OLD AGE

Old Age

Thomas Wolfe is right. You can't go home again.

Uzelkov, the rich architect divorced his wife for no apparent good reason. Made sure the wife took the blame and took off. The wife who loved Uzelkov the architect tried to drown her sorrow in drink. Her life was miserable and she died.

Uzelkov has come back to town and meets up with Shapkin, his crafty lawyer. Now, Shapkin and Uzelkov are old men and they've lost their edge. Shapkin doesn't hide from Uzelkov his misdeeds. 

Uzelkov is in town to repair the church in the cemetery. There, he and Shapkin visit the grave of his wife. Uzelkov wants to weep. Regrets. He wants one good cry to possibly give him some relief from his guilty conscience. But he is too uptight to do it in  front of Shapkin. Doesn't want to reveal his weakness. But the moment only comes once and when he goes back later to the grave alone the feelings are no longer there. 

Uzelkov is an old man looking back at his life and he is dead inside. The life he once thought he'd live was never lived. The joys he imagined he'd experience -- he never did. All he has is the bad taste in his mouth -- the pathetic realization that his selfishness drove his wife to an early grave.

Not a pleasant thought. 

Cry, old man. It's all you got left.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

The Looking-Glass

A young woman desperate to get married looks inside a looking-glass and instead of finding everlasting happiness in her future with her ideal husband sees the opposite.

What's there to do? If we all looked into the future we'll see things that frighten us. Do we stop hoping for happiness?

The young woman is too desperate to get married -- she's too invested in marriage for salvation -- for everything -- this I think is the criticism -- the point of the story. 

Live life in the moment. 

Appreciate what you have and don't bank on gaining happiness outside of yourself. 

Everything has pitfalls and if you depend on anything or anyone to live up to an ideal -- you'll be disappointed.

New Years Resolution for Nellie: 
Live for today. Develop yourself. Don't depend on a husband and married life for completion.

In other words: 

Drink some champagne and chill.

A HAPPY ENDING

A Happy Ending

Matchmaker, Matchmaker,
Make me a match . . . with you!

Wonder if Patty from Millionaire Matchmaker would approve.

Nice, for once,  to read a light Chekhov story.

A DEAD BODY

A Dead Body

Eerie.

Two peasants watch over a dead body.

One peasant is young. The other peasant is old.

The young one is fearful.

The old one is peaceful.

But the star of the show is a dead body.

The dead body is covered in white linen.

The imagery of a linen covered body lying in the forest where everything is still is very powerful.

Death.

As Hamlet says:

"The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns . . . "

The ultimate mystery.

Something we will all face and fear.

What is that world?

Nothing?

Paradise?

Here comes the man wearing a cassock.

A monk of some sort.

Looking for a brickyard.

When the monk sees the dead body he becomes upset.

He asks questions about who the body is.

We find out he was a stranger.

We don't know why he died.

According to tradition the soul will leave the body in three days.

Soul.

Our hope is that when we are done here there's something waiting for us.

Something better.

Or at least something.

Something is better than nothing.

The dead body captivates us.

The body or the soul is now residing in another dimension and we are aware of how little we know about that other dimension.

It can frighten us or if you are like our simpleton peasant you might just take it in stride -- accept it as our fate and not lose sleep.

THE PETCHENYEG

The Petchenyeg

Ivan Abramitch Zhmuhin is so full of himself that he doesn't realize the consequences of his actions.

He has reduced his wife to a nonentity. The man even has his own room. Having bought her when she was seventeen -- he has watched her crying for the last twenty years -- and it has never occurred to him to try to ease her misery. Instead he dismisses her completely. He believes women are not human beings.

He has not educated his children and they spent their time shooting birds.

Zhmuhin's head is full ideas which he generously shares with his reluctant visitor. He thinks so much about the state of the world and his own being that he obviously has no time to see the reality in front of him. He is blind to the home life he has constructed. (Reminds me a bit of Dick Cheney -- full of grand ideas and clueless to the damage he did to the country.)

Zhmuhin is totally oblivious to the criticism of others. Even after the visitor shouts at him and tells him he has bored him to death -- he has a temporary moment of doubt -- but quickly recovers and goes back to his own "profound" ideas.

The world is full of characters like Zhmuhin -- people engrossed by their thoughts who truly think they are deep and serious and and are unaware of how much havoc they cause on their family and the world.

Howard Gardner has written a lot about multiple intelligences. Zhmuhin excels in intrapersonal intelligence but he's completely lacking in interpersonal intelligence.

But of course he'll never realize it.