Chekhov on marriage

A few mid-1890s stories by Anton Chekhov take a different tack: after he'd been exploring longer, almost novelistic forms with Ward No. 6 and others, he moved back (at least it would seem this way in the Pevear-Volkhonsky selection) to a few shorter stories that focus, as many of his earlier ones did, on a single moment or image: but whereas the earliest stories tended at times to be sharp and ironic, these mid-to-later career stories are sorrowful, and they establish a new Chekhovian theme of tragic misalliances, bad marriages: Rothschild's Fiddle, one of the best, concerns the old coffin-maker who realizes, on the death of his wife, that he was unkind to her and unsympathetic through her whole life - we see them together in only the last stages, and it's horrible, as he expects his wife to serve him even when she's on the verge of death, and she tries, out of a fear of his wrath; the coffin-maker is one of the most despicable characters in Chekhov - most of his protagonists and at the least sympathetic, but not him - though he repents at the end and bequeaths his violin, or fiddle, the the Jewish musician, Rothschild, whom he'd abused for many years - and Rothschild can play only sad tunes with his new instrument. Others, The Student and the oddly titled Anna on the Neck (reference double: to a medal worn on the collar, and to a wife's dragging her husband down, hindering him) - the latter story in particular a story of a terrible marriage, young girl marries much older man for his wealth, but naturally she breaks free from him when other men notice her beauty - the old man, though stingy, even miserly, does nothing terribly wrong, but still Chekhov treats him like an object of ridicule, with no sympathy. At this point in his career, Chekhov seems to have a very darkened view of marriage, for some reason, and he illustrates, through a series of stories, how people who enter into matrimony do so at great peril.