NOTES
1 A joke name, from nyukhat, to take snuff, to sniffle. Markel is the Russian form of Marcellus.
2 When Chekhov republished this in his collection Motley Tales, he changed the title of the lecture to “The Evils of Teaism and Coffeeism on the Organism.”
3 Paul Friedrich Immanuel Vogt (1844–1885), German chemist, and Jacob Moleshott (1822– 1893), Dutch medical writer, authorities whom Chekhov would have studied as a young medical student.
4 In Motley Tales, this is replaced by “She said, ‘Eat the pancakes yourself, Markesha!’”
5 Bad German for “That’s where the dog is buried” or “That’s the root of the matter.”