SOURCE: Mathewson, Rufus W., Jr. “Intimations of Mortality in Four Čexov Stories.” In American Contributions to the Sixth International Congress of Slavists, edited by William E. Harkins, pp. 261–79. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton & Co. B. V., 1968.

In the following essay, Mathewson examines the concept of immortality in Chekhov's stories “The Kiss,” “Gusev,” “Ionyc,” and “The Lady with the Dog.”

From time to time characters in Čexov's stories look out at the natural world that encompasses their social existence. Their glances at the horizon, at the stars, the sunset, the sea, alter their understanding of the world, and thus reorder their experience in a profound way. In this sense these episodes bear comparison with the great “learning” scenes in Tolstoj, Prince Andrej on the battlefield at Austerlitz or Levin making hay in the meadow; or with Joyce's epiphanies, those random events which precipitate a new apprehension of the world...