Anton Chekhov's "Surgery" and "A Cure for Hard Drinking

A village hospital. In the absence of the doctor, who left to get married, patients are received by his assistant Sergei Kuzmich Kuryatin, a stout man of about forty in a worn jacket and pants. His face and manner express warm friendliness and sense of duty. Between the forefinger and third finger of his left hand, he holds a cheap, foul-smelling cigar. The sexton, Efim Mikheich Vosmiglazov, enters the office. He is a sturdy old man in a brown cossack with a wide leather belt. His right eye is impaired. On his nose, there is a wart which from a distance looks like a big fly. For a second the sexton looks around for an icon, and not finding one, makes the sign of the cross in the direction of a large bottle of carbolic acid. He then takes out from a red kerchief a communion wafer and bowing humbly, places it before the doctor's assistant as a token of good will. H'm, my respects to you, says the doctor's assistant, yawning. What is your trouble? My Sunday greetings to you and all respects, Sergei Kuzmich. To quote the just and truthful words of the psalm 'I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with tears.' I sat down the other day with my old woman to have some tea and God forbid such pain -not a drop could I swallow. It seemed as though there was nothing to be done but just to lie down and die. I just sipped a little and it gave me such pain that my strength simply failed me. And it wasn't only the very tooth but the whole side of the face. . Such an aching pain, a throbbing pain! . . . It beats in my ear, excuse the comparison, as though there was a nail or some other object . . . it shoots and it shoots! It's for my sins, Sergei Kuzmich, for my sins

Art · Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies