Well, the public!

The story of A.P. Chekhov “Well, public!” Was written in 1885, first published in the journal Fragments , 1885, No. 48 of November 30, signed by A. Chekhonte. It is also printed in the collection "Colorful Stories", St. Petersburg, 1886, in the publication of A. F. Marx.

The critic P. Krasnov wrote that in the story “Well, public!” Chekhov reflected “the painful, purely nervous anxiety” with which “modern man differs”. He wrote: “The same nervous type of man, conductor Podtyagin, disturbing a sleepy passenger once to ask for a ticket, another time to bring the station master to prove to the passenger his right to wake him, and the third to apologize for the trouble” ^{[1 ]} .

L. N. Tolstoy considered the story one of the best among the writer.

During the life of A.P. Chekhov, the story was translated into Bulgarian, Hungarian, German, Polish, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak and Czech.

The story takes place in a train carriage. One night at the chief conductor Podtyagin found a desire to work a little in the service, and not receive a salary for nothing. He woke the other conductors and went along the wagons. Sleepy passengers shuddered and showed him tickets.

He also asked for a ticket from a skinny passenger of a class II car, but the passenger was in deep sleep. After the conductor woke up the passenger, he began to complain about his health and insomnia: “Lord, my God! I suffer from rheumatism ... I did not sleep for three nights, I purposely took morphine to sleep, and you ... with a ticket! After all, it is ruthless, inhuman! If you knew how hard it is for me to fall asleep, you would not bother me with such nonsense ... Ruthlessly, ridiculously! And what do you need my ticket for? It’s stupid even! ” Podtyagin decides to take offense and insists that he be shown a ticket. However, the passenger stood up for the passenger.

The wake of the passenger by the conductor continued twice more - with the drive of the station manager, to apologize for concern, and the passenger was indignant every time and took new servings of medicine.

After the audience got very excited, the conductor went into a service car and drank half a bottle of vodka at a time to calm him down, after which he forgot about work, duty and honesty.

• Chekhov A.P. Well, public! // Chekhov A.P. Complete Works and Letters: In 30 vols. Works: In 18 vol. / Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Institute of World Lite. them. A. M. Gorky. - M .: Nauka, 1974-1982.
• Voir Dictionnaire Tchekhov, page 83, Françoise Darnal-Lesné, Édition L'Harmattan, 2010, ISBN 978 2 296 11343 5 .
• Ah! Les usagers!, Traduit par Édouard Parayre, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, éditions Gallimard, 1967, ISBN 978 2 07 0105 49 6 .

• 1976 - Well, the public! - TV show directed by Yuri Krotenko based on Chekhov's early stories.

• Chekhov A.P. Well, the public! . Original Russian text