Here we have a nasty little story somewhat in the line of an upended O. Henry tale.
Ivan Dmitrich has a perfectly nice life: A decent income, a wife and family. He’s satisfied. Then, one evening, his wife asks him to check the newspaper for the lottery drawing, and they match the first four numerals. There are only two numbers left, meaning that her ticket has a good probability (1 in 100) of being the winner. What would they do with 75,000 roubles?
They decide to draw out the suspense and not immediately check the final numbers of the drawing, taking a moment to daydream about how they would live: A house in the country, new furnishings.
But as Ivan pictures his country estate, darkness creeps in: There will be bad weather, animals to care for…
He shifts his fantasies to foreign lands. But that fantasy too turns sour, as he imagines his wife carrying too many packages, complaining about one thing or another. And soon he finds himself seeing his wife’s faults. She is no longer young, and, grotesquely, she smells: “She is saturated through and through with the smell of cooking.”
Now he finds himself scowling, thinking not only of his wife’s faults but those of her family as well.
In the space of just a few moments, a lottery fantasy has changed him from a happily married man to a bitter one.
At last, he checks the final two numbers: The ticket is not a match. Ivan is left without the winnings and without his previous satisfactions.
This is a perfectly serviceable story and if taken as a moment in time I suppose it could be said to be an accurate portrait of human nature. Sure, we all fall into sour moods and find ourselves looking harshly at the people we love. But in real life, those moments pass and we overlook the faults of our loved ones and go on to the next thing. This story ends on the sour note, as if the rest of Ivan’s life will be sour. It’s unpleasant and misleading.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
“The Looking-glass,” though a very different kind of narrative, also features a character whose idle fantasies turn sour. Chekhov is not generally a moralistic writer (well, except for actors, who in his view deserve whatever terrible things happen to them), but “The Looking-glass” and “The Lottery Ticket” suggest that the writer is at least a little impatient with people who daydream about fantasy lives.
A Chekhov Circus 