Two Tragedies

Two Tragedies by Anton Chekhov

"Two Tragedies" is a play written by Anton Chekhov, first performed in 1901. The play consists of two interconnected stories, each exploring the themes of love, loss, and the human condition. The first story follows the decline of a once-happy marriage, while the second story depicts the tragic consequences of a young man's infatuation with a married woman. Through these tales, Chekhov delves into the complexities of human relationships and the inevitability of tragedy that can result from our choices and actions.

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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Tragedy · Russian literature · Chekhov · play · drama · family · love · loss · grief · betrayal · death · suicide

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