![]() ![]() ![]() 'How delicious!' "Īs I read the collection, huddled in my warm room, I flipped to the photograph of the frowning author. Somewhere between the holiday cheer and the dark winter, this writer created new angles of light.Ĭhekhov was a doctor as well as an author, and in each of his stories, he turns a strict physician's eye upon hard truths: inhumane factory working conditions, starving children, broken families.īut he also depicts moments of serene, glowing beauty, as in "Gooseberries," describing a man's luxurious swim in a pond: " 'Ah! How delicious!' he shouted in his glee. I was startled yet captivated by these stark cautionary tales. the chief thing is not to want anything." Love, the narrator says morosely, "is a great mystery." The story "In Exile" takes up the conversation, with a jaded old ferryman telling a young newcomer, "If you want to be happy. In the story "About Love," Chekhov writes about beautiful Pelagea, who falls for ugly, abusive Nikanor. He was talking about bone-chilling places and worn-out people, but somehow the beauty of his language lifted everything up, giving it gravity and importance. There was something in those freezing depths that corresponded to my sense of winter. I was drawn into the immeasurable spaces of sky and the open Russian steppes. ![]()
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