Query on Chekhov

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> Is it true that Chekhov said "If a gun is hanging on the wall in the first
> act, it must go off in the last"?  And if so, where did he say/write
> it?  (I've already checked Bartlett's, Krylatye slova, etc.).
>
> I'd appreciate any help with this.

A lot of people seem to think so: 1760 hits on google for
        chekhov gun act first last

A little poking around on Russian google turned this up:
<http://www.svoboda.org/programs/RT/2000/RT.101400.asp>
"Если в первом акте на стене висит ружье, то в третьем оно должно
выстрелить."

Pasting that back into the Russian google search window turned up 23
hits, none of them of any special use. So I trimmed the search string
back to
        "висит ружье" Чехов
and that produced 89 hits.

The quote, in its various versions, seems to be widely attributed to
Chekhov, but I didn't see any explicit citations. You may wish to
explore further.

For now, this Ohio State alumnus has another diversion that will take
him away from the computer...

GO BUCKS! :-)

--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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