Auld Lang Syne

Anton Chekhov died in 1904 from tuberculosis at the tender age of forty-four. One of my old Russian instructors, an Armenian linguist and grammarian from the Soviet Union, met Chekhov’s widow when she was at an advanced old age. He asked her if she might say a few words about the great writer.

“Ehh, ” she shrugged, airily waving her hand, “it was so long ago I can barely remember.”