Summary:

The nurse reflects on the men in the room with "B" for "blood hazard" on their door. They are too weak to make love, but they still take care of one another: "as they press cool cloths to foreheads, / pass tissues for sticky green phlegm." Being only human, when she enters their room and they cough, she confesses that "something inside me stiffens." Yet she sees them as "half a butterfly on gray cement . . . . " She cares and she wants them to know that she cares, these men who "are migrating back to the cocoon, / the place where brown masks / protect the unbeautiful.

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This book includes 28 short stories and 10 vignettes written during the period 1881 through 1887 and published in popular Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines. None were included in the Collected Works published during Chekhov's lifetime, nor in the multiple volume Tales of Chekhov translated into English by Constance Garnett early in the 20th century. Nine of these stories appeared as a set called Intrigues: Nine Stories by Anton Chekhov in The Atlantic Monthly in 1998 (see annotation in this database).

A number of these stories involve medical or health related situations. "Village Doctors" (1882) is a comic tale of two physician's assistants blundering their way through a morning clinic, while the doctor is out hunting with the district police officer. "A Hypnotic Séance" (1883) reveals a hypnotist who, in desperation, pays his subject to simulate a trance and save the show. "At the Pharmacy" (1885) sketches a scene that many readers will recognize, a rigid and unfeeling health care provider (in this case a pharmacist) and a desperate patient. "Intrigues" (1887) presents a puffed-up and paranoid physician who is about to attend an inquiry regarding a medical mistake that he has made.

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A doctor and a magistrate are driving down a country road in a rainstorm on their way to an autopsy. The doctor says he doesn't notice the weather. "I feel a strange oppressive dread," he says. "It seems to me as if some misfortune were about to overwhelm me." The magistrate scoffs at this. They decide to stop at a country home for the night.

The doctor mentions his foreboding to the pretty widow who lives in the house. When they go to bed, the drunken magistrate, who thinks the widow was flirting with the doctor, encourages his colleague to visit the woman's room. The straightlaced doctor not only refuses, but also prevents his companion from visiting her.

The magistrate blows up in anger and the two men go home. Three days later the autopsy remains to be done. Once again, the two set off to the autopsy, but this time they are waylaid by a tavern and decide to stop and have a few drinks.

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Poetry is a natural medicine . . . Poetry helps us feel our lives rather than be numb. So begins John Fox, a Certified Poetry Therapist whose aim in this book is to help the reader see the profound relationship between creativity and healing, and to nudge the reader gently into making his or her own poems.

Fox grounds his work in narrative--stories of suffering persons who were able to transform their experience by writing poems. He illustrates the text with the poems of these persons, as well as those of well-known poets from King David to Lucille Clifton.

Fox carries the reader from the silence that leads to poetry (Chapter 1, "Heart, Who Will You Cry Out To?") through the elements that go into writing (Chapter 3, "Poetic Tools For Your Healing Journey") to writing about specific situations, such as illness, loss, and death (Chapter 6, "When God Sighs"). Each chapter includes a number of suggestions and exercises.

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The "laboring through what is still undone" is difficult and awkward like a swan's walking. But dying is like the swan leaving dry land. The water "receives him gently" and he moves with grace. The swan appears indifferent as he "condescends to glide." [12 lines]

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Imagine bits of conversation you might hear at a meeting of the Hemlock Society. "A very brave woman." "Not wanting to become / a mere vegetable." "A burden to others." Some other people want to hold on, even though the burden is measured in tons. The speaker concludes that he wants to keep his subscription paid up "and keep / the stash handy."[28 lines]

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This biography of Anton Chekhov features a clear, uncluttered text and benefits, at least indirectly, from the fact that the Chekhov archives (his letters, his family's letters and diaries) are now available to the public. The author, however, does not read Russian; he uses only secondary sources.

Callow's source for the new scholarship--presumably the "hidden ground" indicated in the title--is Donald Rayfield's biography, Anton Chekhov. A Life, published in 1997 (see annotation). The book presents the story of Chekhov's life in a straightforward fashion, but places special emphasis on the writer's relationships with women, and the role of actual people and events as sources for Chekhov's characters and stories.

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This book concerns the care of dying persons. Hospice care provides a multidisciplinary approach to caring for the whole person, including his or her physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. Often, however, discussion about hospice or palliative care tends to focus almost exclusively on relieving physical symptoms. Kearney tells us a number of dying patients' stories. Some die at peace, in seeming fulfillment. Others die in great distress, with what Kearney calls "soul pain," a deep existential anguish that is not relieved by symptom control or social support.

Kearney proposes two complimentary models to describe what occurs in dying persons whose "soul pain" is relieved. For the first, he recounts the Greek myth of Chiron. The wise centaur Chiron suffered from an incurable arrow wound inflicted by Hercules. Chiron learned that if he would be willing to sacrifice his immortality on behalf of Prometheus, he would be freed from his suffering. After he did this and descended into the underworld, Zeus raised him to the heavens, where he became a constellation.

Thus, the mythological model has a hero who is wounded, struggles, makes a choice, then descends into the depths, and finally returns transformed. The second, psychological model portrays the mind as having a surface rational part (where the ego resides) and a deep symbolic and intuitive part (where the "deep center" resides). The relief of "soul pain" lies in choosing to reject the ego's resistance and "letting go" to get in touch with the deep center.

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The long journey towards oblivion has begun, the poet announces. "And it is time to go, to bid farewell / to one's own self." He then asks, "Have you built your ship of death, O have you?" Our bodies are dying, we are slipping away piece by piece. The only hope (if it is a hope) for us is to be prepared for death by building a "little ark" and stocking it with the essentials to carry us through "the dark flight down oblivion."

In this way we achieve "quietus." The poet visualizes launching his ship, which has no rudder, upon the sea of death, which has no ports. Yet, after drifting for a long time in darkness, "the little ship wings home" and "the body, like a worn sea-shell / emerges strange and lovely." [106 lines]

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The poet contemplates (metaphorically) an abandoned, overgrown garden. "What god is proud / of this garden / of dead flowers, this underwater / grotto of humanity?" he asks. He sees limbs waving, faces drooping, and voices clawing. He recognizes great medical figures like Charcot and Alzheimer. There are no gardeners. As he turns away, he tries to take solace in the thought that somewhere "there is another / garden, all dew and fragrance." [30 lines]

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