by Serge Persky
II
ANTON TCHEKOFF[2]
[2] This spelling has been adopted here, rather than Chekhov, since it is more familiar to the public. In all other cases, the _ch_ and _v_ have been retained.
"There is a saying that man needs only six feet of ground, but thatis for a corpse and not for a living man. It is not six feet ofground that man requires, not even an entire estate, but the wholeterrestrial globe, nature in its fullness, so that all his facultiescan expand freely."
This is the proud profession of faith that Anton Tchekoff made onentering the literary world. He was born January 17, 1860, atTaganrog, where his father, a freed serf, lived. After attendingschool in his native town, he took up the study of medicine atMoscow. Once a doctor, rather than practise, he devoted most of histime to literature. His career as an author does not offer us anyextraordinary situations. He owed his success, and later on hisglory, to severe and prolonged work. His literary talent manifesteditself while he was still a student. He began his career withhumorous short stories which were published in various newspapers.They brought him enough for the bare necessities of life.
These stories have been collected in two volumes. They are veryshort, almost miniatures. For the most part they are eleganttrifles, worked out with painstaking care. One feels that the authorhad no definite goal in sight; he wrote them simply to amuse andentertain his readers. One would search in vain for any sort ofphilosophy. On the contrary, one finds there a rather significantspirit, a gaiety, care-free, loquacious and, at times, ironical.Unimportant people tell pleasant things about themselves or others.All these men are a trifle debauched, talky, futile, and theircompanions are flighty, intriguing little women who chatterincessantly. Everything begins and ends with a laugh. This recallssome of the early works of Gogol, but, we repeat, one finds no moralelement in this laughter, and these tiny comedies are in reality nomore than simple vaudeville sketches. Once in a while we find a sadnote; less frequently, we find the sadness accentuated in order topresent a terrible drama. Such, then, are the contents of the firsttwo volumes which came from the pen of Tchekoff.
However, this melancholy little note, met from time to time,gradually grew in intensity in the third volume, until later on itlost all trace of the old carelessness, and developed, on thecontrary, into a profound sadness. Tchekoff unconsciously gave upthe "genre" of pleasant anecdote in order to concentrate all hisattention on facts. This practice made him sad. Russia was, at thistime, going through a period of prostration as a result of the lastRusso-Turkish war. This war, which, at the cost of enormoussacrifices, ended in the liberation of the Bulgarian people,awakened among the Russians a hope of obtaining their own liberty,and provoked among the younger generation the most energetic effortsto obtain this liberty, no matter what the cost might be. Alas, thishope was frustrated! All efforts were in vain, a reaction followed,and the year 1880 brought the reaction to its height. From then onapathy followed in the steps of the great enthusiasm. All illusionfled. A kind of disenchantment filled all minds. Those who had hopedwith such ardor, and had counted on their own strength, felt weakand powerless. Some confined themselves to moaning incessantly. Agrey twilight enveloped Russian life and filled it with melancholy.These are the dreary aspects that Tchekoff describes, and none hasexcelled him in portraying the events of this hopeless reaction. Hisstories and dramas give us a long procession of people who succumbto the monotony, to the platitudes, to the desolation, ofexistence.
It is in the following manner that one of his characters expresseshis ideas on the subject of this moral crisis:
"I was then not more than twenty-six years of age; nevertheless Iwas conscious not only that life was senseless, but that it waswithout any visible goal; that all was illusion and dupery; that, inits consequences and even in its very essence, the life of theexiled on the island of Sakhaline was very much the same as the lifethat was led at Nice; that the difference between the brain of Kantand the brain of a fly was very small; finally, that no one in thisworld was either right or wrong."
This idea of the nothingness of life, with its extremes, monstrousand profitless, is often found in the work of Tchekoff. His story"The Kiss" is but a variation of this theme,--the absurdity of life.Lieutenant Riabovich, under the influence of a chance kiss, a kissthat was not meant for him, dreams of love for an entire summer; hewaits impatiently for the return of the pretty stranger; but alas,his lovely dream cannot be realized, for the simple and cruel reasonthat no one is waiting for _him_, no one is interested in him. Oneday, on the banks of a stream, the young officer gives himself up tohis reflections:
"The water flows off; one knows not where nor why; it flowed inexactly the same way last May; from the stream it flows into theriver, and then into the sea; then it evaporates, turns into rain,and perhaps the very same water again flows by before my eyes.... Towhat good? Why?" And all life appears to Riabovich an absurdmystification and seems thoroughly senseless.
The hero of "The Bet" absolutely scorns humanity, with its petty andits great deeds, its little and its great ideas, because he feelsthat after all everything must disappear, be annihilated, and theearth itself will turn into a mass of ice.
* * * * *
Tchekoff has given us innumerable rough sketches typical of peoplebelonging to the most diverse social classes. He seems to take hisreaders by the hand and to lead them wherever he can show themcharacteristic scenes of modern Russian society,--be it in thecountry, in the factory, in princely dwellings, at the post-office,or on the highway. He barely takes the time absolutely necessary todepict in a few, appropriate words a state of mind or the secret ofa gesture. One would say that he hastens to express the totality oflife with the variety of his detached manifestations of it. That iswhy his stories are short; often mere allusions stand in place ofactual development. And whatever domains or corners of Russian lifethe reader, under the guiding hand of this perspicacious cicerone,may visit, he will almost always go away with one predominatingimpression: the lamentable isolation of Russia.
"The Windswept Grain" shows the reader a religious establishment,where a young Jew, recently converted, has taken refuge. Here is ayoung man, very impressionable and eager to learn, who has fled fromhis home and his family, whose prejudices offended him. His familytries every means to bring him back and to punish his apostasy.
In order to employ his energies effectively, the young proselyte,who has embraced the new religion only that he may follow progress,tries to get a position as a school-teacher. But the apostleship oflearning cannot satisfy his versatile mind: he continues to flitfrom one thing to another, like a gypsophilia, driven by the windacross the entire stretch of the steppes of southern Russia.
Then Tchekoff takes us to a postal station to show us another typeof the "Windswept Grain." This man, like the young convert, is adreamer, who puts heart and soul into any new idea that comes along.He also has spent his life in searching for an activitycorresponding to his ideal. At present, being a widower, he isobliged to support both himself and his daughter, who, while lovinghim devotedly, never ceases to reproach him for the manyinconveniences of their uncertain existence. In the evening, a youngwidow from a neighboring province gets off at the place where he andhis daughter are living. When she sees the young girl pouting, sheconsoles her by caressing her with the tact peculiar to women. Then,at tea time, she starts talking to the father. The idealist tells ofhis life, and reveals to the young woman the plans that he has made.The true sympathy with which she listens, and the respectful andtender feeling that he has for her, inevitably makes the readerthink that fate has not brought these two people together in vain,and that their lives will be united. This impression persists whenon the next day we find the young woman entering her carriageassisted by her companion of the evening before. We wait for theword that will unite this couple. But neither of them pronounces theall-important phrase. The carriage leaves; the man remains for along time motionless as a statue, watching with a mingled feeling ofjoy
and suffering the distant road and his disappearing happiness,which, but a moment ago, he seemed to hold in his hand.
After those who insist on always realizing their temporary ideals,let us take up characters of a new type, those whom destiny hasirredeemably conquered, and who have finally resigned themselves totheir fate.
An example of this type is Sofia Lvovna in "Volodia the Great andVolodia the Small." Married to a rich colonel, she has no other endin life. The days pass, tiresome, monotonous, filled only withvisits and driving; the nights are interminable and sad near thishusband whom she does not love, and whom she married out of spiteand for money. Love for a comrade of her youth, Volodia by name,fills her heart. But this young man, who has recently finished hisstudies, is just as commonplace and just as debauched as her husbandand the society which surrounds her. Sofia Lvovna is not yetresigned to her fate. She speaks of her aspirations to her childhoodfriend, who, after getting from her what he desires, leaves her atthe end of a week. And Sofia Lvovna becomes frightened at thethought that for the young girls and women of her station there isno other alternative than to go on riding in carriages, or to entera convent and gain salvation.
"The Attack" gives us an example of the terrible feeling of terrorthat suddenly enters the proud soul of a young man at his firstcontact with certain realities.
The student Vassiliev, a young man of excessively nervoustemperament, has visited a house of ill-fame, and since then, hecannot rid himself of his painful impressions. Sombre thoughtsbeset his mind: "Women, living women!" he repeats, his head betweenhis hands. "If I broke this lamp you would say that it was too bad;but down there it is not lamps that they break, it is the existenceof human creatures! Living women!..."
He dreams of several ways of saving these unfortunates, and hedecides childishly to stand on a street-corner, and say to eachpasser-by:
"Where are you going? and why? Fear God."
But this desire soon gives place to a general state of anguish andhatred of himself. The evil seems too great for him, and itsvastness crushes him. In the meantime, the people about him do notsuffer; they are indifferent or incredulous. The student feels thathe is losing his mind. They confine him. Later on, when, cured, heleaves the alienist, "he blushes at his anxiety."... The generalindifference has broken down his aspirations, smothered his vaguedream.
In "Peter the Bishop," we see a man, good and simple, the son ofpeasants. This man, thanks to his intelligence, has raised himselfto the rank of bishop. During all his life he has suffocated in thishigh ecclesiastical position, the pompous tinsel of which troubleshim to such an extent that the cordial and sincere relationshipexisting between him and his old mother, who is so full of respectfor her son, is broken off. After his death he is quickly forgotten.The old mother, now childless, when she walks in the fields with thewomen of the village, still speaks of her children, of hergrandchildren, and of her son, the bishop. But she speaks timidly ofhim, as if she feared that they would not believe her. And, intruth, no one puts any faith in what she says.
It is among the people and the working classes that man is mostcompletely rid of all traces of an artificial and untruthfulexterior; the struggle against misery does not leave much room forother preoccupations; life is merciless, it crushes unrelentinglyman's dreams of happiness, and often does not leave any one to sharethe burden of sorrows or even its simple cares. The short and verytouching story of "The Coachman" gives us an excellent example ofthis loneliness. Yona, a poor coachman, has lost his son; he feelsthat he has not the strength to live through this sorrow alone; hefeels the absolute need of speaking to some one. But he tries invain to confide his sorrows to one or the other of his patrons. Noone listens to him. Therefore, once his day's work is over, alone inthe stable, he pours out his heart to his horse: "Yes, my littlemare, he is dead, my beloved child.... Let us suppose that you had acolt, and that this colt should suddenly die, wouldn't that causeyou sorrow?" The mare looks at him with shining eyes, and snufflesthe hand of her master, who ends by telling her the entire story ofthe sickness and death of his son.
In "The Dreams," a miserable vagabond, whom two constables aretaking to the neighboring city, dreams aloud of the pleasant life heexpects to lead in Siberia, whither he hopes to be deported. Hisgaolers listen to him not without a certain interest. They alsobegin to dream ... they dream of a free country, from which they areseparated by an enormous stretch of land, a country that they canhardly conceive. One of them brusquely interrupts the dreams of thevagabond: "That's all right, brother, you'll never get to thatenchanted land. How are you going to get there? You are going totravel 300 versts and then you'll give your soul up to God. You arealready almost gone." And then, in the imagination of the vagabond,other scenes present themselves: the slowness of justice, thetemporary jails, the prison, the forced marches and the weary halts,the hard winters, sickness, the death of comrades.... "A shudderpasses through his whole body, his head trembles and his bodycontracts like a worm which has been trodden upon...."
Let us now look at those numerous stories of Tchekoff which treat ofpeasant life: "The Peasants," "The Murder," "In the Ravine," andothers.
"The Peasants" is one of the most important of the stories whichtreat of the country, and was recently conspicuous for bringing upthe question, violently discussed by the Marxists and the Populists,of the life of the people in the city and in the country.
Nicholas Chigueldyev, a waiter in a Moscow hotel, falls sick and hasto leave his work. All his savings go into the hands of the doctorand the druggist. As he does not seem to improve, he decides toreturn to his native village, where his family is still living. Ifthe air of the country does not cure him, he will at least die athome. He had left the village at an early age, and had never goneback to visit. He goes home with his wife and his little daughter.There he finds his mother, his father, and his two brothers andtheir wives in the most abject misery. The whole family is entombedin a dark and filthy "isba" full of flies. Nicholas and his wifeimmediately see that it would have been better for them to haveremained in Moscow. But it is too late. They haven't enough money toreturn; they must remain. A horrible life begins for the sick manand his family. There are endless quarrels, blows, abuses. Theyreproach one another for eating and even for living. They are angryat Nicholas and his wife for having come. The latter is soon tiredof this existence. In the city Nicholas had broken himself ofcountry manners. He wants to go back to Moscow. But where find themoney for the trip?... His sickness becomes more acute. An oldtailor, a former nurse, who has been called in, promises to curehim; he bleeds him several times and Nicholas dies. The widow andher little daughter spend the winter in the village. The youngwoman, who had watched during those long days of suffering, is nowbroken down. When spring comes, the mother and daughter go to thechurch, and, after praying at the grave of their dead, they gobegging on the highway.
In "The Murder" Tchekoff studies certain manifestations in thespiritual life of the peasants. Matvey Terekof belongs to a peasantfamily the members of which are all known for their piety; in thevillage they are called "the singing boys." Very orthodox, they holdthemselves aloof and give themselves over to mysticism.
Instead of playing with his little comrades, Matvey is constantlyporing over the Gospel. His piety increases, he prays night andday, hardly eats anything, and experiences "a singular joy atfeeling himself grow weaker through the fasting." One day he noticesthat the priest of the village is less pious than he. He enters aconvent in the hopes of finding there true Christians. But eventhere his disillusionment comes soon. Finally, he decides to found achurch of his own. He hires a little room which he transforms into achapel. He finds disciples and soon gains a reputation as athaumaturgical saint.
A sect, of which he is to be the head, is in process of formation,when, one day, he finds that he is on the wrong track. He thinks hehas committed a mortal sin. Pride has taken possession of him; it isthe Devil and not God who now directs his moves. Conscious of hiserror, he returns to orthodoxy, and, in the ho
pes of expiating hiswrong-doing, he humiliates himself everywhere and on every occasion.
But his cousin Jacob, having become infected with his earlier ideas,practises them with the fanatic ardor of a neophyte. With his sisterand several other religious people, he locks himself into his houseto pray; he sings vespers and matins. In the meanwhile Matveydecides that he must read Jacob a sermon.
"Be reasonable," he tells him repeatedly, "repent, cousin. You willlose, because you are the prey of the demon. Repent."
Instead of repenting, Jacob and his sister vow an implacable hatredagainst Matvey; so extreme is their feeling, that one day, at theend of an altercation, Jacob, blinded by rage, kills his cousin.
He is judged and condemned. He is sent to the island of Sakhaline.There, he languishes, suffers, and despairs. But, little by little,his mind grows peaceful, and he has consoling visions. In prison heis surrounded by pariahs and criminals, and the sight of all thishuman suffering turns him again towards God, towards the religion ofLove, the religion of pity for mankind. And now he wants to returnto the country to tell of the miracle that has taken place in him,and to save souls from ill and ignorance.
In "The Ravine" evil and injustice triumph at times with revoltingcynicism. Evil is in everything and everywhere: "in the greatmanufacturers who drive along the streets of the village, crushingmen and beasts; in the bailiff and the recorder, who are such badcharacters that their very faces betray their knavery;" and finally,in the central figure of the story, Axinia, the wife of Stepan, theyoungest son of Tzibukine, a usurer and monopolist.
The unhealthy ravine hides a village inhabited by factory workers.The best house belongs to Gregory Tzibukine, who traffics ineverything: brandy, wheat, cattle, lumber, and usury, on the side.His eldest son, Anissme, is employed at the police station andseldom comes home; the second son, Stepan, is deaf and sickly; hehelps his father both well and badly, and his wife, the pretty andcoquettish Axinia, runs all day between the cellar and the shop. Thefather Tzibukine is also friendly to her and respects this youngwoman, for she is a very good worker and is most intelligent.Tzibukine, a widower, has married Varvara, an affable and pious soulwho gives alms,--a strange thing in this family who cheat everybody.Anissme often sends home beautiful letters and presents. One day, hecomes unexpectedly; he has an unquiet, and, at the same time,flippant air. His parents have decided to get him married, and,although he is a drunkard, ugly and vulgar, they have found him apretty wife. The girl is Lipa, daughter of a poor widow, a laborerlike her mother. Anissme whistles and looks at the ceiling, andshows no signs of pleasure at his coming marriage. He leaves thehouse in a strange manner, and appears again three days before thewedding, bringing to his parents, as gifts, some newly coined money.The wedding day has come. The clergy and the well-to-do of theneighborhood are present at the dinner, which is sumptuously served.Lipa seems petrified with fear, for she barely knows her husband.The festivities last a long time; at intervals the voices of womencan be heard outside hurling curses at the usurer. Then Anissme,red, drunk, and sweating, is shoved into the room where Lipa hasalready disrobed. Five days later, Anissme comes to his mother andbids her good-bye. He confides in her that some one has given himadvice, and that he has decided either to become rich or to perish.Now that her husband has departed, Lipa again becomes gay.
Meanwhile, they have arrested a reaper accused of having circulateda bad piece of money which he says he received from Anissme thenight of the wedding. Tzibukine goes home, examines the money thathis son has given him, and decides that it is all counterfeit. Heorders Axinia to throw every bit of it into the well. But, insteadof obeying, she pays it out as wages to the workmen. A week passes;they find out that Anissme has been thrown into prison as acounterfeiter. Tzibukine despairs; he feels his strengthdiminishing. Varvara continues to pray and to watch, while Stepanand Axinia continue to ply their trade as before. When, later on,Anissme is sentenced to ten years at hard labor in Siberia, Varvarasuggests to her husband that he should leave one of his houses tothe child which has just been born to Lipa, so that no one willspeak badly of him after his death. But, at this suggestion, Axiniaflies into such a fury, that, in her homicidal rage, she throws akettle of boiling water over the child, who dies later at thehospital. Finally, she drives the young woman out of the house. Lipareturns to her mother. Soon Axinia reigns as absolute mistress ofthe house. Tzibukine becomes distracted; he does not take care ofhis money any more, because he cannot tell the good from the bad.Rumor has it that his daughter-in-law is letting him die of hunger.Varvara still goes on with her good work. Anissme is forgotten. Theold man, starving, and driven from home, lodges a complaint againstthe young woman. Coming back to the village, the old man, totteringalong the street, meets Lipa and her mother, who are now doing tilework.
"Both bow deeply to him, and he looks at them with tears in hiseyes. Lipa offers him a piece of oatmeal cake, and the two women goon their way, crossing themselves several times...."
The virtuous Varvara is an extremely characteristic type, with asubtle psychology, carefully worked out; her honesty and goodnessform an indispensable contrast to the ambient horrors.
The author himself explains the role of Varvara and her action inthis system of evil. "Her alms seem to be something strange, joyousand free, like the red flowers and the lights that glow before thesaintly images." On holidays, and on jubilees, which last threedays, when coarse and rotten meat is sold to the peasants who cometo pawn their scythes and hats, or their wives' shawls; when theworkingmen lie in the gutter under the influence of bad brandy, then"one feels a bit relieved at the thought that down there, in thathouse, there is a good and quiet woman, always ready to helpunfortunates."
Lipa and her mother are good and timid souls who suffer in silence,and give to the poor the little that they possess:
"It seemed to them that some one up on high, further up than theazure, there among the stars, saw what was going on in theirvillage, and watched. Big as the evil is, in spite of it, the nightis beautiful and calm; justice is and will be calm and beautiful onGod's earth also; the universe awaits the moment when it can meltinto this justice, as the light of the moon melts into the night."
* * * * *
These, then, are Tchekoff's favorite themes, on which he has tracednumerous variations, always breathing forth a profound melancholy.
"The life of our industrial classes," he says, "is dark, and dragsitself along in sort of a twilight; as to the life of our commonpeople, workingmen and peasants, it is a black night, made up ofignorance, poverty, and all sorts of prejudices."
But from this ocean of ignorance, of barbarity, of misery whichmakes up the life of a peasant, Tchekoff has taken out the things ofmost importance, things that always happen in the most solemnmoments of their existence.
"All," he says, in describing a religious procession in the country,"the old man, his wife and the others, all stretch forth their handsto the ikon of the holy Virgin, regard her ardently, and say throughtheir tears: 'Protectress! Virgin protectress!' And all seem to haveunderstood that the space between Heaven and Earth is not empty;that the rich and the mighty have not swallowed up everything; thatthere is protection against all wrongs, slavery, misery, the fatalbrandy...."
Besides, in a story entitled "My Life," Poloznev, speaking of thepeasants, expresses himself in the following manner:
"They were, for the most part, nervous and irritable people,ignorant, and improvident, who could think of nothing but the greyearth and black bread; a people who were crafty, but were stupidabout it, like the birds, who, when they want to hide themselves,only hide their heads. They would not do the mowing for you fortwenty rubles, but they would do it for six liters of brandy,notwithstanding the fact that with twenty rubles they can buy eighttimes as much. What vice and foolishness! Nevertheless, one feelsthat the life of the peasant has a great deal of depth. It makes nodifference that he, behind his plough, resembles an awkward beast,or that he gets intoxicated. In spite of al
l, when you look at himclosely, you feel that he possesses the essential thing, thesentiment of justice."
This love of justice Tchekoff has had occasion to observe even amongconvicts. "The convict," he says, in his book on the prison ofSakhaline, of which he made a profound study during his stay on theisland, "the prisoner, completely corrupted and unjust as he himselfis, loves justice more than any one else does, and if he does notfind it in his superiors, he becomes angry, and grows baser and moredistrustful from year to year."
* * * * *
In the last works of Tchekoff the pessimistic tendency grows greaterand greater. It seems as if the writer had gone through a sort ofmoral crisis, brought on by the conflict of his old despair and hisnew hopes. At this time, Russian society itself began to shake offits apathy, and this awakening, sweeping like a vivifying wave intothe soul of the sad artist, opened for him, at the same time,perspectives of new ideas.
This second aspect of Tchekoff's talent is perceptible in the storycalled "The Student." A seminarist, Velikopolsky by name, tells thegardener Vassilissa and her daughter Lukeria about St. Peter'sdenial of Christ. As a result of the impression which this storymakes on her Vassilissa suddenly breaks into tears; she weeps a longtime and hides her face as if she were ashamed of crying. Lukeria,who has been watching the student fixedly, blushes and her facetakes on the tender and sad expression which is characteristic ofthose whose life is made up of deep suffering. After taking leave ofthem, the student thinks that Vassilissa's tears and the emotion ofher daughter come from sorrows connected with the things he has justtold them.
"If the old woman wept, it was not because he knew how to tell thestory in a touching manner, but because Peter was near to her, andbecause she was interested, heart and soul, in what was going on inthe mind of the apostle...."
Joy suddenly fills his heart, and he stops a moment to take a longbreath. "The past," he muses, "is bound to the present by anuninterrupted chain of events." "And it seems to him that he hasjust seen the two ends of this chain: he has touched one, and theother has vibrated...."
* * * * *
In an ironical manner and by using very personal material, Tchekoffpaints more than anything else, life in its passive or negativemanifestations. Nevertheless, it is not satire, at least not in itsgeneral trend, for in his work we find too much human tenderness forsatire. He does not laugh at his characters, and does not nail themto the pillory in an outburst of indignation. In his writing, thefundamental idea is fused with the form; his talent is calm,thoughtful, observing; but it seems, at times, that this calmness,this seeming indifference, is only a mask. A critic, speaking ofTchekoff, has said: "He is a tender crayon." It would be hard tofind a more suitable expression. The delicacy of tone, the softnessof touch in the outlines, the polish of some of the details, thecapricious incompleteness of others are, in fact, the mark of histalent.
Tchekoff was such a voluminous author that it would require averitable effort to remember the throng of characters which existsin his books; and it is more than difficult not to confuse theirindividual doings and achievements. This abundance is connected witha peculiarity in the author's talent. He does not exhaust hissubject; the psychology of his characters is emphasized by two orthree expressive traits only, and this epitome is enough to make thetheme of a story, the simplicity and naturalness of which demand,nevertheless, a high degree of art. The author is not interested inoutlining the details, but the picture that he has sparinglyconjured up stands out lifelike; he is always in a hurry to observeand to tell. Therefore the brevity and quantity of his stories. Hisstories seldom exceed ten pages in length, while some do not exceedfour. They constitute a series of sketches, of miniatures of rarevalue, among which can be found some real gems. One cannot say asmuch for his longer works, where certain parts are exaggerated, asin "The Valet de Chambre," "Ward No. 6," "The Steppe," and "TheDuel."
The characters of the latter novel are especially weak and bad.There is but one exception, the zoologist von Koren, a man ofdetermination, who believes that the suppression of useless peopleand degenerates would be a meritorious piece of work. This idea issuggested to him by the sight of a functionary called Layevsky, aninsignificant and lazy person, who has taken the wife of one of hisfriends and fled with her to the Caucasus.
"The Valet de Chambre" is an equally unsatisfactory story. Theprincipal character is a young man who is supposed to be arevolutionist. He enters the service of a Petersburg dandy in hopesof meeting there a minister whom he wants to kill. The employer ofthe pseudo-lackey, who is not aware of any of his projects, is amasterful presentation of a type which we know as the sybariticalcitizen; the character of the valet is so fantastical that theaccount of his adventures belongs absolutely to the "genre" of thenewspaper novel.[3]
[3] In many European papers there is always to be found a part called the "feuilleton," which usually consists of a serial story, continued from day to day.
"Ward No. 6" is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerfulstory that Tchekoff has written. It is an analysis of moraldegeneration, leading progressively to insanity, in a doctor who isseized by the pervasive banality of the village in which hepractises. Tchekoff, like many other Russian writers, has shownhimself a master in the study of certain psychological anomalies.Certain conversations between the doctor, who himself is going mad,and a patient who has long since lost his reason, interesting asthey are from a philosophical standpoint, leave the world of realityand run free according to the imagination of the author, who takesadvantage of this to formulate some of his favorite theories.
* * * * *
Tchekoff has also tried himself out on the drama, and he has thereestablished himself in a peculiar manner. His plays, like his otherliterary productions, belong to two distinct periods.
There are some amusing little trifles that do not amount to much.Among these are: "The Bear," "The Asking in Marriage," and others.Then come the more serious plays, where one feels for a moment theinfluence of Ibsen. We find here again the same heroes, each of whomtalks about his own particular case, and acts only in starts. Theseare specimens of "failures" belonging to the most tiresomeprovincial society.
In "Ivanov," the author studies the mentality of a "failure."Dominated by a sickly self-love, he has known nothing but losses. Hecontinually complains of his real and his imaginary sufferings.After squandering all his fortune, he marries a young girl, whom hewants to have act as his nurse. This empty life ends in suicide.
In "Uncle Vanya," we have Vanya, a man full of goodness, modesty,and self-abnegation contrasted with the celebrated professorSerebriakof, an egoist, unfeeling, scornful, and ungrateful. Thelatter, who has recently remarried, comes back to the estate whichUncle Vanya, the brother of his first wife, has managed for him. Forseveral years Vanya has been working incessantly; he has saved inevery possible way so that he can send as much money as possible tohis brother-in-law, this professor, fondled and pampered by thewhole family, who see in him their glorification. But Serebriakofsoon gets tired of the country; besides, he thinks that thedoctor--a friend of the family who is taking care of him--does notunderstand his sickness, and he begins to mistrust him. He wants togo away, to travel, in order to recover his health, and, in order tomake money, he proposes to sell the estate, which legally belongs toSonya, the daughter of his first wife.
Up to this time Uncle Vanya and the other members of the family aswell, had sacrificed themselves entirely to this celebrated man. Butat this proposition Vanya realizes that their idol is nothing but anabominable egoist, and he begins to despise his brother-in-law. Whatis more, he secretly loves the young and beautiful wife of theprofessor, while she suffers from the everlasting complaints andcaprices of her husband. However, a general reconciliation takesplace. The professor and his wife leave for the city, and all goeson as before; Uncle Vanya and the family will sacrifice themselvesfor the glory of Serebriakof, to whom all the revenues of th
e estateare sent.
The "Three Sisters," that is to say the sisters of Prozorov, livewith their brother in a vulgar, tiresome town,--a town lacking inmen of superior minds, a town where one person is like the next.
The great desire of the three sisters is to go to Moscow, but theirapathy keeps them in the country, and they continue to vegetatewhile philosophizing about everything that they see. However, at thearrival of a regiment, they become animated, and have sentimentalintrigues with the officers till the very day of their departure.
"They are going to leave; we shall be alone; the monotonous life isgoing to begin again," cries one of the sisters.
"We must work; work alone consoles," says the second.
And the youngest exclaims, embracing her two sisters, while themilitary band plays the farewell march:
"Ah, my dear sisters, your life is not yet completed. We are goingto live. The music is so gay! Just a little bit more, and I feelthat we shall know why we live, why we suffer...."
This certainly is the dominant note of Tchekoff's philosophy: theimpotency of living mitigated by a vague hope of progress.
The last, and perhaps the most important play of Tchekoff, is "TheCherry Garden."[4] Human beings, locked up in themselves, morallybounded, impotent and isolated, wander about in the old seignioralestate of the Cherry Garden. The house is several centuries old. Informer times a happy life was led there; feasts were given, andgenerals and princes were the hosts. The Cherry Garden gave tone tothe neighborhood, but many years have passed!... Now other houseshave taken its place: the estate is mortgaged, the interest is notpaid, and the only guests now are the postman or a railway officialwho lives close by. The occupants of the house do not think of doinganything about this state of things. For them the past is gone. Allthat is left is a dislike for work, carelessness, improvidence, andignorance of the necessities of the present. Like all that dies,they evoke a certain pity, a certain fatality hangs over them. Theinhabitants of the Cherry Garden set forth their ideas about oneanother; but in reality none of them see anything but themselves, intheir small and very limited moral world, and they analyze withdifficulty the embryos of thought that are left to them. Thus, theycannot grasp in full the evil that is falling on the old home, andthey remain impassive when some one proposes to alleviate this evilby energetic means. People speak to them of the downfall to whichthey are doomed; a means of safety is proposed, but they turn a deafear and continue in their narrow and fruitless dream. Finally, whenthe estate is sold, they look upon this event as a fatal andunexpected blow. They say good-bye to the cradle of their family,weeping silently, and depart.
[4] For some reason, unknown to the translator, the author has made no mention of Tchekoff's famous play, "The Sea-Gull." This drama, which, when first produced, was a flat failure, scored a tremendous success a short while afterwards. It is especially interesting in that the author has made one of the characters, Trigorin, largely autobiographical. To-day "The Sea-Gull" is one of the most popular productions on the Russian stage.
They are now thrown out into the world. The old existence has gone,as well as the seignioral estate. The Cherry Garden is to be torndown; the blinds are all lowered, and in the half-darkened rooms,the old servant, who is nearly a century old, wanders about amongthe disordered furniture.
* * * * *
Tchekoff is a true product of Russian literature, an autochthonplant, nourished by his natal sap. His humor is completely Russian;we hear Tolstoyan notes in his democracy; the "failures" of hisstories are distantly related to the "superficial characters" ofTurgenev; finally, the theory of the redemption of the past bysuffering which he puts in the heart of the hero of the "CherryGarden" makes us think of Dostoyevsky. The qualities which call tomind all these great names in Russian literature are found in theworks of Tchekoff along with characteristics which show a veryoriginal talent. If one wishes to look for foreign influence, onecan relate Tchekoff to de Maupassant and Ibsen, of whom he remindsone in snatches, although still in a very vague way. And that isindeed fortunate, for, in general, Scandinavian symbolism hardlygoes hand in hand with the Russian spirit, which likes to make_direct_ answers to "cursed questions," and whose ideal, elaboratedsince 1840 in the realm of strict realism, is so definite that itdoes not necessitate going back to the circumlocutions of metaphorsand allegories.
While Tchekoff lived his literary aspect was enigmatical. Somejudged him to be indifferent, because they did not find in hiswritings that revolutionary spirit which is felt in almost allmodern writers. Others thought of him as a pessimist who saw nothinggood in Russian life, because he described principally resignedsuffering or useless striving for a better life. Since the death ofTchekoff, which made it necessary for the critics to study his worksas a whole, and especially since the publication of hiscorrespondence, his character has come to the fore, as it really is:he is a writer, who, by the very nature of his talent, wasirresistibly forced to study the inner life of man impartially, andwho, consequently, remains the enemy of all religious orphilosophical dogmas which may hinder the task of the observer.
The division of men into good and bad, according to the point ofview of this or that doctrine, angered him:
"I fear," he says in one of his letters, "those who look for hiddenmeanings between the lines, and those who look upon me as aliberator or as a guardian. I am neither a liberal nor aconservative, neither a monk nor an indifferent person. I despiselies and violence everywhere and under any form.... I only want tobe an artist, and that's all."
One realized that this unfettered artist, with his hatred of liesand violence, although he belonged to no political party, could benothing but a liberal in the noblest and greatest sense of the word.One also realized that he was not the pessimist that he was oncebelieved to be, but a writer who suffered for his ideal and whoawakened by his works a desire to emerge from the twilight of lifethat he depicted.
To some he even appeared as an enchanted admirer of the futureprogress of humanity. Did he not often say, while admiring his ownlittle garden: "Do you know that in three or four hundred years theentire earth will be a flourishing garden? How wonderful it will beto live then!" And did he not pronounce these proud words: "Man mustbe conscious of being superior to the lions, tigers, stars, inshort, to all nature. We are already superior and great people, and,when we come to know all the strength of human genius, we shall becomparable to the gods."
These great hopes did not prevent him from painting with a vigorousbrush the nothingness of mankind, not only at a certain given momentand under certain circumstances, but always and everywhere. Is thisa paradox? No. If he did not doubt progress, he would be mostpessimistic, if I may so express myself. He would suffer from thatearthly pessimism, in face of which reason is weak; the pessimismwhich manifests itself by a hopeless sadness in face of thestupidity of life and the idea of death.
"I, my friend, am afraid of life, and do not understand it," saysone of Tchekoff's heroes. "When, lying on the grass, I examine alady-bird, it seems to me that its life is nothing but a texture ofhorrors, and I see myself in it.... Everything frightens me becauseI understand neither the motive nor the end of things. I understandneither persons nor things. If you understand I congratulate you.
"When one looks at the blue sky for a long time, one's thoughts andone's soul unite mysteriously in a feeling of solitude.... For amoment one feels the loneliness of the dead, and the enigma ofhopeless and terrible life."
This universal hopelessness; this sadness, provoked by theplatitudes of existence compared with the unrelenting lessons ofdeath, of which Tchekoff speaks with such a nervous terror, can befound in almost all the works of the best known Russian writers. Wefind it in Byronian Lermontov, who sees nothing in life but "uneplaisanterie;" in Dostoyevsky, who has written so many strikingpages of realism on the bitterness of a life without religiousfaith; and in the realist Turgenev, we find the same kind of thing.Turgenev even reaches a stage of hopeless nihilism, and one of hisheroes, B
azarov,--in "Fathers and Sons,"--reflecting one day on thelot of the peasant, considering it better than his, says sadly, "He,at least, will have his little hut, while all I can hope for is abed of thorns." Finally, all the tortuous quests of the ideal towardwhich Tolstoy strove, were suggested to him, as he himself says, byhis insatiable desire to find "the meaning of life, destroyed bydeath."
It is sometimes maintained that this state of intellectual sadnessis innate in the Russians; that their sanguinary and melancholytemperaments are a mixture of Don Quixote and Hamlet. Foreigncritics have often traced this despair to the so-called mysticismpeculiar to the Slavonic race.
What is there mystical in them? The consciousness of thenothingness, of the emptiness of human life, can be found deep downin the souls of nearly all mankind. It shows itself, among mostpeople, only on rare tragic occasions, when general or particularcatastrophes take place; at other times it is smothered by theimmediate cares of life, by passions that grip us, and, finally, byreligion. But none of these influences had any effect on Tchekoff.He was too noble to be completely absorbed by the mean details oflife; his organism was too delicate to become the prey of anoverwhelming passion; and his character too positive to give itselfover to religious dogmas. "I lost my childhood faith a long timeago," he once wrote, "and I regard all intelligent belief withperplexity.... In reality, the 'intellectuals' only play atreligion, chiefly because they have nothing else to do." Tchekoff,in his sober manner, has seen and recognized the two great aspectsof life: first, the world of social and historical progress with itspromise of future comforts; secondly, an aspect that is closelyrelated to the above, the obscure world of the unknown man who feelsthe cold breath of death upon him. He was an absolute positivist;his positivism did not make him self-assertive nor peremptory; onthe contrary, it oppressed him.
But why should this sad state of mind, which has been expressed bygreat men in all literatures, be so exceptionally prominent amongthe Russians, and particularly among the modern ones? The reason is,without a doubt, because the political and social organization ofRussia has always been a prison for literature. Oppression hadreached its height during Tchekoff's life. This period was themoment of suffocation before the storm. If Tchekoff were aliveto-day, now that the tempest has burst forth, his sadness would belessened, or it would at least have before it the screen which,according to Pascal, people wear before their eyes that they may notsee the abyss, on the edge of which they pass their lives. Up to thepresent time, the Russians have lacked these screens.
