The Lottery Ticket

Ivan Dmitritch was a man of the middle sort. He lived with his family on a steady income of twelve hundred roubles a year and was very well satisfied with his lot.

One evening after supper, he sat down on the sofa and began to read the newspaper.

"I forgot to look at the paper today," said his wife, Masha, as she cleared the table. "Look and see whether the list of lottery winners is there."

Series nine thousand four hundred and ninety-nine

"Yes, it's here," said Ivan Dmitritch. "But didn't your ticket lapse?"

"No. I paid the interest on Tuesday."

"What's the number?"

"Series nine thousand four hundred and ninety-nine. Number twenty-six."

"All right. We'll look."

Ivan Dmitritch did not believe in lottery luck. Ordinarily he would never have bothered to look at the list. But now, having nothing better to do and the paper already in his hands, he ran his finger down the column of series numbers.

And immediately, as though to mock his doubts, his eye stopped on the second line from the top: 9,499.

He did not look for the ticket number. He did not even look twice at the series. The paper slid down onto his knees. Something cold ran down his spine and then turned warm, and his heart began to thump.

"Masha," he said in a hollow voice, "9,499 is there!"

His wife looked at his startled face and saw that he was not joking.

"9,499?" she asked, turning pale and putting down the folded tablecloth.

Seventy-five thousand

"Yes, yes. It really is there."

"And the number of the ticket?"

"Oh, yes. There's the number of the ticket too. But wait. Hold on. The series is there, anyway. You understand?"

Ivan Dmitritch grinned at his wife, a broad, helpless grin, like a child on the morning of a festival. His wife smiled too. It pleased them both that he had mentioned only the series, and had not rushed to find the number. To tease themselves with the hope of a fortune was so sweet and so thrilling.

"It's our series," said Ivan Dmitritch after a long silence. "So there's a chance we've won. It's only a chance, but it's there."

"Well, look now."

"Wait a little. We've plenty of time to be disappointed. It's on the second line from the top, so the prize is seventy-five thousand. That isn't just money, Masha. That's a whole new life! And what if I look now and it says twenty-six? Just think of it!"

Dreams on the sofa

Husband and wife began laughing and staring at each other in silence. The possibility of winning had dazed them. They could not even have said what they wanted the money for, what they would buy, where they would go.

Then Ivan Dmitritch began to imagine.

He would spend twenty-five thousand on a country estate. Ten thousand on things for the house. Ten thousand on travel. The rest he would put in the bank to earn interest.

He pictured himself on a hot summer day, lying on his back on the warm sand beside a stream on his estate, under a lime tree. His little son and daughter would be crawling about nearby, digging in the sand or catching insects in the grass. He would doze, thinking of nothing, knowing he need not go to the office today, or tomorrow, or the day after.

Then autumn, with its rains and cold evenings. He would take long walks in the garden and by the river until he was thoroughly chilled, then drink a large glass of vodka and eat a salted mushroom. The children would come running in from the kitchen garden, smelling of fresh earth.

"Yes," he said. "It would be nice to go abroad too."

The first shadow

And he began to think. Where would they go? To the south of France? Italy? India?

"I should certainly go abroad too," said his wife. "But look at the number of the ticket."

"Wait, wait."

He walked about the room, thinking. And a new thought came to him. What if his wife really did go abroad? Travelling alone was pleasant. But a wife who thought of nothing but the children, who sighed and fussed over every coin, who complained about the journey and the hotels? He imagined her worrying about money at every station, and himself running back and forth with her parcels.

He looked at her. She was no longer young or pretty. She smelled of the kitchen. And she, he thought, was the one who would be holding the money. She would lock it up and be stingy with him.

And her relations! At the first rumour of the prize, they would come crawling, all her brothers and sisters and aunts, begging and whining with oily smiles. And if they were given nothing, they would curse and slander the family for ever.

Then he began to remember his own relations, whose faces he had always found perfectly pleasant. Now they seemed hateful.

He looked at his wife again, and his face grew hard. She, meanwhile, had her own daydreams. She knew perfectly well what her husband's dreams would be. She knew who would be the first to grab her winnings.

He saw it all in her eyes: a look of hatred and spite.

The number

To spite her, Ivan Dmitritch snatched up the newspaper and glanced quickly at the fourth page.

"Series 9,499," he read triumphantly. "Number forty-six. Not twenty-six!"

In a single breath, the hope was gone, and the bitterness went with it.

The flat, which had felt so snug an hour before, suddenly seemed cramped and gloomy. The supper sat heavily in their stomachs. The evening stretched ahead, long and dull.

Ivan Dmitritch began to grumble. Why was there always rubbish on the floor? Why was nothing in this house ever tidy? He could not stay here a moment longer, he said, and stamped off to find his coat.

Nobody had lost a single rouble that evening. And yet the contented evening was gone, and no lottery in the world could buy it back.

About this story

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian doctor who wrote hundreds of short stories, many of them comic sketches for magazines while he was a medical student and young doctor. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.