Repository path: workshop/translations/smert-chinovnika/R04-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-smert-chinovnika-R04-v1 — Chekhov, «Смерть чиновника» (1883), whole, close rendering

Source. As T-smert-chinovnika-R06-v1: ФЭБ / ПСС text, 713 Russian words, 30 paragraphs, read whole in Russian.

Regime. R04 — draft then self-revision against the source in the same session. The draft is T-smert-chinovnika-R06-v1, committed at 9dcf063 before this revision began (R04 §2a). Cost $0.

Contamination: suspected. No line of Garnett's English was seen before the freeze. Measured after freezing — see §Contamination measurement.

The translation

One fine evening a no less fine executive officer, Ivan Dmitrich Chervyakov, was sitting in the second row of the stalls and watching Les Cloches de Corneville through opera-glasses. He watched, and felt himself at the summit of bliss. But suddenly… In stories one often meets this "but suddenly." The authors are right: life is so full of sudden things! But suddenly his face puckered, his eyes rolled up, his breathing stopped… he took the glasses from his eyes, bent forward and… a-tishoo!!! He sneezed, as you see. Sneezing is forbidden to nobody anywhere. Peasants sneeze, and chiefs of police sneeze, and sometimes even privy councillors sneeze. Everybody sneezes. Chervyakov was not in the least put out; he wiped himself with his handkerchief and, like a polite man, looked about him: had he disturbed anyone with his sneeze? But now he did have to be put out. He saw that the little old man sitting in front of him, in the first row of the stalls, was carefully wiping his bald head and his neck with his glove and muttering something. In the little old man Chervyakov recognised Brizzhalov, a civilian general serving in the department of ways and communications.

"I have spattered him!" thought Chervyakov. "Not my own chief, another man's, but still it is awkward. I must apologise."

Chervyakov coughed, leaned his body forward and whispered in the general's ear:

— Excuse me, your Ex'lency, I spattered you… I did not mean to…

— It's nothing, nothing…

— For God's sake, excuse me. I really… I did not wish it!

— Oh, do sit still, please! Let me listen!

Chervyakov was disconcerted, smiled foolishly and began to look at the stage. He looked, but he no longer felt bliss. Uneasiness began to torment him.

In the interval he went up to Brizzhalov, walked about near him and, having got the better of his shyness, muttered:

— I spattered you, your Ex'lency… Forgive me… I really… it was not as though…

— Oh, enough of it… I had forgotten it already, and you are still on the same thing! — said the general, and he twitched his lower lip impatiently.

"Forgotten it, and there's venom in his own eyes," thought Chervyakov, glancing suspiciously at the general. "And he won't talk. I ought to explain to him that I did not wish it at all… that it is a law of nature, or else he will think I meant to spit. He does not think so now, but he will think so later!.."

When he got home Chervyakov told his wife of his ill-breeding. His wife, it seemed to him, took what had happened too lightly; she was frightened at first only, and then, when she learned that Brizzhalov was "another man's," she was reassured.

— All the same, you go and apologise, — she said. — He will think you don't know how to conduct yourself in public!

— That's just it! I did apologise, but he was somehow odd… Not one sensible word did he say. And there was no time to talk, either.

Next day Chervyakov put on his new uniform coat, had his hair cut, and went to Brizzhalov to explain… Going into the general's waiting-room, he saw a great many petitioners there, and among the petitioners the general himself, who had already begun receiving petitions. Having questioned several petitioners, the general raised his eyes to Chervyakov as well.

— Yesterday at the Arcadia, if you will recollect, your Ex'lency, — the executive officer began his report, — I sneezed, sir, and… accidentally spattered… Exc…

— What nonsense… Goodness knows what! What is it you want? — said the general, turning to the next petitioner.

"He won't talk!" thought Chervyakov, turning pale. "He is angry, then… No, this cannot be left like this… I will explain to him…"

When the general had finished his conversation with the last petitioner and was making for the inner apartments, Chervyakov took a step after him and mumbled:

— Your Ex'lency! If I make bold to trouble your Ex'lency, it is precisely out of a feeling, I may say, of remorse!.. It was not on purpose, as you are graciously pleased to know yourself, sir!

The general pulled a tearful face and waved his hand.

— Why, you are simply making fun of me, my good sir! — he said, disappearing behind the door.

"What making fun is there here?" thought Chervyakov. "There is no making fun here at all! A general, and he cannot understand! If that is how it is, I will not apologise to this braggart any more! Devil take him! I will write him a letter, but I will not go. By God, I will not!"

So thought Chervyakov as he walked home. He did not write the letter to the general. He thought and thought, and could not think that letter out at all. He had to go the next day and explain in person.

— I came yesterday to trouble your Ex'lency, — he mumbled, when the general raised questioning eyes to him, — not in order to make fun, as you were pleased to say. I was apologising for having spattered you, sir, in sneezing… and of making fun I never thought. Do I dare to make fun? If we are to make fun, then there will be no respect for persons at all, then, that means… there will not be…

— Get out!! — barked the general, suddenly turning blue and shaking.

— What, sir? — asked Chervyakov in a whisper, sinking with terror.

— Get out!! — repeated the general, stamping his feet.

Something snapped in Chervyakov's stomach. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he backed to the door, went out into the street and shuffled off… Arriving mechanically at home, without taking off his uniform coat, he lay down on the sofa and… died.

Translator's log

The R06 log (L1–L8) stands unaltered. This log records the revision and a registered prediction.

L9 — what the second pass changed, five things.

L10 — REGISTERED PREDICTION, written before any evaluation of this translation was designed and before any seat of any kind was called. The project has never rendered this story before.

The story has sixteen spoken utterances. I predict three independent readers shown only the Russian will call these DISCORDANT — content pulling against the standing the grammar claims:

• SC05 «Я вас обрызгал, ваше —ство… Простите… Я ведь… не то чтобы…»
• SC09 «Вчера в «Аркадии», ежели припомните, ваше —ство … я чихнул-с и… нечаянно обрызгал… Изв…»
• SC11 «Ваше —ство! Ежели я осмеливаюсь беспокоить ваше —ство … сами изволите знать-с!»
• SC12 «Да вы просто смеетесь, милостисдарь!»
• SC13 «Я вчера приходил беспокоить ваше —ство … не будет…»

and the other eleven CONCORDANT. Combined with the sister artifact's two, the registered list is seven of twenty-six.

The reasoning, so that a later session can see where it was wrong: Chervyakov's deference is formally maximal and pragmatically aggressive — he is refusing to stop after being dismissed three times, and by SC13 he is lecturing a general on respect for persons. The general's SC12 inverts it: «милостисдарь» is the most elevated address in the story and it is used to accuse. SC14/SC16 «Пошел вон!!» I predict CONCORDANT — the grammar abandons polite address and the content is a superior's rage, which agree. SC06 («Ах, полноте… а вы всё о том же!») I predict CONCORDANT and it is the call I am least sure of: polite вы over open irritation.

Contamination measurement

Run after both artifacts were committed, against Constance Garnett's The Death of a Government Clerk (The Tales of Chekhov vol. 13, 1922; Project Gutenberg #13414). Figures in the experiment directory and the result page.