A slice of life in a small town. A local doctor and army officer pay a late night visit to the local pharmacy to flirt with the pharmacist’s wife. She enjoys the attention but keeps the men in check.
It’s a sad portrait of a sad woman chained to a lump of a man. (When we first see him, he is sound asleep, undisturbed even when a flea bites him on the nose.)
Chekhov had a real gift for delineating the quiet dangers women faced in everyday dealings with men – in this case, dealing with drunken customers. Their manipulation of her is expertly presented: They call at the shop late at night not because they need anything, but on the off-chance of seeing her, and they know they can do this because the pharmacy, by law, must receive customers when they call, whatever the hour.
The doctor and army officer paw at her and flirt drunkenly. She doesn’t shut them down, nor does she encourage them. She manages the situation as best she can, even though these sad sacks might represent an interesting chance for adventure, compared with her boorish husband (with a flea on his nose).
When the men disturb her a second time, making yet another tiny and unnecessary purchase, she shoos them away. And in doing so, she is left alone in her unhappy life.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
There are plenty of tales of marital strife on the Chekhov shelf. The one that comes to mind after reading this one is “The Husband.” Unlike “The Chemist’s Wife,” we see, in “The Husband,” a wife managing to have a good time, if only briefly, before the walls come crashing in on her.
A Chekhov Circus 