www.geocities.com/Athens/8926/Kharms/Incidences.html
The Trunk * 10 (10) The Incident with Petrakov * 11 (11) The Story of the Fighting Men * 12 (12) The Dream * 13 (13) The Mathematician and Andrey Semyonovich * 14 (14) The Young Man who Astonished a Watchman * 15 (15) Four Illustrations of How a New Idea Disconcerts a Man Unprepared for It * 16 (16) Losses * 17 (17) Makarov and Petersen (subtitled 'No. Neither did he have any hair, so he was called red-haired theoretically. He had no stomach and he had no back and he had no spine and he had no innards whatsoever. Therefore there's no knowing whom we are even talking about. In fact it's better that we don't say any more about him. And Spiridonov's wife fell off the sideboard and also died. And Spiridonov's grandmother hit the bottle and took to the road. And Mikhailovich stopped combing his hair and went down with mange. And Kruglov sketched a woman with a whip in her hands and went out of his mind. And Perekhrestov received four hundred roubles by wire and put on such airs that he got chucked out of work. They are good people all -- but they can't keep their feet firmly on the ground. Another old woman leaned out of the window and began looking at the remains of the first one, but she also, out of excessive curiosity, fell out of the window, plummeted to the ground and was smashed to pieces. Then a third old woman plummeted from the window, then a fourth, then a fifth. By the time a sixth old woman had plummeted down, I was fed up watching them, and went off to Mal'tsevisky Market where, it was said, a knitted shawl had been given to a certain blind man. A Sonnet A surprising thing happened to me: I suddenly forgot which comes first -- 7 or 8. I went off to the neighbours and asked them what they thought on the subject. Just imagine their and my surprise when they suddenly discovered that they too couldn't recall how to count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 they remembered, but they'd forgotten what followed. We all went to the overpriced food shop, the Gastronom on the corner of Znamenskaya and Basseynaya street, and put our quandary to the cashier. The cashier smiled sadly, pulled a small hammer out of her mouth and, twitching her nose a bit, said -- I should think seven comes after eight whenever eight comes after seven. We thanked the cashier and joyfully ran out of the shop. But then, having thought about the cashier's words, we got depressed again, since her words seemed to us to be devoid of any sense. We went to the Summer Garden and started counting the trees there. But, getting as far as 6, we stopped and began to argue: in the opinion of some, 7 came next, and in the opinion of others -- 8. We would have argued for ages, but fortunately then some child fell off a park bench and broke both his jaw-bones. The Optical Illusion Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on, looks at a pine tree and he sees: in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist. Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses off, looks at the pine tree and sees that there is no one sitting in the pine tree. Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on, looks at the pine tree and again sees that in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist. Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses off, again sees that there is no one sitting in the pine tree. Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on again, looks at the pine tree and again sees that in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist. Semyon Semyonovich doesn't wish to believe in this phenomenon and considers this phenomenon an optical illusion. PUSHKIN appears on stage, stumbles over GOGOL and falls. One day he left his house and went off to the shop to buy some carpenter's glue. There had been a thaw and it was very slippery on the street. The carpenter took a few steps, slipped, fell down and cracked his forehead open. But when he went out on to the street he again slipped, fell and smashed his nose. Then he went out on to the street again, again slipped, fell and cracked open his cheek. Once again he had to go off to the chemist's and stick a plaster over his cheek. But when he went out on to the street he slipped again, fell and smashed his chin. But at home they didn't recognize him and wouldn't let him into the flat. The carpenter Kushakov stood on the staircase for a flit, spat and went off down the street. The Trunk A thin-necked man climbed into a trunk, shut the lid behind him and began gasping for breath. The lid of the trunk is down and isn't letting any air in. I shall be gasping for breath, but all the same I won't open the lid of the trunk. The battle which takes place will be an unnatural one, with the chances equal, because under natural conditions death triumphs, and life, doomed to death, merely struggles in vain with the enemy, clinging until the last minute to a futile hope. But in the struggle which will take place now, life will be cognizant of the means of victory: to achieve this life will have to force my hands to open the lid of the trunk. If life triumphs I shall powder all the things in the trunk with makhorka. Something just happened but I can't make out exactly what. The man with the thin neck got up from the floor and looked round. On the chairs and on the bed lay things which had been pulled out of the trunk, but the trunk was nowhere around. The thin-necked man said: -- So, life has triumphed over death by means unknown to me. He hit the floor so hard that he just lies on the floor and can't get up. And so Petrakov made a supreme effort and got up on all fours. But his strength deserted him and he again fell down on his stomach and just lies there. He awoke completely refreshed, got up, walked up and down the room and lay down cautiously on the bed. Petrakov turns over on to one side and then the other, but cannot get to sleep at all. Andrey Karlovich, pale with fury, flung himself at Aleksey Alekseyevich and banged him in the teeth. Aleksey Alekseyevich, not expecting such a swift onslaught, collapsed on the floor, whereupon Andrey Karlovich sat astride him, pulled his set of dentures from his mouth and gave Aleksey Alekseyevich such a going over with them that Aleksey Alekseyevich rose from the floor with his face completely mutilated and his nostril ripped open. Holding his face in his hands, Aleksey Alekseyevich ran off. Whereas Andrey Karlovich gave his dentures a rub, inserted them in his mouth with a click of the teeth and, having satisfied himself as to the placement of his dentures, he took stock of his surroundings and, not seeing Aleksey Alekseyevich, set off in search of him. Kalugin woke up, scratched his mouth and went to sleep again and had another dream that he was walking past some bushes and that a policeman had hidden in the bushes and was sitting there. Kalugin woke up, put a newspaper under his head, so as not to wet the pillow with his dribblings, and went to sleep again; Kalugin woke up, changed the newspaper, lay down and went to sleep again. He fell asleep and had another dream that he was walking past some bushes and a policeman was sitting in the bushes. At this point Kalugin woke up and decided not to sleep any more, but he immediately fell asleep and had a dream that he was sitting behind a policeman and some bushes were walking past. Kalugin let out a yell and tossed about in bed but couldn't wake up. Kalugin slept straight through for four days and four nights and on the fifth day he awoke so emaciated that he had to tie his boots to his feet with string, so that they didn't fall off. In the bakery where Kalugin always bought wheaten bread, they didn't recognize him and handed him a half-rye loaf. And a sanitary commission which was going round the apartments, on catching sight of Kalugin, decided that he was unsanitary and no use for anything and instructed the janitors to throw Kalugin out with the rubbish. ANDREY SEMYONOVICH: All right, you won, so now calm down! ANDREY SEMYONOVICH: You may be a mathematician but, my word, you're not very bright. ANDREY SEMYONOVICH waves his hand in annoyance and walks away. The MATHEMATICIAN, after standing for a minute, walks off after ANDREY SEMYONOVICH. The watchman immediately realized that this was addressed to him, b...
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