Dmitry Ionych Startsev, a physician in a provincial town, is frequently entertained by the Turkins, the town’s most cultivated family. He falls in love with their daughter, Yekaterina, who teases the doctor by asking him to meet her in the cemetery at 11 PM and then doesn’t show up. Finally, she completely rejects his advances, saying that she must go to Moscow and study at the conservatory.
Four years later, Startsev has gotten corpulent, built a big practice, become affluent, and lost all interest in romance. Yekaterina returns and tries to rekindle their affair, but Startsev gets irritated and says to himself, “What a jolly good thing I didn’t marry her!” In the end, he just keeps getting fatter and more irritable, and he shouts at his patients.
Startsev is one of Chekhov’s insensitive and psychologically ignorant physicians, the type of doctor decried by Nikolai Stepanovich in “A Boring Story”. He has little or no understanding of the Turkins’ inner lives or turmoil, nor can he distinguish real artistic talent, which the Turkins lack, from mere show. He becomes hardened in the face of suffering and devotes his life to financial reward. This is reflected in his deplorable treatment of patients.
Ionitch by Anton CHEKHOV | FULL Unabridged AudioBook
Jack Coulehan (Ed.) Chekhov’s Doctors, Kent State University Press, 2003. Translated by David Magarshack.
David Magarshack (Ed.) Lady with Lapdog and Other Stories London, Penguin Books, 1964. Translated by David Magarshack.
Originally Published 1898
A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).
Web image by Artem Labunsky
