Another mean little story, this one about a man who is upset over his wife’s poor letter-writing skills.
Pavel Petrovich Somov, with apparently nothing better to do, paces around while his wife writes a looooong letter to her sister. He takes a look at it and is horrified to see that, despite the letter’s great length, it is a big bore. “If there were one tiny idea!” he complains.
Not only that, her handwriting stinks, too!
His mean comments bring his wife to tears. If only she had gone to university! But that strikes Somov as a bit much: Who needs a wife with a university degree? In the end, the self-satisfied meanie realizes that, if he wants intellectual stimulation, he can always see other women, or better yet, just seek out a man’s company.
It would be sort of nice if Chekhov ended this story as he did “The Death of a Government Clerk,” and Somov simply expired from meanness at the conclusion. But alas, he lives on, presumably to be mean another day.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
“A Pink Stocking” was written just a few months after “Love,” another story of a man disgusted by his wife’s lack of education. I can only imagine that Chekhov, or someone he knew, had come across an attractive woman who just couldn’t spell, and felt the need to satirize it on the page not once but twice. Not a great look for a great writer.
A Chekhov Circus 