“And he looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She glanced at him too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own daydreams, her own plans, her own reflections; she understood perfectly well what her husband’s dreams were. She knew who would be the first to try and grab her winnings.
“It’s very nice making daydreams at other people’s expense!” is what her eyes expressed. “No, don’t you dare!”
Her husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his breast, and in order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her at the fourth page on the newspaper and read out triumphantly:
“Series 9,499, number 46! Not 26!”
Hatred and hope both disappeared at once, and it began immediately to seem to Ivan Dmitritch and his wife that their rooms were dark and small and low-pitched, that the supper they had been eating was not doing them good, but lying heavy on their stomachs, that the evenings were long and wearisome. . . .
“What the devil’s the meaning of it?” said Ivan Dmitritch, beginning to be ill-humoured. “Wherever one steps there are bits of paper under one’s feet, crumbs, husks. The rooms are never swept! One is simply forced to go out. Damnation take my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on the first aspen-tree!”
The Lottery Ticket by Anton Chekhov
http://www.readprint.com/work-301/The-Lottery-Ticket-Anton-Chekhov/4#ixzz17L5Z7qL5
“Wherever one steps, there are bits of paper, crumbs, and husks under one’s feet. The rooms are never swept.” That was how he felt. The moment was when suddenly the euphoria he had felt hardly a few minutes ago over the fascinating new world being opened up by the winning lottery ticket suddenly vanished to give rise to hatred for his wife who had a better claim on the lottery .If it meant going on an idyllic holiday abroad that was most certainly without her, her poker-faced relations and his own greedy people. There was no pure happiness. One’s pursuit of happiness seldom ended in unmixed joy .There are now bits of paper, torn lottery tickets of unachieved happiness all over the floor and our rooms basically remain unswept and filthy. And the rooms were once again dark, small and low-pitched .The supper they had been eating was lying heavy on their stomachs. And the evenings were long and wearisome.
