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| Russian Imperial lottery ticket circa 1900. |
SHORT FICTION FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.
“The Lottery Ticket”
By Anton Chekhov
Ivan Dmitritch, a
middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a
year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after
supper and began reading the newspaper.
"I
forgot to look at the newspaper today," his wife said to him as she
cleared the table. "Look and see whether the list of drawings is
there."
"Yes,
it is," said Ivan Dmitritch; "but hasn't your ticket lapsed?"
"No;
I took the interest on Tuesday."
"What
is the number?"
"Series
9,499, number 26."
"All
right . . . we will look . . . 9,499 and 26."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ivan Dmitritch had no
faith in lottery luck, and would not, as a rule, have consented to look at the
lists of winning numbers, but now, 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 9,499!
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 some one had given
him a douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the pit of the
stomach; tingling and terrible and sweet!
"Masha,
9,499 is there!" he said in a hollow voice.
His
wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realized that he was
not joking.
"9,499?"
she asked, turning pale and dropping the folded tablecloth on the table.
"Yes,
yes . . . it really is there!"
"And
the number of the ticket?"
"Oh,
yes! There's the number of the ticket too. But stay . . . wait! No, I say!
Anyway, the number of our series is there! Anyway, you understand. . . ."
Looking
at his wife, Ivan Dmitritch gave a broad, senseless smile, like a baby when a
bright object is shown it. His wife 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. To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible
fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!
"It
is our series," said Ivan Dmitritch, after a long silence. "So there
is a probability that we have won. It's only a probability, but there it
is!"
"Well,
now look!"
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| A.P. Chekhov, left, with his artist brother Nicolai in 1882 |
"Wait
a little. We have plenty of time to be disappointed. It's on the second line
from the top, so the prize is seventy-five thousand. That's not money, but
power, capital! And in a minute I shall look at the list, and there -- 26! Eh?
I say, what if we really have won?"
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, where they would go. They thought only of the figures 9,499 and
75,000 and pictured them in their imagination, while somehow they could not
think of the happiness itself which was so possible.
Ivan
Dmitritch, 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.
"And
if we have won," he said -- "why, it will be a new life, it will be 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."
"Yes,
an estate, that would be nice," said his wife, sitting down and dropping
her hands in her lap.
"Somewhere
in the Tula or Oryol provinces. . . . In the first place we shouldn't need a
summer villa, and besides, it would always bring in an income."
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, felt
warm, even hot! Here, 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 are crawling about 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. Or, tired of lying still, he goes to the
hayfield, or to the forest for mushrooms, or watches the peasants catching fish
with a net. 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. After bathing there is tea with cream and milk rolls. . . . In the
evening a walk or vint with the neighbours.
"Yes,
it would be nice to buy an estate," said his wife, also dreaming, and from
her face it was evident that she was enchanted by her thoughts.
Ivan
Dmitritch pictured to himself autumn with its rains, its cold evenings, and its
St. Martin's summer. At that season he would have to take longer walks about
the garden and beside the river, so as to get thoroughly chilled, and then
drink a big glass of vodka and eat a salted mushroom or a soused cucumber, and
then -- drink another. . . . 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.
The
St. Martin's summer is followed by cloudy, gloomy weather. It rains day and
night, the bare trees weep, the wind is damp and cold. The dogs, the horses,
the fowls -- all are 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!
Ivan
Dmitritch stopped and looked at his wife.
"I
should go abroad, you know, Masha," he said.
And
he began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad somewhere to
the South of France . . . to Italy . . . . to India!
"I
should certainly go abroad too," his wife said. "But look at the
number of the ticket!"
"Wait,
wait! . . ."
He
walked about the room and went on thinking. It occurred to him: what if his
wife 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. Ivan Dmitritch imagined his wife in the train with a
multitude of parcels, baskets, and bags; she would be sighing over something,
complaining that the train made her head ache, that she had spent so much
money. . . . At the stations he would continually be having to run for boiling
water, bread and butter. . . She wouldn't have dinner because of its being
too dear. . . .
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| Portrait of A.P. Chekhov by Nicolai Chekhov |
"She
would begrudge me every farthing," he thought, with a glance at his wife.
"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!"
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.
"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 it is
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 hide it from me. . . . She will look after her
relations and grudge me every farthing."
Ivan
Dmitritch 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, would begin 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.
Ivan
Dmitritch remembered his own relations, and their faces, at which he had looked
impartially in the past, struck him now as repulsive and hateful.
"They
are such reptiles!" he thought.
And
his wife's face, too, struck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger surged up in
his heart against her, and he thought malignantly:
"She
knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won it she would give
me a hundred roubles, and put the rest away under lock and key."
And
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, her own reflections; she understood perfectly well what her husband's
dreams were. She knew who would be the first to try and grab her winnings.
"It's
very nice making daydreams at other people's expense!" is what her eyes
expressed. "No, don't you dare!"
Her
husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his breast, and in
order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her at the fourth page on
the newspaper and read out triumphantly:
"Series
9,499, number 46! Not 26!"
Hatred
and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan
Dmitritch and his wife that their rooms were dark and small and low-pitched,
that the supper they had been eating was not doing them good, but lying heavy
on their stomachs, that the evenings were long and wearisome. . . .
"What
the devil's the meaning of it?" said Ivan Dmitritch, beginning to be
ill-humoured. "Wherever one steps there are bits of paper under one's
feet, crumbs, 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!"
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| Anton Chekhov with Leo Tolstoy in Yalta, 1900. |
