A Chekhov Circus

A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov

Tag: Doctors

  • No. 18 – Ionitch

    This is one of the most accomplished and satisfying of Chekhov’s stories, a portrait of a pinched, gouty man, Ionitch, whose pride prevents him from having anything but a pinched, gouty life. Dmitri Ionitch Startsev, a doctor new in town, is welcomed into the home of the local gentry, the slightly absurd Turkin family. The…

  • No. 19 – Three Years

    For a reader attempting to dig through the entire 13 volumes of Constance Garnett’s translations of Chekhov’s stories and novellas, “Three Years” is an extraordinarily satisfying conclusion to the first volume. A novella, it is not only the best and richest story in the volume, it also touches on many of the themes and motifs…

  • No. 11 – Enemies

    “Enemies” begins, like half-a-dozen other Chekhov stories, with a doctor being summoned to attend to a sick patient. In this case, though, the doctor, Kirilin, has just suffered a devastating loss: The death of his son, at age six, of diphtheria. In a miasma of grief, the doctor is visited by a stranger, Abogin, from…

  • No. 43 – The Two Volodyas

    A portrait of an impulsive young woman, Sofya Lvovna, who has married a dashing playboy many years older than her. The two Volodyas of the title are Vladimir Nikititch, otherwise known as Colonel Yagitch, Sofya’s 50-something husband, and Vladimir Mihalovitch, her childhood friend and former/lingering crush. (Volodya is a nickname for Vladimir.) Having married Colonel…

  • No. 60 – The Runaway

    This is, essentially, a bit of reportage about the workings of a rural hospital. It was published in 1887, when Chekhov had been out in the world working as a doctor for several years. The tale is told through the eyes of a boy, Pashka, seven years old, unable to read or write, presumably a…

  • No. 87 – Darkness

    A poor man begs a government doctor to help free his brother from jail.

  • No. 94 – The Grasshopper

    A young woman takes her hard-working husband for granted until it is too late.

  • No. 156 – Ward No. 6

    A doctor’s interest in the treatment of mental illness seems to undermine his sanity.

  • No. 37 – (tie) Polinka/Anyuta

    These two brief sketches focus on wretched love affairs. In the Constance Garnett translations of Chekhov, they appear side-by-side, and as a reader you can’t help but see them as a single piece of fiction, even though they stand completely separate, and were written months apart. Of the two, “Anyuta” is the harsher, more painful…

  • No. 133 – The Head-Gardener’s Story

    A saintly doctor is murdered, but no one can believe that anyone could actually kill so good a man.