安东·契诃夫/Anton Chekhov
安东·契诃夫（1860—1904），19世纪末俄国伟大的批判现实主义作家，情趣隽永、文笔犀利的幽默讽刺大师，短篇小说巨匠，著名的剧作家。他的作品大都与衰退时期的俄国有关。人们把他比作法国的莫泊桑。他能够抓住生活中的一个片段，寥寥数语，就可以把一个人物的性格和心灵刻画得入木三分。其代表作《变色龙》《套中人》堪称俄国文学史上精湛而完美的艺术珍品。
The police superintendent Otchumyelov is walking across the market square wearing a new overcoat and carrying a parcel under his arm. A red-haired policeman strides after him with a sieve full of confiscated gooseberries in his hands. There is silence all around. Not a soul in the square... The open doors of the shops and taverns look out upon God's world disconsolately, like hungry mouths; there is not even a beggar near them.
"So you bite, you damned brute?" Otchumyelov hears suddenly."Lads, don't let him go! Biting is prohibited nowadays! Hold him! ah...ah!"
There is the sound of a dog yelping. Otchumyelov looks in the direction of the sound and sees a dog, hopping on three legs and looking about her, run out of Pitchugin's timber-yard. A man in a starched cotton shirt, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, is chasing her. He runs after her, and throwing his body forward falls down and seizes the dog by her hind legs. Once more there is a yelping and a shout of"Don't let go!" Sleepy countenances are protruded from the shops, and soon a crowd, which seems to have sprung out of the earth, is gathered round the timber-yard.
"It looks like a row, your honour..." says the policeman.
Otchumyelov makes a half turn to the left and strides towards the crowd. He sees the aforementioned man in the unbuttoned waistcoat standing close by the gate of the timber-yard, holding his right hand in the air and displaying a bleeding finger to the crowd. On his halfdrunken face there is plainly written: "I'll pay you out, you rogue!" and indeed the very finger has the look of a flag of victory. In this man Otchumyelov recognizes Hryukin, the goldsmith. The culprit who has caused the sensation, a white borzoy puppy with a sharp muzzle and a yellow patch on her back, is sitting on the ground with her fore-paws outstretched in the middle of the crowd, trembling all over. There is an expression of misery and terror in her tearful eyes.