Two Tragedies by Anton Chekhov

Name: Two Tragedies
Author: Anton Chekhov

Dr. Kiríloff, a Zemstvo physician, loses his only son, six-year-old Andreï, to diphtheria at ten o'clock one September evening. Moments after his wife collapses in grief at the boy's bedside, a stranger, Abógin, rings the doorbell and begs the doctor to come at once to save his dying wife, who has suddenly collapsed with what he believes is aneurism, the same ailment that killed her father. Kiríloff, numb with his own loss, refuses at first, but Abógin pleads desperately, invoking humanity and the physician's duty, and promises the journey will take only an hour. Kiríloff relents and leaves his own wife alone with their dead child. The two men drive through the dark countryside in Abógin's calêche, past ravens, a pond, a plain, and a rising red half-moon, exchanging little conversation. Abógin, agitated and impatient, urges the coachman to hurry. They arrive at Abógin's house, where Abógin goes to check on his wife while Kiríloff waits in a richly furnished dining room, examining his carbolic-burned hands and the stuffed wolf and violoncello case in the room. Abógin returns transformed: not with news of illness, but with the discovery that his wife has fled with a visitor named Paptchinski, having feigned illness as a pretext to summon the doctor and cover her escape. Abógin, distraught and humiliated, rages about her deception, unaware or unheeding of the doctor's own fresh grief. Kiríloff, insulted at being dragged from his dead son's side to witness a domestic melodrama, turns his fury on Abógin, mocking his wealth, his "humane ideas," and his claim to being unhappy, comparing him to a well-fed goose. Abógin, stung, calls the doctor ungenerous and reminds him he too is suffering; Kiríloff scorns the comparison. Abógin flings money onto the table as payment for the visit, which Kiríloff angrily sweeps to the floor, refusing payment for an insult. The two exchange bitter, unjust accusations, each too consumed by his own misfortune to recognize the other's. Abógin summons a servant and orders the calêche readied to send Kiríloff home, while also berating his household staff. Waiting for their separate carriages, the two men stand in cold silence, Abógin regaining his composed, elegant bearing, Kiríloff regarding him with deep contempt. Kiríloff departs in the dark, the red half-moon now fallen below the hill; a carriage with red lamps carrying Abógin passes him on the road, going to protest and make a fool of himself elsewhere. On the ride home, Kiríloff thinks not of his own wife or dead son but obsessively of Abógin and people of his class, forming an unjust, unshakeable contempt for them that, the narrator notes, will outlast even his grief and remain with him for the rest of his life.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1893 · Genre: Tragedy, Drama, Short Stories · 6,116 words

First lines

At ten o'clock on a dark September evening six-year-old Andrei, the only son of Dr. Kiríloff, a Zemstvo physician, died from diphtheria. The doctor's wife had just thrown herself upon her knees at the bedside of her dead child, and was giving way to the first ecstacy of despair, when the hall-door bell rang loudly. Owing to the danger of infection all the servants had been sent out of the house that morning; and Kiríloff, in his shirtsleeves, with unbuttoned waistcoat, with sweating face, and hands burned with carbolic acid, opened the door himself. The hall was dark, and the stranger who entered it was hardly visible. All that Kiríloff could distinguish was that he was of middle height, that he wore a white muffler, and had a big, extraordinarily pale face -- a face so pale that at first it seemed to illumine the darkness of the hall.

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Two Tragedies is listed on Textopian as a short story by Anton Chekhov, dated 1893 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Anton Chekhov
Date: 1893 CE
Language: English
Genres: Tragedy, Drama, Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction
Length: 6,116 words
Structure: 1 section, 88 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Tragedy — The book's title indicates that the content is tragic in nature,
Drama — Chekhov's works often involve complex characters and dramatic situations,
Short Stories — Chekhov is well-known for writing short stories, and the plural in the title suggests this collection could consist of varied, independent tragedies.
Fiction — Chekhov's work primarily comprises fictional narratives and character studies.