Resumo de Yonich - ANTON CHEKHOV

YONICH

Anton Chekhov?s ?Yonich? is a melancholic short story. Its setting is the Russian countryside of the early 20th century. Startsev is a young practicing doctor. He is a Zemstvo medical officer in Dyalizh. The nearby town S has an interesting family. They are called the Turkins. Ivan Petrovich is the head of the family. Vera Yosifovna is his wife and Yekaterina Ivanovna is his young and beautiful daughter in her teens. They receive and entertain guests every evening. Vera Yosifovna reads her handwritten novels, never to be published as she boasts that she is not in need of money, to the guests. The novel is full of incidents which never happen in life. After she completes reading, Ivan Petrovich will tell that the novel is not ?badsome?. Yekaterina Ivanovna will ?play? the piano for the guests. She will press the keys of the piano with all her might and create such a great noise. The guests will all applaud her and she would receive the applause with grace. So much for the most cultured and gifted family in the town S.

Our Startsev gets invitation from Vera Yosifovna one day to come and attend her for headaches. The friendship starts thus. Startsev becomes a frequent visitor to the Turkins family. He falls in love with Yekaterina. But she has other plans. She wants to become a great musician, acquire name and fame and she does not want to be confined to the four walls of a family. Having been thanked but refused, Startsev starts concentrating more on his medical practice which becomes extensive and lucrative. He becomes one of the busiest men in the town. He starts earning daily seventy roubles. When it becomes too much, he deposits the money in a Mutual Credit Society. He becomes fat in due course.

Yekaterina returns from Moscow after four years to stay for good in the town. Now she realizes her folly in not accepting the Zemstvo doctor. After a dinner at the Turkins family where Startsev participates as an invitee of Vera Ivanovna and Yekaterina jointly, Yekaterina meets Startsev separately and assures him that she no more has any illusions of her musical talent. She praises the nobility of the medical profession and indicates her willingness to become his wife. But Startsev remembers his daily collection of banknotes and the ?flicker in his soul? dies down. He does not answer the lady. After that he stops visiting the Turkins family. As days go by, Startsev becomes very rich and heartless. Nothing but money matters to him. He does not marry too. He purchases country estates and houses. When a house is auctioned for sale he will be there and he inspects the house without caring a bit for the horrified half naked womenfolk of the house. But the Turkins family remains as they are. Yekaterina becomes sick and she goes to Crimea every year. Ivan Petrovich sees them off with tears in his eyes at the railway station.

In this well known short story of Anton Chekhov, the hero becomes wealthy. But his life is meaningless. There is no nobility in it. On the other hand the Turkins are pulling on with their old feudal values. Neither their life is happy; though they are traditionally well off, if not wealthy. The same man who is ardently in love in his youth has become dry and all noble feelings die down in him in the crass commercialism of the new age. Life is full of sadness.

SATHYA

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