The District Doctor

"The District Doctor" is a wonderful Turgenev short story that appealed and influenced American authors, such as Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its writing style, and Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway for its focus on moments. As the Doctor says to a new acquaintance, "Sometimes you know people for a long time and never talk about anything that touches the soul; sometimes you start there on the first conversation." This is reminiscent of Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, in which people have moments of clarity when they act or don't act; here the Doctor explains such a moment in his life. The story starts quietly and ends with the Doctor being satisfied with winning a bit more than two rubles at the card game Preference.