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The Kiss
Two amusing and heartrending stories that are always insightful: the first one about an awkward young soldier ("The Kiss") and the second one about a lawyer being asked to help a family save an estate from financial ruin ("A Visit With Friends"). Previously published by Penguin in The Steppe and Other Stories (2001) and The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories (2002).
55 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1887
About the author
Anton Chekhov
5,904 books10.1k followers
Antón Chéjov
(Spanish)
Dramas, such as The Seagull (1896, revised 1898), and including "A Dreary Story" (1889) of Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, also Chekov, concern the inability of humans to communicate.
Born ( Антон Павлович Чехов ) in the small southern seaport of Taganrog, the son of a grocer. His grandfather, a serf, bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught to read. A cloth merchant fathered Yevgenia Morozova, his mother.
"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." Tyranny of his father, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, open from five in the morning till midnight, shadowed his early years. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog from 1867 to 1868 and then Taganrog grammar school. Bankruptcy of his father compelled the family to move to Moscow. At the age of 16 years in 1876, independent Chekhov for some time alone in his native town supported through private tutoring.
In 1879, Chekhov left grammar school and entered the university medical school at Moscow. In the school, he began to publish hundreds of short comics to support his mother, sisters and brothers. Nicholas Leikin published him at this period and owned Oskolki (splinters), the journal of Saint Petersburg. His subjected silly social situations, marital problems, and farcical encounters among husbands, wives, mistresses, and lust; even after his marriage, Chekhov, the shy author, knew not much of whims of young women.
Nenunzhaya pobeda , first novel of Chekhov, set in 1882 in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Mór Jókai. People also mocked ideological optimism of Jókai as a politician.
Chekhov graduated in 1884 and practiced medicine. He worked from 1885 in Peterburskaia gazeta.
In 1886, Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him, a regular contributor, to work for Novoe vremya, the daily paper of Saint Petersburg. He gained a wide fame before 1886. He authored The Shooting Party , his second full-length novel, later translated into English. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in later her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . First book of Chekhov in 1886 succeeded, and he gradually committed full time. The refusal of the author to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia, who criticized him for dealing with serious social and moral questions but avoiding giving answers. Such leaders as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, however, defended him. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888.
The failure of The Wood Demon , play in 1889, and problems with novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890, he traveled across Siberia to Sakhalin, remote prison island. He conducted a detailed census of ten thousand convicts and settlers, condemned to live on that harsh island. Chekhov expected to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. Hard conditions on the island probably also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey came his famous travel book.
Chekhov practiced medicine until 1892. During these years, Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." Because he objected that the paper conducted against [a:Alfred Dreyfu
Dramas, such as The Seagull (1896, revised 1898), and including "A Dreary Story" (1889) of Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, also Chekov, concern the inability of humans to communicate.
Born ( Антон Павлович Чехов ) in the small southern seaport of Taganrog, the son of a grocer. His grandfather, a serf, bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught to read. A cloth merchant fathered Yevgenia Morozova, his mother.
"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." Tyranny of his father, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, open from five in the morning till midnight, shadowed his early years. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog from 1867 to 1868 and then Taganrog grammar school. Bankruptcy of his father compelled the family to move to Moscow. At the age of 16 years in 1876, independent Chekhov for some time alone in his native town supported through private tutoring.
In 1879, Chekhov left grammar school and entered the university medical school at Moscow. In the school, he began to publish hundreds of short comics to support his mother, sisters and brothers. Nicholas Leikin published him at this period and owned Oskolki (splinters), the journal of Saint Petersburg. His subjected silly social situations, marital problems, and farcical encounters among husbands, wives, mistresses, and lust; even after his marriage, Chekhov, the shy author, knew not much of whims of young women.
Nenunzhaya pobeda , first novel of Chekhov, set in 1882 in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Mór Jókai. People also mocked ideological optimism of Jókai as a politician.
Chekhov graduated in 1884 and practiced medicine. He worked from 1885 in Peterburskaia gazeta.
In 1886, Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him, a regular contributor, to work for Novoe vremya, the daily paper of Saint Petersburg. He gained a wide fame before 1886. He authored The Shooting Party , his second full-length novel, later translated into English. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in later her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . First book of Chekhov in 1886 succeeded, and he gradually committed full time. The refusal of the author to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia, who criticized him for dealing with serious social and moral questions but avoiding giving answers. Such leaders as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, however, defended him. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888.
The failure of The Wood Demon , play in 1889, and problems with novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890, he traveled across Siberia to Sakhalin, remote prison island. He conducted a detailed census of ten thousand convicts and settlers, condemned to live on that harsh island. Chekhov expected to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. Hard conditions on the island probably also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey came his famous travel book.
Chekhov practiced medicine until 1892. During these years, Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." Because he objected that the paper conducted against [a:Alfred Dreyfu
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May 12, 2026
عندما تختزل احلامك كلها فى لحظة واحدة و تعيش متقلبا على الجمر لا ترجو الا معاودة تلك اللحظة حتى و ان كنت تجترها اجترارا و تستدعيها دائما فى خيالك.
سيطرت اللحظة على هذا الضابط البائس فحولت واقعه إلى حلم متصل حتى انتشلته لحظة أخرى من أوهامه هى لحظة الإصطدام بالحقيقة.
لقطة أخرى بارعة من تشيكوف البارع فى اقتناص اللحظه
سيطرت اللحظة على هذا الضابط البائس فحولت واقعه إلى حلم متصل حتى انتشلته لحظة أخرى من أوهامه هى لحظة الإصطدام بالحقيقة.
لقطة أخرى بارعة من تشيكوف البارع فى اقتناص اللحظه
February 8, 2023
القبلة ..قصة قصيرة لتشيخوف بيتكلم فيها عن مشاعر جندي خجول قبلته سيدة عن طريق الخطأ في إحدي الأمسيات..
لحظة واحدة في غرفة مظلمة مع سيدة لم يري حتي وجهها ولم يكن هو المقصود بقبلتها جعلته يحلم ..جعلته يحب الحياة ..جعلته يدرك أنه ينقصه الكثير..
وهو العمر ايه غير لحظات زي دي..؟
تشيخوف...بحبك يا عم :)
لحظة واحدة في غرفة مظلمة مع سيدة لم يري حتي وجهها ولم يكن هو المقصود بقبلتها جعلته يحلم ..جعلته يحب الحياة ..جعلته يدرك أنه ينقصه الكثير..
وهو العمر ايه غير لحظات زي دي..؟
تشيخوف...بحبك يا عم :)
August 24, 2026
كيف يمكن للحظة عابرة أن تعيش في خيال إنسان أكثر مما عاشت في الواقع؟
في هذه القصة، يصور تشيخوف ببراعة كيف يمكن لصدفة صغيرة أن تبدل نظرة الإنسان إلى نفسه وإلى الحياة.
❝ وكانت آخر فكرة طافت بذهنه أن شخصًا ما قد لاطفه وأبهجه، وأن شيئًا ما قد وقع فى حياته، شيئًا أحمق ولكنه حسن وبهيج إلى أقصى حد. ولم تفارقه هذه الفكرة حتى فى المنام. ❝
~تمت القراءة في يوليو 2026~
July 5, 2017
هذا الضابط الخجول المنكمش على نفسه، اصبح شخصا اخر بعد قبلة عن طريق الخطأ.
صدفه قادته الى مكان لتلقى هذه القبلة التي قلبت كيانه وأصبح اجتماعيا ويضحك ويجامل، اصبح يعيش في خيال فهو يتذكر كل شيء الخطوات وهفهفة الفستان ورائحة العطر والقبلة الا وجه من قبله.
وبنى عليها امالا وأصبح مغامرا وعاشقا.
هل هذا معقول
صدفه قادته الى مكان لتلقى هذه القبلة التي قلبت كيانه وأصبح اجتماعيا ويضحك ويجامل، اصبح يعيش في خيال فهو يتذكر كل شيء الخطوات وهفهفة الفستان ورائحة العطر والقبلة الا وجه من قبله.
وبنى عليها امالا وأصبح مغامرا وعاشقا.
هل هذا معقول
October 27, 2023
- انتقى تشيخوف الشخص المثالي (الخجول، الإنطوائي، غير الواثق بنفسه) ووضعه صدفةً في منتصف العتمة بصحبة امرأة قبلته خطأً وجعلته بعيش على اطلال هذه القبلة ويبني احلامه عليها... لكنه في النهاية اقتنع ان كل هذا سراب في سراب..
- دقة الوصف مميزة، وهي بلا شك قد حصلت مع الجميع (بإختلاف التفاصيل والمكان والزمان، والأهم بإختلاف العمر)، والغور في الأحلام الصيفية التي تنسجها هذه التجارب الاولية في النفس البشرية اتى بتفصيل جميل...
- دقة الوصف مميزة، وهي بلا شك قد حصلت مع الجميع (بإختلاف التفاصيل والمكان والزمان، والأهم بإختلاف العمر)، والغور في الأحلام الصيفية التي تنسجها هذه التجارب الاولية في النفس البشرية اتى بتفصيل جميل...
October 9, 2020
عن طريق الخطأ نلمس ما ينقصنا......
وتأتي نقطة التوجه إليه بتغيير نمطنا
وتأتي نقطة التوجه إليه بتغيير نمطنا
May 5, 2020
As much as I like to be a cynic about love, it's pieces of writing like "The Kiss" that serve to remind me just how timeless the topic is. I've been hopping from one book to another with seemingly nothing to please my impatient head-space. Until this story came to my notice, thanks to Tavi Gevinson’s blurb in Rookie on Love (how I got to rereading my old review of Rookie is another story): “I just don’t trust words a whole lot, and wonder if writing this, too, takes the air out of the whole thing, like in the Chekhov story “The Kiss,” where the sad loner shares the story of an improbable romantic encounter with his male colleagues and, upon hearing it out loud, experiences the whole thing as woefully insignificant.”
This loner mindset sounded eerily familiar... It was all I needed to dive straight in. Truthfully, I was waiting to be disappointed like with all my previous readings. Thankfully, I was not.
This book left me in awe. My own words will fail me here so I'm opting to showcase the brilliant way this author can put words to thoughts. I felt seen, which is the one key thing I look for in books. I haven’t felt that in a while. Like, romanticizing someone you met briefly to deflect from your not-so-romantic situation? Check. Completely losing track of what they looked like and reconstructing them in your mind? Check. Realizing you have no idea how to visualize them and feel defeated? Check. Knowing full well that you’re in over your head with a simple encounter and yet still overthinking it? Check.
At first when the brigade was setting off on the march he tried to persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could only be interesting as a mysterious little adventure, that it was in reality trivial, and to think of it seriously, to say the least of it, was stupid; but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself up to dreams. . . .
This is a gem. Thankfully, there are many capturing moments that I cherished:
Like, thinking of all the reasons you'll never see them again, but then: The "inner voice," which so often deceives lovers, whispered to him for some reason that he would be sure to see her . . . and he was tortured by the questions, How he should meet her? What he would talk to her about?
The days flowed by, one very much like another. All those days Ryabovitch felt, thought, and behaved as though he were in love. Every morning when his orderly handed him water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold water, he thought there was something warm and delightful in his life.
To add to the glamor of this piece, I have to share this beautiful song cover of Slow Dancing in the Dark.
Check out this gorgeous piece of writing for yourself through my Amazon Affiliate link:
Visit bookspoils.com for more book discussions and reviews.
This loner mindset sounded eerily familiar... It was all I needed to dive straight in. Truthfully, I was waiting to be disappointed like with all my previous readings. Thankfully, I was not.
This book left me in awe. My own words will fail me here so I'm opting to showcase the brilliant way this author can put words to thoughts. I felt seen, which is the one key thing I look for in books. I haven’t felt that in a while. Like, romanticizing someone you met briefly to deflect from your not-so-romantic situation? Check. Completely losing track of what they looked like and reconstructing them in your mind? Check. Realizing you have no idea how to visualize them and feel defeated? Check. Knowing full well that you’re in over your head with a simple encounter and yet still overthinking it? Check.
At first when the brigade was setting off on the march he tried to persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could only be interesting as a mysterious little adventure, that it was in reality trivial, and to think of it seriously, to say the least of it, was stupid; but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself up to dreams. . . .
This is a gem. Thankfully, there are many capturing moments that I cherished:
Like, thinking of all the reasons you'll never see them again, but then: The "inner voice," which so often deceives lovers, whispered to him for some reason that he would be sure to see her . . . and he was tortured by the questions, How he should meet her? What he would talk to her about?
The days flowed by, one very much like another. All those days Ryabovitch felt, thought, and behaved as though he were in love. Every morning when his orderly handed him water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold water, he thought there was something warm and delightful in his life.
To add to the glamor of this piece, I have to share this beautiful song cover of Slow Dancing in the Dark.
Check out this gorgeous piece of writing for yourself through my Amazon Affiliate link:
Visit bookspoils.com for more book discussions and reviews.
October 1, 2021
لحظة بكاملها من سعادة !… رباه هل تحتاج حياة إنسان لأكثر من هذا !؟ ، ظلّتْ مقولة دوستويفسكي من الليالي البيضاء تلوح لي وأنا أقرأ هذه الرواية القصيرة وأتعجب كيف لحدث بسيط ولحظة ضبابية ومبهمة كل الإبهام أن تُحدث هذا الفرق الهائل في حياة شخصٍ ما !!
هل لأن الحياة الباهتة والضامرة تتأثر عميقاً بالمواقف المباغتة مهما كانت بسيطة؟ أم أنّ هذه المواقف الساذجة على بساطتها هي من تبني العالم الداخلي للبشر لأنها تسوقهم وراءها إلى عالم الأحلام والخيال السعيد؟
شخصياً، أنا أقدّس هذه اللحظات الحالمة وكثيراً ما أحاول إنعاشها في ذاكرتي، مهما كان الارتطام في الواقع بعدها مؤذياً ومليء بالإحباط .
أراد أن يقنع نفسه بأن حادث القبلة لا يمكن أن يكون طريفاً إلا باعتباره مغامرة صغيرة غامضة، وأنه في الواقع حادث تافه، ومن الغباء، على أقل تقدير، التفكير فيه جدياً، إلا أنه سرعان ما ترك عنه المنطق واستسلم للأحلام ..
هل لأن الحياة الباهتة والضامرة تتأثر عميقاً بالمواقف المباغتة مهما كانت بسيطة؟ أم أنّ هذه المواقف الساذجة على بساطتها هي من تبني العالم الداخلي للبشر لأنها تسوقهم وراءها إلى عالم الأحلام والخيال السعيد؟
شخصياً، أنا أقدّس هذه اللحظات الحالمة وكثيراً ما أحاول إنعاشها في ذاكرتي، مهما كان الارتطام في الواقع بعدها مؤذياً ومليء بالإحباط .
أراد أن يقنع نفسه بأن حادث القبلة لا يمكن أن يكون طريفاً إلا باعتباره مغامرة صغيرة غامضة، وأنه في الواقع حادث تافه، ومن الغباء، على أقل تقدير، التفكير فيه جدياً، إلا أنه سرعان ما ترك عنه المنطق واستسلم للأحلام ..
January 11, 2024
قلبي مع الجميل الذي لم يكتشف نفسه بعد
July 29, 2018
هذه القصة القصيرة تفتح خبايا كثيرة في نفوسنا،يكشف فيها تشيخوف عن جوانب وأفكار نهرب منها و إليها..كفقاعة صابون نرتفع معها ونطير نشوة،ومانلبث أن نتشتت ونهوي لواقع ممل روتيني يتربص بنا..
لم تكن مجرد قبلة عابرة،أو حادث فائت..كانت نافذة حرية،أجنحة تحمله بعيدا جدا..
عمق التفاصيل النفسية في القصة..التساؤلات،الأحلام،التأملات..كلها تجردنا تواجهنا بمرآتنا..تكشفنا...
لم تكن مجرد قبلة عابرة،أو حادث فائت..كانت نافذة حرية،أجنحة تحمله بعيدا جدا..
عمق التفاصيل النفسية في القصة..التساؤلات،الأحلام،التأملات..كلها تجردنا تواجهنا بمرآتنا..تكشفنا...
July 3, 2026
"The water was running, he knew not where or why, just as it did in May. In May it had flowed into the great river, from the great river into the sea; then it had risen in vapor, turned into rain, and perhaps the very same water was running now before Ryabovitch's eyes again... What for? Why...? And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovitch an unintelligible, aimless jest... And turning his eyes from the water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate in the person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he remembered his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck him as extraordinarily meager, poverty-stricken, and colorless..."
The surprise of a kiss overturns his world, and though he could have been content with his aim, it awakens his senses. He, a man who knows much of the structure of his military life, suddenly lifts his chin and knows nothing at all.
The surprise of a kiss overturns his world, and though he could have been content with his aim, it awakens his senses. He, a man who knows much of the structure of his military life, suddenly lifts his chin and knows nothing at all.
February 7, 2019
" إن كل ما أحلم به الآن ، وما يبدو مستحيلاً وسماوياً ، هو في الواقع عادي جداً ، كل هذا عادي جداً والجميع يخبرونه .. "
،
إلي أولئك المهمشين جداً ، أشخاص تصادفهم يومياً وتقع عينك عليهم وتقول في نفسك أن هذا الرجل سيموت مثلما وُلد لن يحفل أحد ولن يهتم ولن يترك أثر وكان وجوده في الحياة مثل الريشة ..
نعم القصة عن هؤلاء .. من خلت حياتهم من الأحداث والتفاصيل لدرجة أن شئ عادي .. تجربة مراهقة .. تغير من نظرتهم لأنفسهم وإلي الحياة .. تجعلهم حالمين وآملين .. براعة في الوصف يمتلكها تشيخوف .. في وصف شكل ونفس البطل بشكل يجعلك تشفق عليه تود لو أنك تملك شيئاً لتقدمه له فعلاً .. ووصف أشياء أخري علي هامش القصة .. بعض الطقوس العسكرية ، والقواعد والبروتوكولات الإجتماعية التي سادت هذا الوقت في روسيا .. إنها قصة رقيقة جداً .. وتبعث أثر جميل في النفس .. لأن جميعنا عاشها أو عاش جزءاً منها أو لا زال في الإنتظار !
،
إلي أولئك المهمشين جداً ، أشخاص تصادفهم يومياً وتقع عينك عليهم وتقول في نفسك أن هذا الرجل سيموت مثلما وُلد لن يحفل أحد ولن يهتم ولن يترك أثر وكان وجوده في الحياة مثل الريشة ..
نعم القصة عن هؤلاء .. من خلت حياتهم من الأحداث والتفاصيل لدرجة أن شئ عادي .. تجربة مراهقة .. تغير من نظرتهم لأنفسهم وإلي الحياة .. تجعلهم حالمين وآملين .. براعة في الوصف يمتلكها تشيخوف .. في وصف شكل ونفس البطل بشكل يجعلك تشفق عليه تود لو أنك تملك شيئاً لتقدمه له فعلاً .. ووصف أشياء أخري علي هامش القصة .. بعض الطقوس العسكرية ، والقواعد والبروتوكولات الإجتماعية التي سادت هذا الوقت في روسيا .. إنها قصة رقيقة جداً .. وتبعث أثر جميل في النفس .. لأن جميعنا عاشها أو عاش جزءاً منها أو لا زال في الإنتظار !
July 7, 2023
"but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself up to dreams. . . ."
How bittersweet.
It's a story about a little incident involving the battalion's shyest and least "experienced" officer. By unexpected circumstances, an unknown young woman mistakenly hugs and kisses him in the dark. He never gets to see her, only smell her, feel her touch.
Such a strange yet exciting incident changes him and consumes his days in daydreams. Who is she?
However, as perhaps expected, the realism of Chekhov shows itself at the end of the story. As much as I love Chekhov, I wish he was a little unrealistic and romantic this time. Ah.
Overall, it's a pleasant yet forgettable read.
How bittersweet.
It's a story about a little incident involving the battalion's shyest and least "experienced" officer. By unexpected circumstances, an unknown young woman mistakenly hugs and kisses him in the dark. He never gets to see her, only smell her, feel her touch.
Such a strange yet exciting incident changes him and consumes his days in daydreams. Who is she?
However, as perhaps expected, the realism of Chekhov shows itself at the end of the story. As much as I love Chekhov, I wish he was a little unrealistic and romantic this time. Ah.
Overall, it's a pleasant yet forgettable read.
June 18, 2026
قصة قصيرة لأنطون تشيخوف المعهود عنه أهتمامه بالمشاعر والأفكار لأبطال قصصه.
تدور القصة عن جندي في أحد المعسكرات بيروح دعوه عشاء هو ومجموعته في بيت احد الاقطاعيين ، وهناك بيحصله موقف بسيط قبلة خاطئة بتغير نظرته لنفسه والعالم وتملاه احلام وافكار لا تنتهي..
تدور القصة عن جندي في أحد المعسكرات بيروح دعوه عشاء هو ومجموعته في بيت احد الاقطاعيين ، وهناك بيحصله موقف بسيط قبلة خاطئة بتغير نظرته لنفسه والعالم وتملاه احلام وافكار لا تنتهي..
September 2, 2025
در نظر ریابویتچ تمام دنیا و خود زندگی شوخی نامفهوم و غیرقابل درکِ گندهای به نظر میرسید، یکبار دیگر به یاد آورد که چطور سرنوشت در قالب زنی ناشناس، به طور غیرمنتظره او را غافلگیر کرده بود، رویا و خیالهای تابستان به ذهنش هجوم آوردند و زندگی برایش بسیار حقیر، غمناک و نکبتبار بهنظر رسید.
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داستان بوسهی چخوف!
داستانهای چخوف یکجوریاند که در عین ناب بودن پایانی دارند که گویا طنزی تلخ نهفته.
در داستان بوسه حکایت سرباز توپخانهای را میخوانیم که در مجلسی، بوسهای از طرف دختری جوان که برایش ناشناس میماند، ذهنش را مشغول میکند و ...
در کل بوسهی چخوف ارزش خوندن داشت، اصلا مگه اثری از این نابغه هست که ارزش خوندن نداشته باشه؟!؟!
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داستان بوسهی چخوف!
داستانهای چخوف یکجوریاند که در عین ناب بودن پایانی دارند که گویا طنزی تلخ نهفته.
در داستان بوسه حکایت سرباز توپخانهای را میخوانیم که در مجلسی، بوسهای از طرف دختری جوان که برایش ناشناس میماند، ذهنش را مشغول میکند و ...
در کل بوسهی چخوف ارزش خوندن داشت، اصلا مگه اثری از این نابغه هست که ارزش خوندن نداشته باشه؟!؟!
December 15, 2022
كم من أحداث صغيرة قد تغير حياة أشخاص للابد او لفترة معينة من الوقت
عن القبلة البسيطة في معناها و التي تحدث في حياة الجميع او فلنقول في حياة الأغلبية العظمي
هناك دائمًا من حياتهم علي درجة من الملل او سوء الحظ من قد تكون القبله حدث عظيم في حياتهم
او ربما اعتراض ان يعترض علي امر ما من احدهم كما قرات في احد القصص القصيرة من قبل
او ربما شجار مع احدهم قد يمضي بقية حياته يحكي عن هذا الشجار فهو الشئ الوحيد المثير الذي تعرض له في حياته.
اشفق عليهم حقًا فهم اهل للشفقه و الامر نفسي بحت.
قد لا اكون في موضعهم و لكني في موضع آخر علي درجة من السوء و البشاعة يجعلني قادر علي رؤية هؤلاء المعذبين بدون ذنب حقيقي لهم سوي الإختلاف الذي لابد ان تكون عليه الدنيا و الأفراد و انعدام تساوي الفرص بين جميع من فيها.
عن القبلة البسيطة في معناها و التي تحدث في حياة الجميع او فلنقول في حياة الأغلبية العظمي
هناك دائمًا من حياتهم علي درجة من الملل او سوء الحظ من قد تكون القبله حدث عظيم في حياتهم
او ربما اعتراض ان يعترض علي امر ما من احدهم كما قرات في احد القصص القصيرة من قبل
او ربما شجار مع احدهم قد يمضي بقية حياته يحكي عن هذا الشجار فهو الشئ الوحيد المثير الذي تعرض له في حياته.
اشفق عليهم حقًا فهم اهل للشفقه و الامر نفسي بحت.
قد لا اكون في موضعهم و لكني في موضع آخر علي درجة من السوء و البشاعة يجعلني قادر علي رؤية هؤلاء المعذبين بدون ذنب حقيقي لهم سوي الإختلاف الذي لابد ان تكون عليه الدنيا و الأفراد و انعدام تساوي الفرص بين جميع من فيها.
March 6, 2017
لم أعرف لماذا قرأتُ القُـبلة قُـنـبلةً،ولكنّ اتضح من خلال قرائتي للقصة أنّي على صَواب
March 28, 2026
قصة قصيرة عن جندي تلقى قبلة من مجهولة عن طريق الخطأ.
ما يميز هذة النوفيلا على بساطتها الوصف الدقيق للشخص الخجول، طريقة التفكير، رؤيته للمحيطين به، التفكير الزائد فيما يتوجب فعله، الارتباك، التنحي بهدوء حين يشعر أن وجوده غير مرغوب او بالأحرى غير مرئي. كل هذا الوصف دقيق وبشدة للشخصية الخجولة أجاد وصفها تشيخوف فجعل من هذة الأسطر القلائل انعكاسات لكل منا في وقت ما من حيواتنا.
ما يميز هذة النوفيلا على بساطتها الوصف الدقيق للشخص الخجول، طريقة التفكير، رؤيته للمحيطين به، التفكير الزائد فيما يتوجب فعله، الارتباك، التنحي بهدوء حين يشعر أن وجوده غير مرغوب او بالأحرى غير مرئي. كل هذا الوصف دقيق وبشدة للشخصية الخجولة أجاد وصفها تشيخوف فجعل من هذة الأسطر القلائل انعكاسات لكل منا في وقت ما من حيواتنا.
December 1, 2022
عاش حياته العسكريّة بشكل عاديّ
إلى أن نال قبلة أنثويّة غامضة في الظلام
فانقلبت حياة هذا المسكين رأسًا على عقب
في لقطات تشيخوفية نفسيّة بارعة تثير الشفقة
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أجمل مافي القصّة غرابتها وواقعيتها الساحرتين
فهل يمكن أن تغيّر قبلة واحدة من حياة إنسان؟
هل يمكن لرجل أن يعيش على وهم حبّ خاصّ؟
وهل يستطيع احتواءه في صندوق سرّيّ داخل قلبه؟
تحوم هذه القصّة حول هذه الأسئلة دون إجابة ناجزة
لكن مع خاتمة صادمة
إلى أن نال قبلة أنثويّة غامضة في الظلام
فانقلبت حياة هذا المسكين رأسًا على عقب
في لقطات تشيخوفية نفسيّة بارعة تثير الشفقة
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أجمل مافي القصّة غرابتها وواقعيتها الساحرتين
فهل يمكن أن تغيّر قبلة واحدة من حياة إنسان؟
هل يمكن لرجل أن يعيش على وهم حبّ خاصّ؟
وهل يستطيع احتواءه في صندوق سرّيّ داخل قلبه؟
تحوم هذه القصّة حول هذه الأسئلة دون إجابة ناجزة
لكن مع خاتمة صادمة
July 5, 2020
هو جندي خجولا ليس لديه خبرات نسائية، ذهب حفلا وصادف فتاة ورقص معها وكانت أول رقصة له ووضع يده على خصرها وأخذ منها قبلة خاطفة، وكانت أول قبلة له، ذهبت بعقله وأخذت بلبه، فلم يدر من نفسه إلا لحظة القبلة ورائحة عطرها وفستانها، فكان ما قبلها هين وما بعدها هين، فأحبها كما يحب الرجال.
"كان يخيل إليه أنه يستطيع أن يتحدث عن القبلة حتى الصباح"
وكم يعاني الرجل من حبه، كم يقاسي ولو من أثر قبلة واحدة، للذين يقولون إن الرجل كالحجر في عواطفه، إن هذا الرجل - بطل الرواية - عانى من حبه الموهوم وتخيل من محبوبته ما صفى له منها وعاش بأمل في لقاء و بقاء، وكل ما دفعه إلى هذا قبلة عابرة على سبيل الخطأ أسكنت في نفسه ما وصفه الكاتب وصفا مفصلا بديعا، وما أسكنت في نفسها منه شيء، ومر به من الضيق والكدر فكلما ذكر القبلة واللقاء هان عليه كل شيء وأنتظر وبحث عنها على أمل الموعد الثاني حتى أخر الرواية وما نال مراده.
"كان يخيل إليه أنه يستطيع أن يتحدث عن القبلة حتى الصباح"
وكم يعاني الرجل من حبه، كم يقاسي ولو من أثر قبلة واحدة، للذين يقولون إن الرجل كالحجر في عواطفه، إن هذا الرجل - بطل الرواية - عانى من حبه الموهوم وتخيل من محبوبته ما صفى له منها وعاش بأمل في لقاء و بقاء، وكل ما دفعه إلى هذا قبلة عابرة على سبيل الخطأ أسكنت في نفسه ما وصفه الكاتب وصفا مفصلا بديعا، وما أسكنت في نفسها منه شيء، ومر به من الضيق والكدر فكلما ذكر القبلة واللقاء هان عليه كل شيء وأنتظر وبحث عنها على أمل الموعد الثاني حتى أخر الرواية وما نال مراده.
February 16, 2016
تكفي قبلة واحدة لتحول حياة شخص خجول إلى شخص حالم ومحب للحياة، هي بمثابة الحجر المقذوف في المياه الراكده، أزاحت عنه خجله وجعلته يرسم مواصفاتً لفتاته كما يريد. لكن سخرية القدر هنا أنه لم يحظى غير بقبلة ظل أثرها إلى أن عادت الحياة لدورانها المعتاد بعد أنتهاء حلمه المنشود.
قبلة واحدة لم تكفي لتغير الحياة، ولكنها حولتها للأسوء.
قصة جيدة، عميقة المعنى، ووصف دقيق للغاية.
August 11, 2017
ايمكن لقبلة حدثت عن طريق الصدفة ان تفعل كل هذا ؟ ان تغير حياة الانسان وتجمد كل ما عاشه من قبل وكل ما سيعيشه في المستقبل
وتجعل تفكيره كله منحصر في تلك اللحظة العابرة ؟
وتجعل تفكيره كله منحصر في تلك اللحظة العابرة ؟
December 4, 2018
Chekhov gives a fascinating, humane insight into the romantic experiences of people. 'The kiss' deals with a young, socially awkward soldier who is kissed in error by a young woman at a houseparty. His whole outlook on life changes. In 'A visit to friends' a lawyer is invited to visit friends on their country estate - he has not seen them in a long time. They require his help to save the estate from financial ruin; if he marries the wife's youngest sister, everyone will be happy, but this possibility does not appeal to the lawyer. The style is light, which emphasizes the seriousness indirectly; the tone is breezy, although the characters involved won't regard their situations as comical. I enjoyed these stories much more than the ones in the Penguin 60s set dedicated to Chekhov.
Tsjekof se twee verhale in hierdie bundeltjie handel oor die emosionele spore van die liefde. 'n Sosiaal ongemaklike soldaat se hele lewensuitkyk verander wanneer hy per ongeluk gesoen word. 'n Prokureur kan 'n gesin help om hul landgoed te behou as hy met die vrou se jongste suster trou, maar is dit 'n oplossing vir sy eie lewe? Die skryfstyl is lig en bedrieglik eenvoudig, maar belig tog die onderliggende erns.
Tsjekof se twee verhale in hierdie bundeltjie handel oor die emosionele spore van die liefde. 'n Sosiaal ongemaklike soldaat se hele lewensuitkyk verander wanneer hy per ongeluk gesoen word. 'n Prokureur kan 'n gesin help om hul landgoed te behou as hy met die vrou se jongste suster trou, maar is dit 'n oplossing vir sy eie lewe? Die skryfstyl is lig en bedrieglik eenvoudig, maar belig tog die onderliggende erns.
February 20, 2019
جندي خجول اانطوائي يروي لنا وقوفه على الاطلال(اطلال قبلة)
March 3, 2022
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is one of the most well-known and beloved playwrights and short-story writers from Russia. Some even consider him the best. Since I hadn't read a single work of his, I'd thought I'd give this collection of two of his short stories – "The Kiss" and "A Visit to Friends" – a go.
Unfortunately, both stories, but especially the second one, were huge disappointments. Chekhov's writing style was passable at best, but most importantly, I didn't care for any of the characters or what was going on. The "moral" of the stories was pretty much on the nose and I had no fun analysing them further.
On top of that, this particular translation by Ronald Wilks felt extremely choppy; the choice of words was really modern ("...he said, trying to sound cool and sarcastic"), so much so that it actually pulled me out of the story.
After having just dipped my toes into Chekhov's work, I'm not going to discard him completely. I'm still interested in some of his plays but I think I will stay clear of his short stories for a while.
The Kiss (3 stars):
How much should we read into a simple kiss? After an accidental encounter with a mysterious woman, Chekhov's timid protagonist in "The Kiss", Ryabovitch, struggles to answer this question and resolve the distinction between the significant and the meaningless in this most enigmatic of all human acts – the kiss.
"The Kiss" opens on a May evening when the officers of the Reserve Artillery Brigade are invited to take tea at the manor house of a local aristocrat, Lieutenant-General Von Rabbek. At the house the General greets them, apologising that he cannot offer them rooms for the night due a large gathering of visiting family and neighbours. Together they take tea, brandy and cakes, and the General and his guests engage the officers in conversation, dance and billiards. Here we're offered our first glimpse of the protagonist, Ryabovich: a “little officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers links a lynx's”.
In this atmosphere of elegance and social sophistication Ryabovich is the “most ill at ease of them all”; unlike his companions, he is reserved, graceless, unskilled in conversation, and stands awkwardly at the periphery watching those around him enjoy themselves. During the evening, he takes a wrong turn while wandering about the halls and strays into a dark room. Moments later, two “unmistakably feminine arms” embrace his neck, and then, in the darkness, Ryabovich feels a kiss on his cheek. Realising her error, the mysterious woman shrieks and rushes from the room.
The encounter rouses Ryabovich's spirit. He becomes intoxicated by the lingering smell of the woman's perfume and the tingling sensation of her touch on his moustache; he forgets, just for a brief time, his undistinguished appearance and discards his inhibitions. He searches for the identity of his secret love, but in vain, and can only form a vague montage of her form based on the women who attended the evening. Nevertheless, the passion does not fade and the kiss begins to torment his days and nights with desire.
"The Kiss" follows the theme of many of Chekhov's short stories, in which a flawed and ordinary character is set up for existential disappointment. Chekhov allows Ryabovich a brief sample of the divine, only to, almost sadistically, deny him the possibility of ever retaining it. Like a small dog leaping for a treat that is just beyond it reach, Ryabovich is unable to control his desires and is powerless to change his condition.
A Visit to Friends (1 star):
In the ironically titled "A Visit to Friends", a young lawyer of the name of Podgorin is called upon by friends in the country to rescue their family and their estate which has been reduced to bankruptcy and auction.
The story opens with the obvious nostalgia felt by Podgorin for the “poor student” summer which he spent in the country at Kuzminki with his friend Tatyana Losev ten years earlier, her then very young sister Nadezhda and her friend Varvara Pavlovna. He “had given Nadezhda coaching in maths and history in exchange for board and lodging” and Varvara, then a medical student, lessons in Latin. That summer Tatyana “could think of nothing but love”.
The idyll of a decade ago has not simply been erased by the passage of time. Tatyana has taken possession of the estate as her dowry, only to have it squandered away by the coarse, pompous, plump, idle, ineffectual and insufferable husband she has acquired, Sergey Sergeich. Tatyana's zealous, jealous, protective and illusory thoughts now revolve around her husband, their daughters and the loss of her home.
Ultimately, Podgorin cannot be moved to help his old "friends". He is disgusted of what has become of them and the "idyll" he remembers so vividly from his youth. Horrified, he flees from the countryside and leaves his old friends to their own misery.
Upon doing some research I learned that Chekhov himself took a dislike to this story – “rather poor I think” – and refused to include it in his collected works as he was compiling in the final years of his life. Thank God we're both on the same page here, sweety, because this is easily one of the worst, most boring, pointless short stories I have ever read. Do not recommend.
Unfortunately, both stories, but especially the second one, were huge disappointments. Chekhov's writing style was passable at best, but most importantly, I didn't care for any of the characters or what was going on. The "moral" of the stories was pretty much on the nose and I had no fun analysing them further.
On top of that, this particular translation by Ronald Wilks felt extremely choppy; the choice of words was really modern ("...he said, trying to sound cool and sarcastic"), so much so that it actually pulled me out of the story.
After having just dipped my toes into Chekhov's work, I'm not going to discard him completely. I'm still interested in some of his plays but I think I will stay clear of his short stories for a while.
The Kiss (3 stars):
How much should we read into a simple kiss? After an accidental encounter with a mysterious woman, Chekhov's timid protagonist in "The Kiss", Ryabovitch, struggles to answer this question and resolve the distinction between the significant and the meaningless in this most enigmatic of all human acts – the kiss.
"The Kiss" opens on a May evening when the officers of the Reserve Artillery Brigade are invited to take tea at the manor house of a local aristocrat, Lieutenant-General Von Rabbek. At the house the General greets them, apologising that he cannot offer them rooms for the night due a large gathering of visiting family and neighbours. Together they take tea, brandy and cakes, and the General and his guests engage the officers in conversation, dance and billiards. Here we're offered our first glimpse of the protagonist, Ryabovich: a “little officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers links a lynx's”.
In this atmosphere of elegance and social sophistication Ryabovich is the “most ill at ease of them all”; unlike his companions, he is reserved, graceless, unskilled in conversation, and stands awkwardly at the periphery watching those around him enjoy themselves. During the evening, he takes a wrong turn while wandering about the halls and strays into a dark room. Moments later, two “unmistakably feminine arms” embrace his neck, and then, in the darkness, Ryabovich feels a kiss on his cheek. Realising her error, the mysterious woman shrieks and rushes from the room.
The encounter rouses Ryabovich's spirit. He becomes intoxicated by the lingering smell of the woman's perfume and the tingling sensation of her touch on his moustache; he forgets, just for a brief time, his undistinguished appearance and discards his inhibitions. He searches for the identity of his secret love, but in vain, and can only form a vague montage of her form based on the women who attended the evening. Nevertheless, the passion does not fade and the kiss begins to torment his days and nights with desire.
"The Kiss" follows the theme of many of Chekhov's short stories, in which a flawed and ordinary character is set up for existential disappointment. Chekhov allows Ryabovich a brief sample of the divine, only to, almost sadistically, deny him the possibility of ever retaining it. Like a small dog leaping for a treat that is just beyond it reach, Ryabovich is unable to control his desires and is powerless to change his condition.
A Visit to Friends (1 star):
In the ironically titled "A Visit to Friends", a young lawyer of the name of Podgorin is called upon by friends in the country to rescue their family and their estate which has been reduced to bankruptcy and auction.
The story opens with the obvious nostalgia felt by Podgorin for the “poor student” summer which he spent in the country at Kuzminki with his friend Tatyana Losev ten years earlier, her then very young sister Nadezhda and her friend Varvara Pavlovna. He “had given Nadezhda coaching in maths and history in exchange for board and lodging” and Varvara, then a medical student, lessons in Latin. That summer Tatyana “could think of nothing but love”.
The idyll of a decade ago has not simply been erased by the passage of time. Tatyana has taken possession of the estate as her dowry, only to have it squandered away by the coarse, pompous, plump, idle, ineffectual and insufferable husband she has acquired, Sergey Sergeich. Tatyana's zealous, jealous, protective and illusory thoughts now revolve around her husband, their daughters and the loss of her home.
Ultimately, Podgorin cannot be moved to help his old "friends". He is disgusted of what has become of them and the "idyll" he remembers so vividly from his youth. Horrified, he flees from the countryside and leaves his old friends to their own misery.
Upon doing some research I learned that Chekhov himself took a dislike to this story – “rather poor I think” – and refused to include it in his collected works as he was compiling in the final years of his life. Thank God we're both on the same page here, sweety, because this is easily one of the worst, most boring, pointless short stories I have ever read. Do not recommend.
August 24, 2026
The Kiss, Terror and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
10 out of 10
Terror
"Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me" -- Eudora Welty, 1977…indeed, unless one is reading Terror and the very name does not suggest angels singing – unless of course we are talking fallen angels, or Rebel Angels as in Azazel, Beelzebub – and for this reader, this narrative brought forth many truths, anxieties, une angoisse terrible, and made him think of a variety of incidents, clashes taking place at home – in other words, spoiler alert or/and disclaimer, this note might be about anything except the Chekhov Terror and I might not even get to The Kiss, though I intend to – given the propensity to digress and worse, talk of anything but the subject in question- incidentally, coming back from the end of this soliloquy, I must say that the tangent was not so off the object after all, in that I will not write about the infuriating wife, as I thought at the beginning of this nonsense- let me just give the synopsis of The Kiss…well, why we are at it, perhaps try my hand at both…in The Kiss, one woman has planned an intimate meeting and by accident, the one she kisses in the dark is not the man she had in mind, all with some serious consequences, for the Accidental Tourist, while in Terror, we have a tale of a man that is infatuated – with love we have to make extremely cautious, I mean when using the word, as indicated by Thomas Mann – with the wife of his friend and while he tries to resist the temptation for quite some time, following some revelations, the restrictions do not vanish, but there is a different light on the whole ménage a trois…
The narrator of Terror has a complicated relationship with Dmitri Petrovitch Silin- He was an intelligent, kind-hearted, genuine man, and not a bore, but I remember that when he confided to me his most treasured secrets and spoke of our relation to each other as friendship, it disturbed me unpleasantly, and I was conscious of awkwardness…in his affection for me there was something inappropriate, tiresome, and I should have greatly preferred commonplace friendly relations…’ but this is more complex because of the attraction that the story teller feels for the wife and the awkwardness it brings to the surface.
When he is alone with the spouse, the anxiety, desires, feeling of guilty and probably the sheer Terror that is in the title and hangs over the three people involved in this ménage a trois make him act strangely and thus the wife, Marya Sergeyevna, tells her guest that he is evidently bored without the husband present and later on she would remark that at least the visitor would feel much better in the company of Dmitri Petrovitch, while she is always without solace and joy…when the two friends talk, we will understand that Dmitri Petrovitch had asked Marya Sergeyevna to marry six times, only to be refused and eventually have her say ‘I will be faithful to you, though I do not love you and I will marry you’…
With time, Dmitri Petrovich has become very unhappy with the marital arrangements ‘Prince Hamlet did not kill himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his dreams after death…I like that famous soliloquy of his, but, to be candid, it never touched my soul…I will confess to you as a friend that in moments of depression I have sometimes pictured to myself the hour of my death’ and he continues with a fabulous speech…
“I am afraid of everything. I am not by nature a profound thinker, and I take little interest in such questions as the life beyond the grave, the destiny of humanity, and, in fact, I am rarely carried away to the heights. What chiefly frightens me is the common routine of life from which none of us can escape. I am incapable of distinguishing what is true and what is false in my actions, and they worry me. I recognize that education and the conditions of life have imprisoned me in a narrow circle of falsity, that my whole life is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other people, and to avoid noticing it; and I am frightened at the thought that to the day of my death I shall not escape from this falsity. To-day I do something and to-morrow I do not understand why I did it. I entered the service in Petersburg and took fright; I came here to work on the land, and here, too, I am frightened. . . . I see that we know very little and so make mistakes every day. We are unjust, we slander one another and spoil each other’s lives, we waste all our powers on trash which we do not need and which hinders us from living; and that frightens me, because I don’t understand why and for whom it is necessary. I don’t understand men, my dear fellow, and I am afraid of them. It frightens me to look at the peasants, and I don’t know for what higher objects they are suffering and what they are living for. If life is an enjoyment, then they are unnecessary, superfluous people; if the object and meaning of life is to be found in poverty and unending, hopeless ignorance, I can’t understand for whom and what this torture is necessary. I understand no one and nothing. Kindly try to understand this specimen, for instance…’
There is so much in these confessions, anxieties, doubts that we could argue they represent universal issues, they go to the core of the Chekhov literature, but also art and humanity in general, asking metaphysical, but also simple questions, expressing a common Terror that we all have of…well, everything as the scared Dmitri Petrovich says, pointing eventually to a fellow called Forty Martyrs, who is a drunkard and outré personage, difficult to comprehend – the reference to the routine is striking – a luminary of positive psychology, Stefan Klein, indicates among the few secrets he ends with his divine book, The Science of Happiness, the need for Change, we should include different things in our routine, if it is only a different itinerary on the way back from work http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/t... and to be naughty, we could include the Coolidge Effect just for fun and you can google it to smile or laugh when finding about it
The notion of falsity in our life could not ring more true in the age of Qanon, conspiracy theories that have billions buy into all sorts of nonsense, from the idea that the pandemic is false, to the concept that leaders like Putin, Xi, Kim of NK, Bolsanaro and so many others are genuine, moral, decent, good people and the under signed is also trapped in a vicious circle, where he has to defend some evident statements and live under assault from a consort that would rather approve of all those who live in this gated community – and other places – no matter how much they embezzled, stole from the public purse to become rich…they and others like them are so much better than yours truly that it blows the mind away…returning to Terror, the wife of the grieving Dmitri Petrovich had been in love with his friend for a long time and though she had promised to be faithful – but what does that mean, when she had also confessed she had not loved him and refused his proposal of marriage five times – the friend of the wife will have carnal relations and what is more, or should we say worse, the friend returns for a cap and finds about it…
10 out of 10
Terror
"Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me" -- Eudora Welty, 1977…indeed, unless one is reading Terror and the very name does not suggest angels singing – unless of course we are talking fallen angels, or Rebel Angels as in Azazel, Beelzebub – and for this reader, this narrative brought forth many truths, anxieties, une angoisse terrible, and made him think of a variety of incidents, clashes taking place at home – in other words, spoiler alert or/and disclaimer, this note might be about anything except the Chekhov Terror and I might not even get to The Kiss, though I intend to – given the propensity to digress and worse, talk of anything but the subject in question- incidentally, coming back from the end of this soliloquy, I must say that the tangent was not so off the object after all, in that I will not write about the infuriating wife, as I thought at the beginning of this nonsense- let me just give the synopsis of The Kiss…well, why we are at it, perhaps try my hand at both…in The Kiss, one woman has planned an intimate meeting and by accident, the one she kisses in the dark is not the man she had in mind, all with some serious consequences, for the Accidental Tourist, while in Terror, we have a tale of a man that is infatuated – with love we have to make extremely cautious, I mean when using the word, as indicated by Thomas Mann – with the wife of his friend and while he tries to resist the temptation for quite some time, following some revelations, the restrictions do not vanish, but there is a different light on the whole ménage a trois…
The narrator of Terror has a complicated relationship with Dmitri Petrovitch Silin- He was an intelligent, kind-hearted, genuine man, and not a bore, but I remember that when he confided to me his most treasured secrets and spoke of our relation to each other as friendship, it disturbed me unpleasantly, and I was conscious of awkwardness…in his affection for me there was something inappropriate, tiresome, and I should have greatly preferred commonplace friendly relations…’ but this is more complex because of the attraction that the story teller feels for the wife and the awkwardness it brings to the surface.
When he is alone with the spouse, the anxiety, desires, feeling of guilty and probably the sheer Terror that is in the title and hangs over the three people involved in this ménage a trois make him act strangely and thus the wife, Marya Sergeyevna, tells her guest that he is evidently bored without the husband present and later on she would remark that at least the visitor would feel much better in the company of Dmitri Petrovitch, while she is always without solace and joy…when the two friends talk, we will understand that Dmitri Petrovitch had asked Marya Sergeyevna to marry six times, only to be refused and eventually have her say ‘I will be faithful to you, though I do not love you and I will marry you’…
With time, Dmitri Petrovich has become very unhappy with the marital arrangements ‘Prince Hamlet did not kill himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his dreams after death…I like that famous soliloquy of his, but, to be candid, it never touched my soul…I will confess to you as a friend that in moments of depression I have sometimes pictured to myself the hour of my death’ and he continues with a fabulous speech…
“I am afraid of everything. I am not by nature a profound thinker, and I take little interest in such questions as the life beyond the grave, the destiny of humanity, and, in fact, I am rarely carried away to the heights. What chiefly frightens me is the common routine of life from which none of us can escape. I am incapable of distinguishing what is true and what is false in my actions, and they worry me. I recognize that education and the conditions of life have imprisoned me in a narrow circle of falsity, that my whole life is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other people, and to avoid noticing it; and I am frightened at the thought that to the day of my death I shall not escape from this falsity. To-day I do something and to-morrow I do not understand why I did it. I entered the service in Petersburg and took fright; I came here to work on the land, and here, too, I am frightened. . . . I see that we know very little and so make mistakes every day. We are unjust, we slander one another and spoil each other’s lives, we waste all our powers on trash which we do not need and which hinders us from living; and that frightens me, because I don’t understand why and for whom it is necessary. I don’t understand men, my dear fellow, and I am afraid of them. It frightens me to look at the peasants, and I don’t know for what higher objects they are suffering and what they are living for. If life is an enjoyment, then they are unnecessary, superfluous people; if the object and meaning of life is to be found in poverty and unending, hopeless ignorance, I can’t understand for whom and what this torture is necessary. I understand no one and nothing. Kindly try to understand this specimen, for instance…’
There is so much in these confessions, anxieties, doubts that we could argue they represent universal issues, they go to the core of the Chekhov literature, but also art and humanity in general, asking metaphysical, but also simple questions, expressing a common Terror that we all have of…well, everything as the scared Dmitri Petrovich says, pointing eventually to a fellow called Forty Martyrs, who is a drunkard and outré personage, difficult to comprehend – the reference to the routine is striking – a luminary of positive psychology, Stefan Klein, indicates among the few secrets he ends with his divine book, The Science of Happiness, the need for Change, we should include different things in our routine, if it is only a different itinerary on the way back from work http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/10/t... and to be naughty, we could include the Coolidge Effect just for fun and you can google it to smile or laugh when finding about it
The notion of falsity in our life could not ring more true in the age of Qanon, conspiracy theories that have billions buy into all sorts of nonsense, from the idea that the pandemic is false, to the concept that leaders like Putin, Xi, Kim of NK, Bolsanaro and so many others are genuine, moral, decent, good people and the under signed is also trapped in a vicious circle, where he has to defend some evident statements and live under assault from a consort that would rather approve of all those who live in this gated community – and other places – no matter how much they embezzled, stole from the public purse to become rich…they and others like them are so much better than yours truly that it blows the mind away…returning to Terror, the wife of the grieving Dmitri Petrovich had been in love with his friend for a long time and though she had promised to be faithful – but what does that mean, when she had also confessed she had not loved him and refused his proposal of marriage five times – the friend of the wife will have carnal relations and what is more, or should we say worse, the friend returns for a cap and finds about it…
February 3, 2026
تتمحور قصة "القبلة" لأنطون تشيخوف حول الضابط "ريابوفيتش"، وهو رجل خجول يشعر بضآلة شأنه ولا يثق بجاذبيته. تبدأ الأحداث عندما يُدعى هو وزملاؤه الضباط إلى حفلة في منزل جنرال متقاعد. وأثناء تجوله في ردهات القصر المظلمة، يدخل غرفة معتمة بالخطأ، وفجأة تندفع نحوه امرأة مجهولة وتعانقه وتقبله، ظناً منها أنه حبيبها الذي تنتظره.
بمجرد اكتشافها للخطأ، تهرب المرأة، لكن هذه "القبلة" العابرة تترك أثراً زلزالياً في نفس ريابوفيتش. فجأة، يتحول عالمه الكئيب إلى حياة مليئة بالمعنى؛ يبدأ في تخيل شكل المرأة، ويبني قصصاً خيالية حولها، ويشعر لأول مرة بأنه رجل مرغوب وله قيمة. يظل يعيش على هذا الوهم لعدة أشهر، معتبراً تلك اللحظة نقطة تحول في حياته.
تنتهي القصة بعودة ريابوفيتش إلى نفس المكان لاحقاً، لكنه حينها يدرك بمرارة أن تلك القبلة لم تكن إلا صدفة تافهة وغير مقصودة، وأن أحلامه لم تكن سوى سراب. يسيطر عليه شعور بالعدمية وتفاهة الوجود، فيقرر في النهاية تجاهل دعوة جديدة لزيارة القصر، مستسلماً لواقعه الرتيب ومدركاً أن الحياة لا تحمل تلك المعجزات التي يتخيلها.
بمجرد اكتشافها للخطأ، تهرب المرأة، لكن هذه "القبلة" العابرة تترك أثراً زلزالياً في نفس ريابوفيتش. فجأة، يتحول عالمه الكئيب إلى حياة مليئة بالمعنى؛ يبدأ في تخيل شكل المرأة، ويبني قصصاً خيالية حولها، ويشعر لأول مرة بأنه رجل مرغوب وله قيمة. يظل يعيش على هذا الوهم لعدة أشهر، معتبراً تلك اللحظة نقطة تحول في حياته.
تنتهي القصة بعودة ريابوفيتش إلى نفس المكان لاحقاً، لكنه حينها يدرك بمرارة أن تلك القبلة لم تكن إلا صدفة تافهة وغير مقصودة، وأن أحلامه لم تكن سوى سراب. يسيطر عليه شعور بالعدمية وتفاهة الوجود، فيقرر في النهاية تجاهل دعوة جديدة لزيارة القصر، مستسلماً لواقعه الرتيب ومدركاً أن الحياة لا تحمل تلك المعجزات التي يتخيلها.
July 13, 2009
The setting is a Russian village on a May evening. The officers of an artillery brigade are invited by a retired general to spend an evening dining and dancing in his residence. During the evening, one of the officers, Ryabovich, an inarticulate conversationalist, graceless dancer, timid drinker, and altogether awkward social mixer, wanders away from the other guests and strays into a semidark room. Shortly afterward, a strange woman enters the room, clasps two fragrant arms around his neck, whispers “At last!” and kisses him. Recognizing her mistake, the woman then shrieks and runs from the room.
Ryabovich also exits quickly and soon shows himself to be a changed man: “He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud.” He begins to exercise a lively romantic fancy, speculating which of the ladies at the dinner table might have been his companion.
The artillery brigade leaves the area for maneuvers. Ryabovich tries to tell himself that the episode of the kiss was accidental and trifling--to no avail. His psychic needs embrace it as a wondrously radiant event.
In late August, Ryabovich’s battery returns to the village. He makes his second trip to the general’s estate but this time pauses to ponder in the garden. He can no longer hear the nightingale that sang loudly in May; the poplar and grass no longer exude a scent; he walks a bridge near the general’s bathing cabin and touches a towel which feels clammy and cold; ripples of the river rip the moon’s reflection into bits. Ryabovich now realizes that his romantic dreams have been absurdly disproportionate to their cause: “And the whole world... seemed to [him:] an unintelligible, aimless jest.” When the general’s invitation comes, he refuses it.
Ryabovich also exits quickly and soon shows himself to be a changed man: “He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud.” He begins to exercise a lively romantic fancy, speculating which of the ladies at the dinner table might have been his companion.
The artillery brigade leaves the area for maneuvers. Ryabovich tries to tell himself that the episode of the kiss was accidental and trifling--to no avail. His psychic needs embrace it as a wondrously radiant event.
In late August, Ryabovich’s battery returns to the village. He makes his second trip to the general’s estate but this time pauses to ponder in the garden. He can no longer hear the nightingale that sang loudly in May; the poplar and grass no longer exude a scent; he walks a bridge near the general’s bathing cabin and touches a towel which feels clammy and cold; ripples of the river rip the moon’s reflection into bits. Ryabovich now realizes that his romantic dreams have been absurdly disproportionate to their cause: “And the whole world... seemed to [him:] an unintelligible, aimless jest.” When the general’s invitation comes, he refuses it.
January 7, 2015
عن الصدف اللي تشغل عقلك :)
February 14, 2026
Chekhov can feel strangely anticlimactic if you come to him expecting a “point.” He’s not really a moralist or a plot engine writer. He’s more like a quiet naturalist with a notebook, watching human absurdity unfold in slow motion and then just… stopping.
The Kiss is a perfect example of that.
On the surface, almost nothing happens. A shy, awkward officer, Ryabovich, is accidentally kissed by a woman in the dark. It’s a mistake. She thinks he’s someone else. The moment is brief, anonymous, almost meaningless. But to him, it becomes enormous. It fills his imagination. He builds a whole romantic universe out of a single, accidental gesture.
The story is really about how human beings construct meaning out of tiny events. The kiss itself is not important. What matters is what happens inside his head afterward.
Ryabovich is unpopular, unremarkable, romantically inexperienced, unsure of his place in the world. So the kiss becomes a psychological seed. It grows into fantasy, hope, identity. For a while, he feels transformed. He imagines love, future, destiny. But when he returns to the same place later, nothing happens. No second kiss. No revelation. Just the same dull reality of before.
The kiss never meant anything, only his imagination gave it meaning.
Chekhov isn’t mocking him, though. Just observing how one stray moment can sustain a person for weeks, how a lonely man briefly feels what it might be like to be loved.
If you compare this to Chekhov’s other plays, the same thing happens. In Three Sisters, everyone talks about going to Moscow. They never go. In Uncle Vanya, lives are wasted in quiet rooms. In The Cherry Orchard, the estate is lost, but the characters mostly just talk and reminisce.
The drama is internal, slow, and painfully ordinary. And I love it.
So The Kiss is like a miniature Chekhov play in prose form: a tiny spark of hope in a grey life, followed by the return to quiet, undramatic reality.
One accidental kiss becomes, for a brief time, the centre of a man’s universe. Then the universe shrinks again. No tragedy. No triumph. Just life continuing, indifferent and slightly absurd.
The Kiss is a perfect example of that.
On the surface, almost nothing happens. A shy, awkward officer, Ryabovich, is accidentally kissed by a woman in the dark. It’s a mistake. She thinks he’s someone else. The moment is brief, anonymous, almost meaningless. But to him, it becomes enormous. It fills his imagination. He builds a whole romantic universe out of a single, accidental gesture.
The story is really about how human beings construct meaning out of tiny events. The kiss itself is not important. What matters is what happens inside his head afterward.
Ryabovich is unpopular, unremarkable, romantically inexperienced, unsure of his place in the world. So the kiss becomes a psychological seed. It grows into fantasy, hope, identity. For a while, he feels transformed. He imagines love, future, destiny. But when he returns to the same place later, nothing happens. No second kiss. No revelation. Just the same dull reality of before.
The kiss never meant anything, only his imagination gave it meaning.
Chekhov isn’t mocking him, though. Just observing how one stray moment can sustain a person for weeks, how a lonely man briefly feels what it might be like to be loved.
If you compare this to Chekhov’s other plays, the same thing happens. In Three Sisters, everyone talks about going to Moscow. They never go. In Uncle Vanya, lives are wasted in quiet rooms. In The Cherry Orchard, the estate is lost, but the characters mostly just talk and reminisce.
The drama is internal, slow, and painfully ordinary. And I love it.
So The Kiss is like a miniature Chekhov play in prose form: a tiny spark of hope in a grey life, followed by the return to quiet, undramatic reality.
One accidental kiss becomes, for a brief time, the centre of a man’s universe. Then the universe shrinks again. No tragedy. No triumph. Just life continuing, indifferent and slightly absurd.
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