person
N. F. Zdekauer
Zdekauer
also: Здекауэр
Nikolai Fyodorovich Zdekauer, a physician ("an experienced old man") whose prediction of an imminent cholera outbreak Chekhov reports believing readily, with mock dread of the toll such an epidemic would take on doctors like himself.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 20 November 1889. Moscow. §7 I readily believe Zdekauer, who is prophesying cholera. He is an experienced old man.
N. F. Zdekauer, a physician whose forecast of a coming cholera epidemic Chekhov reports crediting; the section that follows is a mock-fearful riff on what a real epidemic would mean for Russian doctors specifically -- martial law, military mobilization of the medical profession, and dispatch to quarantine stations -- ending with a comic farewell to the leisured pleasures ('Saturday gatherings, young ladies, and glory') that epidemic duty would cost him.