On occasion, Chekhov’s stories are almost impossible for a current day American (moi!) to parse.
In this brutal and yet weirdly antic story, we meet a schoolmaster and one of his teachers. The teacher–who has been employed by the school for 14 years–has lost his voice, supposedly from drinking a cold beer while he was sweaty. Because he can only speak in a whisper, he can no longer work as a teacher, and therefore must lose his job.
These details are frankly too strange for me to grasp. He lost his voice from drinking a beer? He’s going to be fired for having a raspy voice? He worked there for 14 years and he’s losing his job in one day? What???
This feels like an enormous absurdity. Is Chekhov just having fun?
But then the story abruptly switches gears, becoming a social commentary.
The schoolmaster, feeling sorry for the teacher, realizes that he has an opening for a secretary (apparently a role that can be filled by someone with a raspy voice). He promises the job to the teacher, who is abjectly grateful not to be thrown out of work altogether.
But then the schoolmaster receives a series of notes from well-connected townsfolk (all women, or “Ladies,” as the title has it) asking that he give the job to another man, Polzuhin. And when Polzuhin himself shows up seeking the job, he has a recommendation from “the governor.” Defeated, the schoolmaster feels he has no choice but to renege on his promise to the teacher. The open position is given to Polzuhin.
You have to count this story as a failure, just because of the weird imbalance of it. But it has power, nonetheless. It ends on a tragic note, with the schoolmaster lashing out at the dismissed teacher: Humiliated by being forced to hire Polzuhin, he takes out his helplessness on the even more helpless teacher. It’s a weird and uncomfortable way to end a story that seems to have begun as a farce.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Structure was not Chekhov’s strong suit, and, at least during the first four or five years of his writing life, he dashed stories off in no time flat and rarely if ever received editorial feedback, let alone significant edits. Indeed, in early 1886, he told his new editor (who would become a mentor and friend) Alexey Suvorin, “I have been writing for six years, but you are the first person who has gone to the trouble of making suggestions and explaining the reason for them.”
He knew, too, that structure was a weakness. In 1888, he wrote, “Because I am so used to short stories that consist of little more than a beginning and an end, I lose interest as soon as I feel that I am writing a middle…”
The structural problems with “Ladies” are unique, though, for such a short story. I can’t think of any other stories that lurch so dramatically from one style to another. But one of Chekhov’s great stories, “The Man in a Case,” manages to gracefully negotiate some pretty significant tonal shifts. That story–which also takes place in a school–was written some 12 years after “Ladies,” when Chekhov was no longer dashing off stories as a way to support himself and his family.
A Chekhov Circus 