The story of Nicholai is one of single-minded determination. In Nicholai's case, he acquires the subject of his obsession, a small farm that allows him to lead a simple life in the country. Ivan comments, "Once a man gets a fixed idea, there's nothing to be done." Nicholai equates the lifestyle he longs for with the farm setting, and an important part of that setting is gooseberry bushes. He finds the gooseberry bushes a source of delicious fruit that is his own, yet he can enjoy it without exerting much effort to nurture the bushes. When he buys his farm, it does not have all the features he had always dreamed it would have, but the gooseberry bushes are so important that he buys twenty of them and plants them on his land. His obsession runs so deep that to achieve it he married an elderly widow who...