This is a classic, and well done.
It’s the story of a man who, during his daughter’s wedding, ducks into the kitchen to check on the preparation of the meal, and smacks his lips over the fish. A guest comes in, hears him smacking his lips, and jokes that he must have been kissing the cook.
The man spends the rest of the wedding assuring the other guests that he was not kissing the cook, and, by the end of the day, he has managed to persuade everyone in town that he has been having a fling with his cook.
The (obvious) moral of the story: Do not protest too much.
Like Chekhov’s many parable-like tales, this kind of story is not read much anymore, except aloud to children, so it’s not really a story to recommend. But I have to say, he wrote this at age 23! It’s so economical, so crisp, so well done!
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Boy, did Chekhov love fish! His letters are full of news about fishing, and a few of his stories discuss the finer points of landing a fish. That said, much as he liked a good fish dinner, Chekhov did not, as a rule, write about eating and drinking. I can hardly recall an eating scene in all of the hundreds of Chekhov stories I’ve read. There’s a moment in “Uprooted” where two men share a rancid sausage… a scene in “Oysters” when a desperately poor and hungry boy crunches on an oyster shell, not knowing it isn’t edible. “The Party” feels as if it contains poetic descriptions of food, but really it skips right over the meal itself, quickly mentioning a festive dinner with eight courses and nothing more.
Drinking, on the other hand, features prominently in many of Chekhov’s stories. In some stories, drinkers are sodden, embarrassing messes. In others, they are joyful and kind. Chekhov saw drinking for what it was–a pleasure and, for some, a poison. In “The Marshal’s Widow,” the guests at a memorial service contrive ways to drink a little vodka despite the widow’s desire that no alcohol be consumed at the party. Like “A Slander,” it’s slim, well-constructed, and fairly amusing.
A Chekhov Circus 