A Malefactor: Bilingual Edition (English - Russian)

By Anton Chekhov

Instead of memorizing vocabulary words, work your way through an actual well-written novel. Even novices can follow along as each individual English paragraph is paired with the corresponding Russian paragraph. It won't be an easy project, but you'll learn a lot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: May 13, 2018

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian doctor, short-story writer, and playwright. Born in the port city of Taganrog, Chekhov was the third child of Pavel, a grocer and devout Christian, and Yevgeniya, a natural storyteller. His father, a violent and arrogant man, abused his wife and children and would serve as the inspiration for many of the writer’s most tyrannical and hypocritical characters. Chekhov studied at the Greek School in Taganrog, where he learned Ancient Greek. In 1876, his father’s debts forced the family to relocate to Moscow, where they lived in poverty while Anton remained in Taganrog to settle their finances and finish his studies. During this time, he worked odd jobs while reading extensively and composing his first written works. He joined his family in Moscow in 1879, pursuing a medical degree while writing short stories for entertainment and to support his parents and siblings. In 1876, after finishing his degree and contracting tuberculosis, he began writing for St. Petersburg’s Novoye Vremya, a popular paper which helped him to launch his literary career and gain financial independence. A friend and colleague of Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, and Ivan Bunin, Chekhov is remembered today for his skillful observations of everyday Russian life, his deeply psychological character studies, and his mastery of language and the rhythms of conversation.

Book preview

A MALEFACTOR

Bilingual Edition

English - Russian

Anton Chekhov

translated by

Constance Garnett

A malefactor

Злоумышленник

AN exceedingly lean little peasant, in a striped hempen shirt and patched drawers, stands facing the investigating magistrate.

Перед судебным следователем стоит маленький, чрезвычайно тощий мужичонко в пестрядинной рубахе и латаных портах.

His face overgrown with hair and pitted with smallpox, and his eyes scarcely visible under thick, overhanging eyebrows have an expression of sullen moroseness.

Его обросшее волосами и изъеденное рябинами лицо и глаза, едва видные из-за густых, нависших бровей, имеют выражение угрюмой суровости.

On his head there is a perfect mop of tangled, unkempt hair, which gives him an even more spider-like air of moroseness.

На голове целая шапка давно уже нечесанных, путаных волос, что придает ему еще большую, паучью суровость.

He is barefooted.

Он бос.

Denis Grigoryev! the magistrate begins. "Come nearer, and answer my questions.

-- Денис Григорьев! -- начинает следователь. -- Подойди поближе и отвечай на мои вопросы.

On the seventh of this July the railway watchman, Ivan Semyonovitch Akinfov, going along the line in the morning, found you at the hundred-and-forty-first mile engaged in unscrewing a nut by which the rails are made fast to the sleepers.

Седьмого числа сего июля железнодорожный сторож Иван Семенов Акинфов, проходя утром по линии, на 141-й версте, застал тебя за отвинчиванием гайки, коей рельсы прикрепляются к шпалам.

Here it is, the nut!...

Вот она, эта гайка!..

With