Foreword

In Skitalez's "Remembrance of Chekhov", he remembers his conversation -

"Gotta write more! You started singing the song of the nightingale, and if you write a book and stop, will it become a crow! Just by myself: if I put my pen down on the first few short stories, people will never think of me as a writer! Chehred De! A collection of little jokes! People think it's all about my learning. Serious writers will say I'm the other way, because I only laugh. How can we laugh in today's times? (Translated by Geng Jizhi, Translation, Vol. 2, No. 5.) ）

This was in January 1904, and by the beginning of July, he was dead. In the year of his death, he said that he was dissatisfied with his work, which he referred to as a "little joke", in 1880, from the time he was twenty years old to 1887. In between, he not only used the phrase "A

tosha Chekho

TE), and under various other pseudonyms, he published more than 400 short stories, sketches, sketches, essays, court correspondence, and the like in various journals. In 1886, he was published in the Petersburg newspaper New Era; Some critics and biographers think that it was at this time that Chekhov began to create in earnest, and his works gradually became more distinctive, adding elements of life, and his observations became more and more profound. This is consistent with Chekhov's own words.

The eight short stories here, from the German translation, are all works of the "Chehund" era, and the original intention of the translator is not to introduce Chekhov's work in a serious way, but to assist V.N. Massiuti

Woodcut illustrations. Originally a master woodcarver, after the October Revolution, he also carved illustrations for A. Block's "Twelve" in his home country, and then finally went to Germany, where he made a living abroad. My translations are also based on the meaning of Shaojie's woodcuts, and do not focus on novels.

Although the author thinks these short stories are "little jokes", they are completely different from the so-called "anecdotes" in China. It's not just about making people laugh. It's natural to laugh when you read it, but what is left after laughing is ,—— question. The tumor-bearing disguise, the lame dancing, that appearance can't help but make people laugh, and when laughing, they also know:

It's ridiculous because he's sick. This disease can be cured, but it cannot be cured. Of these eight articles, I thought none of them could be laughed at. But the author himself refers to these as "little jokes", and I think that maybe it was because he was modest, or maybe it was deeper and more serious later.

Translator, September 14, 1935.

Translator's postscript

Chekhov's group of novels was translated last winter for the sake of the Translation, and the order is not in the order of the original translation. In December of that year, in the fourth issue of the first volume, three articles were published, namely "The False Patient", "The Diary of the Deputy of the Bookkeeping Division" and "That's Her", with a general title; It is called "Three Strange Stories", and a few postscripts are attached——

According to common sense, if a writer has translated his complete works or anthologies from another country, then in that country, there should be more people who pay attention to his works, readers and researchers, and this author will be more known and understood by everyone. But this is not the case in China, when it comes to translating a collection, the collection has not yet been completed, and it will never be completed, and the author can be crushed long ago. Ibsen, Maupassant, Sinclair, all of them, and so did Chekhov.

But the name has probably not been forgotten. He was not forgotten in his home country, and in 1929 he commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, and now he is publishing an anthology of his life. But I don't want to say anything more here.

"Three Stories of Odd Things" is from Alexa

de

Eliasbe

The German translation of g "De

Pe

sische O

de

u

d a

de

e G

oteske

》（Welt－Ve

lag，Be

li

, 1922). This book consists of eight articles, all of which are written by him in the early period, although it does not have the gloom of later works, but it does not represent the masterpieces of the time, and I have read the "Introduction to Literature" done by the Americans, scholars or critics or college students, I think it must not be called a "short story", I am also careful here, according to "G

oteske", translating it as "anecdote".

The first part of the translator's postscript introduces a poor and a rich, a kind and cunning aristocrat; The second is the employee who has climbed to the top and wants to climb day and night; The third is a sleek old gentleman from the ranks and a young lady who loves to hear about it. Although the number of words is small, the footsteps are vividly drawn. But although the author is a physician, the diary he wrote for the deputy of the bookkeeping section is not serious, and if anyone reads this article and really uses mercury to cure the stomach and answer, then I guarantee that he will die on the same day. This kind of notice is certainly very close to "worry", but I have also seen people copy the prescriptions of the fox ghosts in old novels into serious medical books—people are sometimes quite strange.

The idea of this translation is not so much for the article as for the illustration; The German translation seems to have been published for illustration as well. The illustrator V.N. Massiuti

He was the first person to give woodcuts to Chinese readers, and the illustrations of "Twelve" in the "Unnamed Serial" are his works, which have been around for more than ten years.

In February of this year, two more articles appeared in the sixth issue: "Grumpy People" and "Bad Boys". The afterword is-

I have already covered three of Chekhov's novels of this kind. I am afraid that there have been translations of this kind of light-hearted sketches in China for a long time, but I have done it for another purpose: the original illustration is probably of course the decoration of the work, and my translation is only used as an illustration of the illustration.

As far as works are concerned, "Grumpy Man" was made in 1887; According to the critics, it was time for the author's experience to be richer and his observations more extensive, but his thoughts were also becoming more gloomy and pessimistic. It is true that in addition to writing about this grumpy person, "Grumpy Man" also clearly shows the ugliness of the ladies at that time, and the difficulty and boredom of marriage; However, "Bad Boy", which everyone watched as a funny sketch in 1883, was even more pessimistic, because looking at the narrative at the end, it was already saying: The joy of revenge is better than love.

Then I sent three more: "The Order of Persia", "The Inexplicable Character" and "The Conspiracy", which were all done. But by the time it was published in the second issue of the second volume of the Translation, the Order of Persia was gone, and the afterword had omitted a word about this work, and changed the "three" to the "two"—

There are eight short stories by Ben Chekhov illustrated by woodcuts, and here are two more translations.

"The Conspiracy" may have been written about Charestov's character and the corruption of the medical profession at that time. But it also shows that the use of race is different from "peer jealousy". For example, by name, Charestov was a Slavophile, so he rejected the Jews, the "venerable colleagues of the Moses", and the physician Gustav P

echtel) and Vo

B

o

and the pharmacist Grunmeier (G. Brown).

umme

All three are German surnames, and are also presumably Jewish or Germanic. This kind of relationship is obvious to readers in the author's own country, and it is a bit entangled when he comes to China. However, referring to Nakamura Hakuba's Japanese translation of Chekhov's Complete Works, there are two things missing here that are not good about the Jews. First, there is the absence of a line after "the Mosesian colleagues gathered together and shouted": "'Bla-la, bla-la-la, bla-......la-la'"; Second, is it the phrase "shouting" under "the venerable colleagues of the Moses sect have gathered together again", which is "the beginning of the usual - 'bla-la-la-la-la-la'......" but I don't know if there were two original texts, or was it deleted by a German translator? I don't think the Japanese translation will add a little bit for no reason.

To be sure, most of these eight are not Chekhov's better works, and I am afraid that it is not the woodcuts made by Maciutin for the novel, but the translator Alex-a

de

Eliasbe

G translates novels for woodcuts. But the woodcut does not very closely follow the narrative of the novel, for example, the woman in "Incomprehensible Character", according to the novel, should have a beard on the fan, glasses on the bridge of the nose, and a bracelet on the hand, but there is no one in the illustration. At a glance, you can do it with your own hands, and you don't have to match the book one by one, which is a very common temper of Western illustrators. Although "god-likeness" is higher than "form-likeness", I always think that it is not the right track of illustration, and Chinese painters do not need to learn from him-if they can "resemble form and spirit", isn't it higher than just "likeness"?

However, the "eight" character of "these eight articles" has not been changed, and in the three publications, there are only seven novels, but everyone will not be aware of it, except for the editors and translators.

Who knew that in this year's publication, a new line was added: "Review Certificate of the Books and Magazines Review Committee of the Central Propaganda Committee...... Word ...... "number" is the mark of "the mouth of the people", but the translation of our similar translator has been deleted, banned, confiscated in this organ, and it is not allowed to declare, just like going to the court with hemp walnut. This "Order of Persia" is also known as the "Central Propaganda ...... The review committee "assassinated a sum on the account."

The Order of Persia is just a boring scene of bureaucrats in the imperial Russian era, and it can still be published in the author's home country at that time, why is it banned in China today? - We can't speculate. It has to be counted as a "strange anecdote". However, since the censorship of books and newspapers, until the "Renaissance" incident was extinguished in June, it has really felt "broken" in the publishing world, and there are very few translations that can preserve its integrity.

Naturally, in the present when the land, economy, villages, and embankments are all broken, of course, literature and art cannot maintain their integrity alone. What's more, because of my translation, there is the power of the royal poet and the help of the idle literati, so of course the disaster is even more expected. However, on the one hand, there are those who destroy, and on the other hand, there are those who preserve, remedy, and promote, so that the world will not be wasted. I am willing to belong to the latter category, and I clearly belong to the latter category. Although the matter is trivial, it not only leaves them with an Asian-style "anecdote" in this year's literary world, but also makes a small memorial for us.

On the night of September 15, 1935, remembered.