: The young doctor settled in the province, fell in love with a girl from a creative family. But she refused him, and the family turned out to be ordinary people, like the whole city. The doctor was mired in boredom, grew fat, became rude and greedy.

The titles of the chapters in the retelling are conditional.

Chapter 1. Acquaintance with the Turkins family

The Turkins' family was considered the most talented, educated, and intelligent in the county town of S. Each member of this family had his own talent.

The head of the family, Ivan Petrovich, organized amateur charity performances, where he played old generals and coughed very funny. At dinner parties, he entertained guests with jokes, joked a lot, and made fun of him.

His wife Vera Iosifovna read the novels composed by her to the guests.

Their daughter Catherine played the piano.

The Turks eagerly received guests in their large stone house with a garden overgrown with lilacs, where knives knocked in the kitchen and smelled of fried onions.

Young doctor Dmitry Ionych Startsev, who was appointed a zemstvo doctor in a nearby village, was repeatedly advised to meet with the Turkins.

Once in the winter, Startsev met Ivan Petrovich in the city, and he invited him to visit.

Startsev was busy with his favorite work, and he managed to go to the Turkins only in the spring. He had a nice day. Ivan Petrovich joked, Vera Iosifovna read her novel “On Things That Never Happen in Life,” and Catherine, whom her parents called Kotik, very loudly and energetically played the piano.

... her shoulders and chest shuddered, she stubbornly hit everything in one place, and it seemed that she would not stop until she hammered a key inside the piano.

After a winter spent among sick peasants, Startsev was pleased to listen to these sounds - loud, annoying, but seemed to him so cultural. Startsev learned that Kotik did not study at the local gymnasium - teachers came to her house so that she would not gain bad influence. Despite the objections of her mother, the girl wanted to leave for Moscow, enter the conservatory and become a real pianist.

Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna if she prints her works in magazines, and she answered that she was hiding the written novels in the closet — why print them if they had enough money. When the guests dispersed, the fourteen-year-old footman Turkins “portrayed” the tragic scene - stood in a pose, raised his hand and said: “Die, miserable.” Everyone laughed. To Startsev, all this also seemed amusing and not bad.

Startsev had a lot of work, so the next year he spent "in labor and solitude." He couldn’t get out to the Turkins. Finally, Vera Iosifovna sent him a letter asking her to come and cure her migraine. Startsev helped her, and she told all the guests what an amazing doctor he was.

Chapter 2. Startsev falls in love with Catherine

After this, Startsev began to visit the Turkins often, but not because of Vera Iosifovna, but because of Kotik. She admired his freshness, simplicity and naive grace. Kotik seemed smart to years of startsev, although sometimes she could laugh and leave right during a smart conversation or let go of some ridiculous remark.He begged her to go out into the garden to be alone with her.

Once Kotik slipped Startsev a note, in which she dated him at eleven in the evening at the cemetery. Startsev went there, although he knew that Kotik was just fooling around, and wandered through the cemetery midnight, burning with love, and then he got home for a long time. Fortunately, then he already had his own pair of horses and a coachman.

Chapter 3. Ekaterina refuses Startsev

The next day, Startsev went to make an offer to Kotik. He waited a long time until the hairdresser did her hair, but thought not about love, but about the dowry and that he would have to quit the Zemstvo service and move to the city. The thought revolved in his sleepy head that the spoiled and capricious Kotik was not a match for him - a hard worker, a Zemstvo doctor and a “Dyachkovsky son”, but he chased her away and thought: “So what? Let it go".

It was not possible to talk with Kotik - she went to the club for a dance evening. Startsev gave her a lift and managed to kiss along the road, but Catherine reacted coldly to the kiss. In the evening, Startsev appeared at the club, made an offer to Kotik, and unexpectedly was refused. She said she loves music, wants to study at the conservatory and can no longer stay in this city and continue an empty, useless life.

To become a wife - oh no, sorry! A person should strive for a higher, brilliant goal, and family life would bind me forever.

Startsev's heart stopped beating. His pride was offended by such a stupid end as in the play of an amateur performance, and he was sorry for "his feelings, his love."

For three days Startsev did not eat or sleep. Then he heard rumors that Kotik "went to Moscow to enter the conservatory," and he calmed down. Sometimes recalling how he strove to win Kotik’s love, Startsev said: “How much trouble, however!”

Chapter 4. Meeting years later

Four years have passed. Startsev had many patients in the city, and he devoted less and less time to zemstvo practice. He became very fat and rode a troika with bells.

Startsev didn’t get close to the townsfolk - it was impossible to talk about politics or science with these limited people. At dinner parties, he ate and silently looked at the plate, for which he received the nickname "Inflated Pole", although he was not a Pole.

Startsev did not go to the theater and concerts. Gradually, he became interested in a card game in the screw and spent all evenings behind it. Another hobby was collecting money. Every evening, he took from his pockets multi-colored papers obtained by practice. When they gathered a lot, he took the money to the bank.

During this time, the Startsev was with the Turkins only twice - he treated Vera Iosifovna's migraine. He never met Catherine, although she came every summer.

Once Startsev received an invitation letter from Vera Iosifovna, to which Catherine also joined. He thought and drove off. The Turks have not changed. Aged Vera Iosifovna still read her novels, Ivan Petrovich made the same jokes, Kotik played noisily on the piano, and the footman, the mustachioed guy, still amused the guests with the phrase “Die, miserable!”.

... if the most talented people in the whole city are so mediocre, then what a city should be.

Startsev did not see in Catherine the freshness that had once fascinated him. The cat got old, lost weight and turned pale, turned into Ekaterina Ivanovna. Now she looked into Startsev’s eyes and asked her to go out into the garden with her. She did not see a fat and indifferent person, but that young, hardworking doctor who made love to her.

Startsev was left alone with Catherine, remembered how he had once courted her, and “a little light had dimmed in his soul”. He talked, complained about life:

We are aging, getting fat, we are falling. ... life passes dimly, without impressions, without thoughts ... In the afternoon I am gaining, and in the evening a club, a society of gamblers, alcoholics, wheezing, whom I cannot stand.

Ekaterina Ivanovna objected that he had “work, a noble purpose in life,” but she was mistaken in considering herself a talented pianist — she is “the same pianist as the writer’s mother.” In Moscow, she recalled Startsev and saw him sublime, ideal.

Startsev suddenly remembered the pleasure that money brought him, and "the light in my soul went out." Ekaterina Ivanovna asked him to come, but he ignored her letters and did not visit the Turkins anymore.

Chapter 5. The Elders becomes Ionitch

A few more years passed. Startsev became fat, breathless and irritable, shouting at patients. He had a great practice in the city. He bought up houses in the city and went to look at them, unceremoniously passing through the rooms and not paying attention to “naked women and children”.

When he, chubby, red, rides a troika with bells ... then the picture is impressive, and it seems that it is not a man who is traveling, but a pagan god.

Startsev did not abandon the Zemsky practice only because of greed. Both in the village and in the city it was long called simply Ionych. He lived alone, and his life was boring - all the same collecting money and screw in the evenings. Hearing in conversation about the Turkins, Ionych asked: “What kind of Turkins are you talking about? Is it about those daughter playing the pianos? ”

Ekaterina Ivanovna also did not get married. She grew old, became sick, played the piano for four hours a day, and traveled with her mother to the Crimea every autumn. Ivan Petrovich, who did not leave his jokes, escorted them to the station and waved his handkerchief after him, wiping away his tears.