“Chekhov Shorts”: The Trousseau
October 5, 2008 by Rob
Filed under Checkin Off the Chekhov Shorts
Title: The Trousseau
Date Read: 05 October 2008
Word Count: 2,021
Briefly: Spread over a number of years, a man makes subsequent visits to the house of his general’s wife.
Afterthoughts: It may be my imagination but this story seemed to flow better than all of the previous Chekhov shorts I’ve read. I don’t know whether that’s down to Chekhov’s improved handling of the prose, or Ms. Constance’s improved skill at translation. A nicely written story though.
Notable Quote: ” In the windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of tailor’s chalk from the floor.”
Rating: 
*Story read as part of my Checking Off The Chekhov Shorts reading challenge.
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Rob, a self-confessed bibliophile, is without any hope of rehabilitation. He gets unnaturally excited over anything book-shaped, and if book sniffing were a crime then he would have been locked up years ago (which wouldn't bother him in the slightest provided his cell were lined with books)
