you know, Masha,” Ivan said. 37 |
Ivan began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad, somewhere in the South of France, to Italy, or to India! 38 |
“I should certainly go abroad too. But look at the number of the ticket!” Masha said. 39 |
“Wait! Wait!” Ivan walked about the room and went on thinking. It occurred to him: ‘What if Masha really did go abroad?’ It is pleasant to travel alone or in the society of light, careless women who live in the present, and not such as think and talk all the journey about nothing but their children, sigh, and tremble with dismay over every farthing. 40 |
Ivan imagined Masha on the train with a multitude of parcels, baskets, and bags. She would sigh over something, complaining that the train gave her a headache and that she had spent so much money. At the stations, he would continually have to run for boiling water, bread, and butter. She wouldn’t have any dinner because it was too late. 41 |
‘She would begrudge me every farthing,’ he thought, glancing at Masha. 42 |
‘The lottery ticket is hers, not mine! Besides, what is the use of her going abroad? What does she want there? She would shut herself up in the hotel and not let me out of her sight. I know!‘ 43 |
And for the first time in his life, his mind dwelt on the fact that his wife had grown elderly and plain and that she was saturated through and through with the smell of cooking, while he was still young, fresh, and healthy, and might well have got married again. 44 |
‘Of course, all that is silly nonsense,’ he thought, ‘but why should she go abroad? What would she make of it? And yet she would go, of course. I can fancy. In reality, it is all one to her, whether Naples or Klin. She would only be in my way. I should be dependent upon her. I can fancy how, like a regular woman, she will lock the money up as soon as she gets it. She will look after her relations and grudge me every farthing’ 45 |
Ivan thought of her relations. ‘All those wretched brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles would come crawling about as soon as they heard of the winning ticket, whining like beggars and fawning upon them with oily, hypocritical smiles. Wretched, detestable people! If they were given anything, they would ask for more, while if they were refused, they would swear at them, slander them, and wish them every kind of misfortune’ 46 |
Ivan remembered his own relations, and the faces of those at whom he had looked impartially in the past struck him now as repulsive and hateful. 47 |
‘They are such reptiles!’ he thought. 48 |
And Masha’s face, too, struck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger surged up in his heart against her. 49 |
Now he started thinking malignantly: ‘She knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won, she would give me a hundred roubles and put the rest under lock and key’ 50 |
He looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She glanced at him, too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own daydreams, her own plans and her own reflections. She understood perfectly well what her husband’s dreams were. She knew who would be the first to try to grab her winnings. 51 |
‘It’s very nice making daydreams at other people’s expense!’ is what her eyes expressed. ‘No, don’t you dare!’ 52 |
Her husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his breast. 53 |
In order to annoy his wife, he glanced quickly, to spite her, at the fourth page of the newspaper and read out triumphantly; “Series 9499 number 46! Not 26!” 54 |
Hatred and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan and Masha that their rooms were dark, small, and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating was not doing them good but lying heavy on their stomachs, and that the evenings were long and wearisome. 55 |
“What the devil’s the meaning of it? Wherever one steps, there are bits of paper under one’s feet, crumbs and husks. The rooms are never swept! One is simply forced to go out. Damnation, take my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on the first aspen tree!” said Ivan, beginning to be ill-humored. 56 ★ |
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