Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovthe Vyestnik Evropi and Syeverny Vyestnik, and knows writers I havenot dreamed of; attaches much importance to the fact that once thepainter Makovsky stayed in her lodge and now a young writer isstaying there; talking to Pleshtcheyev she feels a holy thrill all overand rejoices every minute that it has been “vouchsafed” to her to seethe great poet.Her eldest daughter, a woman doctor—the pride of the wholefamily and “a saint” as the peasants call her—really is remarkable.She has a tumour on the brain, and in consequence of it she istotally blind, has epileptic fits and constant headaches. She knowswhat awaits her, and stoically with amazing coolness speaks of herapproaching death. In the course of my medical practice I have grownused to seeing people who were soon going to die, and I have alwaysfelt strange when people whose death was at hand talked, smiled, orwept in my presence; but here, when I see on the verandah thisblind woman who laughs, jokes, or hears my stories read to her,what begins to seem strange to me is not that she is dying, but thatwe do not feel our own death, and write stories as though we werenever going to die.The second daughter, also a woman doctor, is a gentle, shy, infinitelykind creature, loving to everyone. Patients are a regular tortureto her, and she is scrupulous to morbidity with them. At consultationswe always disagree: I bring good tidings where she seesdeath, and I double the doses which she prescribes. But where deathis obvious and inevitable my lady doctor feels quite in an unprofessionalway. I was receiving patients with her one day at a medicalcentre; a young Little Russian woman came with a malignant tumourof the glands in her neck and at the back of her head. Thetumour had spread so far that no treatment could be thought of.And because the woman was at present feeling no pain, but wouldin another six months die in terrible agony, the doctor looked at herin such a guilty way as though she were asking forgiveness for beingwell, and ashamed that medical science was helpless. She takes azealous part in managing the house and estate, and understandsevery detail of it. She knows all about horses even. When the sidehorse does not pull or gets restless, she knows how to help mattersand instructs the coachman. I believe she has never hurt anyone,79