In what must be the shortest story in this collection, Anton Chekhov considers the deadly sin of gluttony. Its protagonist, Court Counselor Semyon Petrovitch Podtikin, is impatiently waiting for his cook to bring out the blini (a Russian pancake traditionally made from wheat). He has lined up a number of liquors to pair with his blini – he got “three types of vodka, Kiev brandy, Château La Rose, Rhine wine, and even a big-bellied flask of priestly Benedictine,” surrounded by “platters of sprats, sardines in hot sauce, sour cream, caviar (at three rubles forty kopecks a pound), fresh salmon, and so on.” And he can’t sit tight while he hastens his cook when his eyes melt like butter, and his face oozes with the lust of anticipation!
Finally, when Katya, the cook, arrives with the blini, Petrovitch is done waiting. He grabs “two of the hottest from the top of the pile,” even though it burns his fingers, and admires the “crispy, lacy” blini which are “plump as the shoulders of a merchant’s daughter.” Then he applies a layer of butter on his blini and lingers on as he piles up condiments on them “as if to tease his appetite,” only to suffer a heart attack before he could even take a bite of it. Poor thing!
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Red Lips and Bibliomaniacs 