Repository path: workshop/translations/hameleon/R11-seminar-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

«Хамелеон» — A Chameleon (SEMINAR arm)

Source. Anton Chekhov, «Хамелеон» (Осколки, 1884, no. 36), whole, 1,019 words. Copy-text: the ПСС 1974–1982 text (materials/versions/pss-1974.txt), public domain.

Regime. R11 (declared-purpose), purpose SEMINAR, frozen at E-20260804h-affect-halves/purposes.md before a word was rendered. Arm order: written SECOND (R11 §6) — this translator had already rendered the same story once, and the carryover is a declared confound of the regime, not something this run measures away.

Contamination: suspected. Same basis as the STAGE arm: forty-four words of Garnett's opening were on screen before either arm was rendered; nothing else of her text was read. Paragraph 1 is excluded from the site list for that reason. Measured matrix: materials/dependence.json.

A textual note this arm's purpose obliges. Three редакции of this story are extant and were fetched and diffed (materials/variant-diff.json). The 1884 Осколки and 1886 Пёстрые рассказы printings give Ochumelov a clause the copy-text does not: «Хрюкин виноват, что тронул её, а она бродячая» — Khryukin is to blame for touching her, and she is a stray. Chekhov cut it. The cut removes the one moment where Ochumelov states a reason, and the copy-text's «Она бродячая!» is bare assertion. Rendered from the copy-text; the variant is recorded, not smuggled in.

Across the market square comes the police superintendent Ochumelov, in a new greatcoat, with a small bundle in his hand. Behind him strides a red-haired constable with a sieve filled to the top with confiscated gooseberries. All around is silence… Not a soul in the square… The open doors of the shops and pot-houses look out on God's daylight as dismally as hungry mouths; there are not even beggars beside them.

"So you bite, do you, curse you?" Ochumelov hears suddenly. "Lads, don't let her go! Biting is not permitted nowadays! Hold her! Ah — ah!"

The yelp of a dog is heard. Ochumelov looks to one side and sees: out of the timber yard of the merchant Pichugin, hopping on three legs and looking back, runs a dog. After her chases a man in a starched cotton shirt and an unbuttoned waistcoat. He runs after her and, throwing his body forward, falls to the ground and seizes the dog by her hind legs. The yelp of the dog is heard a second time, and a cry: "Don't let her go!" Sleepy physiognomies protrude from the shops, and soon, beside the timber yard, as though it had sprung out of the earth, a crowd collects.

"It looks like a disorder, your honour!.." says the constable.

Ochumelov makes a half-turn to the left and steps towards the gathering. At the very gates of the yard, he sees, stands the above-written man in the unbuttoned waistcoat, who, raising his right hand aloft, displays to the crowd a bleeding finger. On his half-drunken face there is as it were written: "Just you wait, I'll have it out of you, you rogue!" — and the finger itself has the look of a standard of victory. In this man Ochumelov recognizes Khryukin, the goldsmith. In the centre of the crowd, its forelegs splayed out and trembling in every limb, sits on the ground the very author of the scandal — a white borzoi pup with a sharp muzzle and a yellow patch on its back. In its streaming eyes is an expression of anguish and terror.

"On what occasion is this here?" asks Ochumelov, cutting into the crowd. "Why here? What are you doing with that finger?.. Who shouted?"

"I am walking along, your honour, interfering with nobody…" Khryukin begins, coughing into his fist. "Concerning the firewood, with Mitry Mitrich — and suddenly this base creature, for no reason whatever, at my finger… You will excuse me, I am a man who is a working. My work is fine work. Let them pay me, because — this finger, I may not stir it for a week, maybe… There is not this in the law either, your honour, that a man should suffer from a beast… If every one is going to bite, then it is better not to live in the world…"

"Hm!.. Very good…" says Ochumelov sternly, coughing and moving his eyebrows. "Very good… Whose dog is it? I shall not leave this so. I will show you how to let dogs run loose! It is time to turn attention to such gentlemen as do not wish to submit to the regulations! When they fine him, the blackguard, he will find out from me what a dog means, and other stray cattle! I'll show him Kuzka's mother!.. Yeldyrin," the superintendent says, turning to the constable, "find out whose dog this is and draw up a report! And the dog must be destroyed. Immediately! She is certainly mad… Whose dog is it, I am asking?"

"That, it seems, is General Zhigalov's!" cries someone out of the crowd.

"General Zhigalov's? Hm!.. Take my overcoat off me, Yeldyrin… It is frightful, how hot it is! It must be before rain… There is one thing only I do not understand: how could she have bitten you?" — Ochumelov turns to Khryukin. "Would she reach up to your finger? She is little, and you, look at you, what a strapping fellow! You must have picked the finger open with a nail, and afterwards the idea came into your head, to make something out of it. You are… a well-known people! I know you, devils!"

"He, your honour, put his cigarette in her snout for a laugh, and she — being no fool — up and nips him… He is a nonsensical man, your honour!"

"You lie, one-eye! You did not see it, so what is the use of lying? His honour is an intelligent gentleman and understands if anyone lies, and who speaks by conscience, as before God… And if I lie, let the justice of the peace decide it. He has it said in the law… Nowadays all are equal… I have a brother of my own in the gendarmes… if you wish to know…"

"No arguing!"

"No, that is not the general's…" the constable remarks profoundly. "The general has none such. His are mostly setters…"

"Do you know that for certain?"

"For certain, your honour…"

"I know it myself. The general's dogs are expensive, of good breed, and this one — devil knows what! No coat, no appearance… nothing but vileness. And to keep such a dog?!.. Where are your wits? If such a dog turned up in Petersburg or in Moscow, do you know what would be? There they would not look into the law, but instantly — don't breathe! You, Khryukin, have suffered, and do not leave this affair so… They must be taught a lesson! It is time…"

"But then again, perhaps it is the general's…" the constable thinks aloud. "It is not written on her face… The other day I saw one like her in his yard."

"Of course it is the general's!" says a voice out of the crowd.

"Hm!.. Put my overcoat on me, brother Yeldyrin… A wind has got up… I am shivery… You will take her to the general's and ask there. Say that I found her and sent her… And say that they should not let her out into the street… She may be a valuable dog, and if every swine, he goes poking a cigar in her nose, it will not take long to spoil her. A dog is a tender creature… And you, blockhead, put your hand down! There is no need to display your foolish finger! It is your own fault!.."

"The general's cook is coming, we will ask him… Hey, Prokhor! Come here, my dear fellow! Look at the dog… Yours?"

"What an idea! We have never had such as that, not in our lives!"

"And there is no need to spend long asking here," says Ochumelov. "She is a stray! There is no need to stand talking here long… Since I said she is a stray, a stray she is… Destroy her, and that is all."

"She is not ours," Prokhor continues. "She is the general's brother's, him that arrived the other day. Ours is no lover of borzois. Their brother is fond of them…"

"But has their brother indeed arrived? Vladimir Ivanich?" asks Ochumelov, and all his face floods over with a smile of tenderness. "Would you look at that, Lord! And I did not know! Have they come to stay?"

"On a visit…"

"Would you look at that, Lord… They were pining for their brother… And I never knew! So this is their doggie? Delighted… Take her… She is not a bad little dog… Such a quick little thing… Snapped this one on the finger! Ha-ha-ha… Come, why are you trembling? Rrr… Rr… She is angry, the little rogue… such a pupsikin…"

Prokhor calls the dog and goes off with her from the timber yard… The crowd guffaws at Khryukin.

"I shall get at you yet!" Ochumelov threatens him, and wrapping himself in his greatcoat, continues his way across the market square.

Translator's log

Frozen 2026-08-04, before any evaluation of this translation was designed (charter §8, A4). Decisions and alternatives, not quality claims. Purpose codes per R11 §5: A = taken to satisfy numbered SEMINAR clauses (ids given); X = a clause bore and was not followed; N = none bore.

Opportunity pass (R11 §3, recorded before rendering)

Every SEMINAR clause has material. Clause 3 (be able to say what the Russian is doing at any point) and clause 4 (no notes — it must be in the running English) bear together at the same eleven places the STAGE arm's opportunity pass lists, and they pull the opposite way there. Clause 5 (tell what is characteristic of this sketch) bears on the narrator's clerical diction and on the coat. No clause is missing for want of material.

Decisions

Fifteen logged decisions: 13 A, 1 X (decision 1, and it is the arm's declared failure), 1 N.

What this arm knowingly gives up. Pace. Clauses 3 and 4 buy visibility with words — above-written, I am a man who is a working, Kuzka's mother, pupsikin — and every one of them is a place a reader has to slow down or stop. Nothing here is designed to be heard once.