THE CHEMIST'S WIFE

The Chemist's Wife

An unhappy woman living in the boonies. Wasted potential. She is beautiful, lively, desiring to be surrounded by people -- yet she lives with a dull chemist (pharmacist). Love the way Chekhov captures him in a few strokes:  "A few paces behind her Tchernomordik lay curled up close to the wall snoring sweetly. A greedy flea was stabbing the bridge of his nose, but he did not feel it, and was positively smiling, for he was dreaming that every one in the town had a cough, and was buying from him the King of Denmark's cough-drops."

With a husband like that -- no wonder she can't sleep and is incredibly bored. Trapped. A victim of circumstances. Why did she marry the dull chemist? Most likely she was induced by her family or her economic condition. Yet she wants to live -- to feel joy -- to be fully human -- and she never will. Like many -- she is a prisoner and all she can do is admire the sun rising beyond the cage.

THE PRINCESS

The Princess

This story confirms why I will always come back to Chekhov. Princess Vera Gavrilovna returns to N____ Monastery. She loves it there. She is unhappy with her life outside the monastery. By chance she encounters a doctor she knows. She forces him tell her what he really thinks of her. She begins to cry. The doctor leaves. The princess goes to sleep. The next day the princess wakes up and leaves the monastery very happy.

The story is simple like many of the best Chekhov stories. But the more you think about the story the more you realize how insightful it is about human nature. The princess as first introduced by Chekhov seems like a caring and sensitive person who comes to the monastery for a spiritual retreat. After we listen to the doctor we come to realize that the princess is completely selfish and treats others crudely and doesn't contribute to society in any positive way.

One would think that after hearing the truth the princess would try to reform herself -- really look in the mirror and see the truth -- in fact, that doesn't happen at all. The princess lives in her own world -- she is never going to look outside of that world -- and in her world everything that happens somehow pertains to her and her happiness. She will go on doing what she does and never realize how it impacts others.

When I think of the princess I think of many of those of higher ranks in our society -- Politicians -- CEO's -- Celebrities -- who like the princess live in a world of deception believing they are helping others -- while the rest of us suffer.

EXPENSIVE LESSONS

Expensive Lessons
A fat man hires a pretty young tutor to teach him French and he soon realizes she is a lousy teacher. But he doesn't have the heart to fire her. Soon he falls in love with her. She, however, is disgusted by him. When he makes his move she stops him cold. He figures that's the end. He'll never see her again. But she shows up at her regular time. And he is stuck with her and she is stuck with him. C'est la vie.

AT HOME

At Home
Great story. A beautiful, clever, young woman goes back home to the steppe. At first she is full of nostalgia and everything looks perfect. But with time she begins to hate it. She finds it monotonous and uninspiring. She comes to the realization that this is her life and her dreams and hopes and ambitions will never be fulfilled out in the steppe. Her only choice is to marry and conform herself to life in the steppe. Dreams, hopes, ambitions, and happiness at some point meet reality. And reality usually wins. We have two choices: to forcefully fight reality and somehow overcome the odds stacked against us and attempt to live a truthful and meaningful life or accept reality and blend with it and try to make do. The beautiful young woman who seemed so full of life at the start of the story decides to accept reality and make the best of it. As sadly, most of us eventually do.

NEIGHBOURS

Neighbours
"And thinking about his life, he came to the conclusion he had never said or acted upon what he really thought, and other people had repaid him in the same way."  Who hasn't felt that way at one time or another?  Reading Chekhov I have noticed that he seems preoccupied with this idea. Living a lie. Doing things that are expected of you but inside not being happy about it. In fact, inside harboring a deep feeling of unhappiness.

In Neighbours, Chekhov presents us with a family story that may or may not be a tragedy. A beautiful vivacious young woman has gone to live with the neighbor, an older married man. Society would say that is a tragedy. The neighbour has nothing going on for him and nobody can guess what would possess this young woman to go off and live with him. The brother decides to visit the house where the sister now lives to talk with her. When he gets there instead of being forceful and pressing his case for the sister to return, he acts weak and returns home alone without telling the sister how he really feels.

If you want to add some psychology to the story -- the brother seems too taken with the sister -- you get  the sense that he might even be in love with her and possibly what attracted the sister to the neighbor is that he reminds her of her brother. I might be reading too much into this.

So is this a tragedy? Chekhov is ambivalent. We can castigate the young woman for acting irrationally or we can admire the young woman for having the courage to live life on her own terms.

MIRE

Mire
Mire is a good title for this story. I felt I was mired in the mud of negative stereotypes of Jews.  Did Chekhov really write such a loathsome piece? I researched what might have prompted him to write this story and what I found out was that Chekhov was engaged to an independent minded Jewish woman and the relationship ended -- very likely not to Chekhov's liking and hence this attack on Jewish culture and in particular, Jewish women. 

It is really a great dissapointment to see that a great artist like Chekhov reduced his art to create this story. It is not much of a story. To me, it sounds like another warning issued by Chekhov -- except this one is not an inspiring one -- not one we should take to heart -- but rather Chekhov revealing his fears, his anger, and his hatred. To be fair, I also read that Chekhov defended Dreyfus and spoke out against Anti-Semitism and actually reconciled himself with his former fiancé. 

Maybe Chekhov was able to progress in his thinking but this story doesn't come with footnotes and reading it at face value -- it can't be cleansed of what it is.

EXCELLENT PEOPLE

Excellent People
A cautionary tale for all writers who take themselves too seriously, who refuse to acknowledge any criticism  of their work, and seek to be adored at all cost.