figure
Vitalin
also: Виталин
The hero of the still-unpublished story draft Suvorin sent Chekhov to edit in December 1891, alongside. In Chekhov's editorial advice he is visited by the ghost of the dead Varya, whose forceful memory is said to explain the haunting; Chekhov proposes a further twist in which Vitalin, groping in the dark, mistakenly embraces a skeleton instead of the character Natasha and is found dead beside it the next morning.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 17 December 1891. Moscow. §3 Vitalin
The hero of Suvorin's story draft, introduced here for the first time in the corpus by name; the dead Varya appears to him because, Chekhov argues, she left behind too forceful and commanding a memory of herself not to haunt him. Chekhov later proposes a further macabre twist: that Vitalin, groping in the dark, mistakenly embraces a skeleton instead of Natasha and is found dead on the floor the next morning.