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A Horsey Name


Ежели у которого человека заболит зуб, то и идут к нему, помогает…

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If a man gets a toothache, off they go to him, and he helps…

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Where it stands

— А после того, как его из акцизных увольнили, в Саратове у тёщи живёт. “Well, after they dismissed him from the excise service, he’s been living in Saratov at his mother-in-law’s.

Теперь только зубами и кормится. Nowadays he lives off teeth and nothing else.

Тамошних, саратовских на дому у себя пользует, а ежели которые из других городов, то по телеграфу. The local ones, the Saratov folk, he treats at his own house, and any that are from other towns — by telegraph.

Пошлите ему, ваше превосходительство, депешу, что так, мол, вот и так… у раба божьего Алексия зубы болят, прошу выпользовать. Send him a wire, Your Excellency, saying such and such and so and so… the servant of God Alexy is suffering from toothache, I beg you to cure him.

The words in this sentence

е́жели
if (archaic/colloquial for если)
у
at, by; belonging to
кото́рого
some, any (pron., colloq.) — который
челове́ка
person (gen/acc sg) — человек
заболи́т
will start to ache (3sg of заболеть) — заболеть
зуб
tooth
то
then (after if/when/as) (conj.)
и
indeed, just (emphatic particle)
иду́т
they go (3pl of идти) — идти
к
to, toward (+ dat)
нему́
him (dat of он after preposition) — он
помога́ет
helps (3sg of помогать) — помогать

А. П. Чехов, «Лошадиная фамилия», 1885 · sentence 10 of 56

This is one sentence of «Лошадиная фамилия» — 56 sentences long, and the whole story reads like this: every word glossed where it stands, the English out of your eyeline until you ask for it. Free: the reader opens the first instalment with no account and the rest with a free account, and the page with the English under every line needs none at all.

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