Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovAugust 18.Speaking of Nikolay and the doctor who attends him, you emphasizethat “all that is done without love, without self-sacrifice,even in regard to trifling conveniences.” You are right, speaking ofpeople generally, but what would you have the doctors do? If, asyour old nurse says, “The bowel has burst,” what’s one to do, even ifone is ready to give one’s life to the sufferer? As a rule, while thefamily, the relations, and the servants are doing “everything theycan” and are straining every nerve, the doctor sits and looks like afool, with his hands folded, disconsolately ashamed of himself andhis science, and trying to preserve external tranquillity ….Doctors have loathsome days and hours, such as I would not wishmy worst enemy. It is true that ignoramuses and coarse louts are norarity among doctors, nor are they among writers, engineers, peoplein general; but those loathsome days and hours of which I speak fallto the lot of doctors only, and for that, truly, much may be forgiventhem ….The amazing astronomer is at Batum now. As I told her I shouldgo to Batum too, she will send her address to Feodosia. She hasgrown cleverer than ever of late. One day I overheard a learneddiscussion between her and the zoologist Wagner, whom you know.It seemed to me that in comparison with her the learned professorwas simply a schoolboy. She has excellent logic and plenty of goodcommon sense, but no rudder, … so that she drifts and drifts, anddoesn’t know where she is going ….A woman was carting rye, and she fell off the waggon head downwards.She was terribly injured: concussion of the brain, strainingof the vertebrae of the neck, sickness, fearful pains, and so on. Shewas brought to me. She was moaning and groaning and praying fordeath, and yet she looked at the man who brought her and muttered:“Let the lentils go, Kirila, you can thresh them later, but threshthe oats now.” I told her that she could talk about oats afterwards,that there was something more serious to talk about, but she said tome: “His oats are ever so good!” A managing, vigilant woman. Deathcomes easy to such people ….263