XV ‑The witch and other Stories

Chap­ter II of “The Witch and Oth­er Sto­ries” shifts the focus from the tav­ern scene to a day in the life at Dr. B. O. Mozel­weis­er’s hydro­path­ic estab­lish­ment, empha­siz­ing rou­tine amidst the New Year’s Day cel­e­bra­tions. Ear­ly in the morn­ing, Andrey Hrisan­fitch, the porter adorned in a fresh­ly braid­ed uni­form, engages in his dai­ly duties with a notable enthu­si­asm for the hol­i­day, greet­ing vis­i­tors with New Year’s wish­es. His inter­ac­tion with a gen­er­al, a reg­u­lar patron, under­scores the mun­dan­i­ty of his role, as they exchange cus­tom­ary greet­ings and the gen­er­al inquires, as always for­get­ful­ly, about the pur­pos­es of the rooms.

The nar­ra­tive takes a ten­der turn when Andrey receives a let­ter from the coun­try addressed to him, which he imme­di­ate­ly hands over to his wife, Yefimya, with­out detain­ing him­self from his news­pa­per. This ges­ture, lack­ing direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion, reveals dimen­sions of their rela­tion­ship, char­ac­ter­ized by rou­tine and unspo­ken under­stand­ings. Yefimya’s reac­tion to the let­ter is pro­found; through her tears and joy, she immers­es her­self and her chil­dren in the vivid descrip­tions of their coun­try home, bring­ing to life its sim­plic­i­ty, warmth, and the deep con­nec­tion to famil­ial roots. The let­ter evokes a strong emo­tion­al response, high­light­ing her long­ing for the peace­ful, idyl­lic life away from their cur­rent set­ting.

The dichoto­my between Andrey’s detached demeanor and Yefimya’s emo­tion­al depth is strik­ing. Andrey’s absence dur­ing the moments of Yefimya’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty sug­gests a dis­con­nec­tion or a pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of his duties over fam­i­ly time. It becomes evi­dent that Andrey, per­haps caught up in the demands of his job, had pre­vi­ous­ly neglect­ed to mail let­ters Yefimya had giv­en him, let­ters that nev­er reached their intend­ed recip­i­ents.

The chap­ter clos­es with Andrey respond­ing to anoth­er work duty, show­cas­ing the relent­less nature of his job and fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the nar­ra­tive of a man caught between pro­fes­sion­al oblig­a­tions and per­son­al dis­con­nect. Yefimya’s fear of Andrey hints at deep­er issues with­in their rela­tion­ship, sub­tly illus­trat­ed through her reac­tions and the atmos­phere of the room when he is present. This chap­ter clev­er­ly jux­ta­pos­es the cel­e­bra­tion of a new year, sym­bol­iz­ing new begin­nings, with the stark real­i­ty of the char­ac­ters’ lives, encap­su­lat­ing themes of long­ing, rou­tine, and the com­plex­i­ty of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships.