disillusionment – medhum.org

The Grasshopper by Anton Chekhov

Jack Coulehan — Sun, 11 May 2025 14:40:22 +0000

In this story, Dr. Dymov is an earnest and rather boring young physician, who is preoccupied with his patients and his research. Olga, his wife, craves the excitement and gaiety of the artistic life. She discovers a new lease on romance with Ryabovsky, a colorful landscape artist, who takes her on a Volga River cruise. As they spoon under the stars, Olga and her lover make light of her bumptious stay-at-home husband. After she returns from the cruise, Dymov forgives her infidelity, but in Olga’s mind, his forgiveness proves to be another strike against the poor slob, since she can’t stand his complaisant devotion. She runs back to Ryabovsky for a while, until he makes it clear that he is no longer interested in her.

Then one day Dymov develops diphtheria, evidently contracted by “sucking up mucus through a pipette from a boy with diphtheria. And what for? It was stupid… just from folly.” Dymov soon becomes seriously ill and then dies. Suddenly, Olga is overcome with guilt and grief. Too late, Olga realizes that her husband was a hero.

Chekhov based this story on the real-life love affair between his good friends Isaak Levitan, a well-known (and married) artist, and Lika Mizinova, a young unmarried teacher, who had for many years been infatuated with Chekhov while he toyed with her affection. In this interpretation, Chekhov bases the character of Dymov largely on himself, portrayed as a dedicated and disciplined worker who has no time to spare for frivolous romance. However, in reality, Chekhov had playful relationships with many women, but eschewed commitment until late in life.

Another way of looking at the story is the dramatic tension between practicality (science, public health, and social consciousness), as exemplified by Dymov; and emotion (art, adventure, romance), as exemplified by Ryabovsky. Olga at first chooses the latter, but Dymov’s death turns the tables. After he becomes a martyr to science, she suddenly finds him more interesting and mourns her loss. Was his death the result of a foolish mistake? Did her infidelity play a role, perhaps by distracting him while he was aspirating the pus? Or might Dymov have deliberately performed the foolish procedure, realizing that the infection would cause his death?

The Wife & Other Stories. The Tales of Chekhov. Volume 5, New York, The Ecco Press, 1985.
Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett.
Shelby Foote (Ed.) Chekhov’s Later Short Stories. 1888-1903, New York, The Modern Library, 1999.
Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett.

A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).

Reviews of Chekhov’s Stories

Ionych by Anton Chekhov

Jack Coulehan — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 14:40:22 +0000

Chekhov 1898 by Osip Braz

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

Reviews of Chekhov’s Stories

Cold Eye, Warm Heart: Medicine and Anton Chekhov

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An Awkward Business by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanJun 11, 2025

The Grasshopper by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanMay 11, 2025

Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanMar 11, 2025

Ionych by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanMar 11, 2025

A Doctor’s Visit by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanMar 11, 2025

A Nervous Breakdown by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanFeb 11, 2025

Enemies by Anton Chekhov

Jack CoulehanJan 11, 2025

A Nervous Breakdown by Anton Chekhov

Jack Coulehan — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:40:22 +0000

Chekhov 1898 by Osip Braz

A medical student, Mayer, and an art student, Rybnikov, take their friend Vasilyev, a law student, out for a night on the town, visiting a few brothels on S. Street. After being fortified with a couple of glasses of vodka, they go to the first brothel, where Vasilyev is repulsed by “How cheap and stupid it all is!” After mixing with the women a bit, they go on to a second brothel, and then a third, and finally a fourth. Vasilyev is increasingly disgusted and begs to go home, but his friends dissuade him. At the last brothel, Vasilyev engages one of the whores in conversation: Why doesn’t she leave? Why doesn’t she better herself? But she yawns, obviously disinterested. A commotion ensues when one of the men slaps a whore, and Vasilyev runs out into the snowy street. His friends lead him home, while Vasilyev harangues them about the evils of prostitution. During the night, he has a “nervous breakdown” and in the morning his friends find him disoriented and incoherent. They take him to a psychiatrist, who agrees that prostitution is evil, but his attitude seems to be, “So what, don’t let it bother you. It’s just a natural part of society.”

Vasilyev is shaken to the core by his encounter with prostitution. He finds it morally repulsive and wants to “save” the women who practice it. Yet everyone else—his friends, the cab drivers, the psychiatrist, even the whores themselves—seems to accept prostitution as a normal aspect of society. Mayer, the medical student, even provides some statistics that indicate there are more whorehouses in London than in Moscow. Vasilyev doesn’t have the resilience to accommodate this moral dissonance in his worldview. Thus, he has a breakdown. Ironically, the psychiatrist is unable to even visualize the moral problem that Vasilyev is experiencing.

The Party and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov
London, Penguin Books, 1985.
Originally Published 1889

A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).
Web image by Alex Plesovskich