A Tripping Tongue
(ANTON CHEKHOV)
Having returned from her vacation with her friend Yulia, young wife Natalya Mihalovna begins telling her civil counsellor husband that claims about the Crimea being expensive are exaggerated, unless, of course, one does various things that she did not do, such as ride around on horses, and hire Tatar guides to go up into the mountains. It is not long before her husband asks about the Tatar guides having reputations for being Don Juans, and Natalya Mihalovna is suddenly inspired by some perverse emotion, some human quality of the sort you have come to expect to see illustrated in 19th and early 20th century Russian literature. She is, ostensibly, outraged by the immorality of other women, focussing on her friend Yulia, and she goes on to describe a trip they took up into the mountains, each with her own Tatar guide, when Yulia faked a spasm and fainting and sent Natalya Mihalovna and her guide back down the mountain to the inn to get Yulia's drops, leaving Yulia alone with her guide Mametkul.
The husband, of course, is realizing that Natalya Mihalovna has contradicted her earlier claim about not having hired guides or taken trips into the mountains, and as her story goes on, it becomes clear they apparently used these guides and took these trips on a daily basis. The husband does not need to say anything, as this young wife realizes that in her attempts to condemn her friend Yulia, she implicates herself as well. Forseeably, as Natalya Mihalovna goes on, we find that there came a day in the vacation when Yulia was not in her room, and Mametkul came to Natalya Mihalovna's room looking for her. She invited him in; there was conversation and one thing and another, and... Natalya Mihalova breaks off the account because of her husband's obvious "horrid" ideas and suspicions. She sees she has tripped herself with her own tongue.
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