Selected Stories of Anton Chekov Part 1

Stories by Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov.

INTRODUCTION

In the autumn of 1844 a young writer named Dmitri Grigorovich was sharing rooms with a friend of his from military engineering school, the twenty-three-year-old Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was at work on his first novel, Poor Folk. Poor Folk. Through Grigorovich the finished ma.n.u.script reached the hands of Vissarion Belinsky, the most influential critic of the time, whose enthusiasm launched Dostoevsky's career. More than four decades later, in 1886, this same Grigorovich, now an elder statesman of literature, came across the humorous sketches of someone who signed himself "Antosha Chekhonte," brought them to the attention of the publisher Alexei Suvorin, and thus "recognized" the last great Russian writer of the nineteenth century-Anton Chekhov. Through Grigorovich the finished ma.n.u.script reached the hands of Vissarion Belinsky, the most influential critic of the time, whose enthusiasm launched Dostoevsky's career. More than four decades later, in 1886, this same Grigorovich, now an elder statesman of literature, came across the humorous sketches of someone who signed himself "Antosha Chekhonte," brought them to the attention of the publisher Alexei Suvorin, and thus "recognized" the last great Russian writer of the nineteenth century-Anton Chekhov.Grigorovich also wrote to the young man himself, scolding him for not taking his work seriously and for hiding behind a pseudonym. Chekhov was astonished and deeply moved. In his reply, dated March 28, 1886, after apologizing for scanting his talent, though he suspected he had it, and thanking Grigorovich for confirming that suspicion, he explained:... In the five years I spent hanging around newspaper offices, I became resigned to the general view of my literary insignificance, soon took to looking down on my work, and kept plowing right on. That's the first factor. The second is that I am a doctor and up to my ears in medicine. The saying about chasing two hares at once has never robbed anybody of more sleep than it has me.The only reason I am writing all this is to justify my grievous sin in your eyes to some small degree. Until now I treated my literary work extremely frivolously, casually, nonchalantly; I can't remember working on a single a single story for more than a day, and "The Huntsman," which you so enjoyed, I wrote in a bathing house ... All my hope lies in the future. I'm still only twenty-six. I may manage to accomplish something yet, though time is flying ... story for more than a day, and "The Huntsman," which you so enjoyed, I wrote in a bathing house ... All my hope lies in the future. I'm still only twenty-six. I may manage to accomplish something yet, though time is flying ...*Just a month earlier, Chekhov had written to a friend saying that his real commitment was to medicine, while literature was a mistress he would one day abandon. Now he likened the effect of Grigorovich's letter on him to "a governor's order to leave town within twenty-four hours." And he obeyed the order. He began to write less and work more. The first story signed with his real name, "Panikhida," appeared in Suvorin's magazine New Time New Time that same year-the start of a close and sometimes difficult collaboration between writer and editor that would continue for the rest of Chekhov's life. Though a delight in the absurd and a sharp eye for human folly remained central to his work, he was no longer merely a humorist. The repentant sketch-writer had made his entry into serious literature. that same year-the start of a close and sometimes difficult collaboration between writer and editor that would continue for the rest of Chekhov's life. Though a delight in the absurd and a sharp eye for human folly remained central to his work, he was no longer merely a humorist. The repentant sketch-writer had made his entry into serious literature.Chekhov's contemporaries were struck by his originality. He invented a new kind of story, which opened up areas of life that had not yet been explored by Russian literature. Tolstoy saw it at once. "Chekhov is an incomparable artist," he is quoted as saying, "an artist of life ... Chekhov has created new forms of writing, completely new, in my opinion, to the whole world, the like of which I have not encountered anywhere ... Chekhov has his own special form, like the impressionists." Tolstoy was not alone in using the term "impressionism" to describe Chekhov's art. We may see what he meant if we look at "The Huntsman," the story that first caught Grigorovich's eye. Written entirely in the present tense, it opens with some fragmentary observations about the weather, a brief but vivid and (typically for Chekhov) slightly anthropomorphized description of the fields and forest, a few spots of color-the red s.h.i.+rt and white cap of the huntsman. A woman appears out of nowhere. She and the huntsman talk, she tenderly and reproachfully, he boastfully and casually. "Ashamed of her joy," she "covers her mouth with her hand." He scratches his arm, stretches, follows some wild ducks with his eyes. It is clear from what he says that they cannot live together. He gets up and leaves; she watches him go: "Her gaze moves over the tall, skinny figure of her husband and caresses and fondles it ..." He turns, hands her a worn rouble, and goes on. She whispers, "Good-bye, Yegor Vlasych!" and "stands on tiptoe so as at least to see the white cap one more time." That is all. The story does not build to any moment of truth; it does not reach any significant conclusion. It simply stops.In a letter of May 10, 1886, to his older brother Alexander, who had taken up writing before him with only modest success, Chekhov, from his new position as a recognized author, set forth six principles that make for a good story: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compa.s.sion." It is a remarkably complete description of Chekhov's artistic practice. Authorial commentary, if not entirely absent, is kept to an absolute minimum. The most ordinary events, a few trivial details, a few words spoken, no plot, a focus on single gestures, minor features, the creation of a mood that is both precise and somehow elusive- such is Chekhov's impressionism. "This seemingly slight adjustment of tradition," wrote the critic Boris Eikhenbaum, "had, in fact, the significance of a revolution and exerted a powerful influence not only on Russian literature, but also on the literature of the world."*Chekhov's way of composition wordlessly wordlessly extends the limited scope of the story by means of juxtaposition, alternation, simultaneity, that is, by means of a new kind of poetic logic. His art is constructive not in a narrative but in a musical sense, to borrow D. S. Mirsky's terms. extends the limited scope of the story by means of juxtaposition, alternation, simultaneity, that is, by means of a new kind of poetic logic. His art is constructive not in a narrative but in a musical sense, to borrow D. S. Mirsky's terms.** Not that he wrote "musical" prose; on the contrary, his language is perhaps the plainest in Russian literature; but he built his stories by musical means-curves, repet.i.tions, modulations, intersecting tones, unexpected resolutions. Their essence, as Mirsky says, is not development but envelopment in a state of soul. They are "lyric constructions." That may partly explain the importance Chekhov gives to sounds, to precisely transcribed noises-night watchmen rapping on their wooden bars, the distinctive calls of corncrakes, cuckoos, bitterns, and "angry, straining frogs," the banging of shutters in a storm, the howling or singing of wood stoves, the humming of samovars, the ringing of bells-symbolic sounds, of which the most famous is the very last note in his work, the breaking string at the end of Not that he wrote "musical" prose; on the contrary, his language is perhaps the plainest in Russian literature; but he built his stories by musical means-curves, repet.i.tions, modulations, intersecting tones, unexpected resolutions. Their essence, as Mirsky says, is not development but envelopment in a state of soul. They are "lyric constructions." That may partly explain the importance Chekhov gives to sounds, to precisely transcribed noises-night watchmen rapping on their wooden bars, the distinctive calls of corncrakes, cuckoos, bitterns, and "angry, straining frogs," the banging of shutters in a storm, the howling or singing of wood stoves, the humming of samovars, the ringing of bells-symbolic sounds, of which the most famous is the very last note in his work, the breaking string at the end of The Cherry Orchard. The Cherry Orchard.Another aspect of Chekhov's originality is the inclusiveness of his world. He describes life in the capitals and the provinces, city life, village life, life in the new industrialized zones around the cities, life in European Russia, Siberia, the Crimea, the Far East, the life of n.o.blemen, officials, clergy high and low, landowners, doctors, intellectuals, artists, actors, merchants, tradesmen, peasants, prisoners, exiles, pampered ladies, farm women, children, young men, old men, the sane, and the mad. "One of the basic principles of Chekhov's artistic work," Boris Eikhenbaum notes, "is the endeavor to embrace all of Russian life in its various manifestations, and not to describe selected spheres, as was customary before him. The Chekhovian grasp of Russian life is staggering; in this respect, as in many others, he cannot be compared with anyone ..." His characters are not monumental personalities dramatically portrayed, like the heroes of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, they are sharply observed types-the darling, the explainer, the fidget, the student, the malefactor, the man in a case, the heiress, the bishop, the fiancee. They are made of "the common stuff of humanity," as Mirsky has said, "and in this sense, Chekhov is the most 'democratic' of writers." There is something in them reminiscent of Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims-the knight, the miller, the prioress, the parson, the manciple, the pardoner, the wife of Bath- but Chekhov's world is more scattered, and his people are transients of a more accidental sort: summer guests, doctors on call, hunters in the field, riders on ferries, pa.s.sersby, city people displaced to the country, country people out of place in the city. Their pilgrimage has no definite goal.Chekhov's early work was a popular success, and remains popular to this day among ordinary Russian readers, who do not share the common Western image of Chekhov as the pessimistic "poet of crepuscular moods," the "last singer of disintegrating trifles." His first collection, Tales of Melpomene, Tales of Melpomene, was published in 1884, the year he finished his medical studies; the second, was published in 1884, the year he finished his medical studies; the second, Motley Stories, Motley Stories, was published in 1886, and did so well that he gave up the idea of practicing medicine full-time and, with Grigorovich's blessing, devoted himself to writing. A year later came the collection was published in 1886, and did so well that he gave up the idea of practicing medicine full-time and, with Grigorovich's blessing, devoted himself to writing. A year later came the collection In the Twilight, In the Twilight, which was awarded the prestigious Pushkin Prize in 1888. Among the sketches and anecdotes of these early collections are some masterpieces of artistic concentration and force: not only "The Huntsman" but "The Malefactor," "Anyuta," "Easter Night," "Vanka," "Sleepy." Chekhov began writing plays at the same time, and with equal success. His first play, which was awarded the prestigious Pushkin Prize in 1888. Among the sketches and anecdotes of these early collections are some masterpieces of artistic concentration and force: not only "The Huntsman" but "The Malefactor," "Anyuta," "Easter Night," "Vanka," "Sleepy." Chekhov began writing plays at the same time, and with equal success. His first play, Ivanov, Ivanov, opened in Moscow on November 19, 1887. In January 1889 it was staged in Petersburg, where it was greeted with enthusiasm and much discussed in the newspapers and literary journals. The production later toured the provinces. opened in Moscow on November 19, 1887. In January 1889 it was staged in Petersburg, where it was greeted with enthusiasm and much discussed in the newspapers and literary journals. The production later toured the provinces.But, precisely because of its originality, Chekhov's work met with opposition from the established critics of the time. For decades literary criticism had been dominated by political ideologists, who judged literary works according to their social "message," their usefulness to the common cause. The writer was seen first of all as a pointer of the way, a leader in the struggle for social justice; his works were expected to be "true to life" and to carry a clear moral value. Faced with stories like "Anyuta" or "Easter Night," what were these critics to say? What were they to think of a writer whose first precept was the "absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature"? Chekhov's "impressionism" was seen as a form of art for art's sake, a denial of the writer's social role, and a threat to the doctrine of realism, and he was attacked for deviating from the canons of useful art.In fact, just as Chekhov created a new kind of story, he also created a new image of the writer: the writer as detached observer, sober, restrained, modest, a craftsman shaping the material of prose under the demands of authenticity and precision, avoiding ideological excesses, the temptations of moral judgment, and the vainglory of great ideas. That is how Chekhov himself has most often been seen, and certainly it was in part what he wanted to be. He often joked about his ideological shortcomings. "I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view," he wrote to Grigorovich on October 9, 1888. "I change it every month-and so I'll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak." He considered that the writer's job, and thought it was enough. On October 27, 1888, he wrote to Alexei Suvorin:The artist must pa.s.s judgment only on what he understands; his range is as limited as that of any other specialist-that's what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says the artist's field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. The artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes ... You are right to demand that an author take conscious stock of what he is doing, but you are confusing two concepts: answering the questions answering the questions and and formulating them correctly. formulating them correctly. Only the latter is required of an author. Only the latter is required of an author.The leading critic of the time, the populist Nikolai Mikhailovsky, said that those who admired Chekhov admired him precisely for the "indifference and impa.s.sibility" with which he applied his excellent artistic apparatus to a swallow or a suicide, a fly or an elephant, tears or water-"a revelation they call 'the rehabilitation of reality' or 'pantheism.' All in nature ... is equally worthy of artistic treatment, all can give equal artistic pleasure, and one must avoid selection according to a general idea or principle." Mikhailovsky considered this a waste of Chekhov's genuine talent. And Tolstoy, for all his admiration, was of a somewhat similar opinion. In August 1895, after Chekhov's first visit to his estate, he noted in his diary: "He is very gifted, must have a good heart, but up to now he has no definite point of view on things." The place Chekhov gave to contingency in his choice of themes and arrangement of details, the lack of any general idea to unify the whole, was considered his great originality or his great defect as an artist.Chekhov privately defended himself against the attacks of his critics in a letter written on October 4, 1888, to Alexei Pleshcheev, literary editor of the Northern Herald: Northern Herald:The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret G.o.d has not given me strength to be one. I hate lies and violence in all their forms, and consistory secretaries are just as odious to me as Notovich and Gradovsky [two unscrupulous left-wing journalists]. Pharisaism, dullwittedness and tyranny reign not only in merchants' homes and police stations. I see them in science, in literature, among the younger generation. That is why I cultivate no particular predilection for policemen, butchers, scientists, writers or the younger generation. I look upon tags and labels as prejudices. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.In his memoir Chekhov with Us, Chekhov with Us, written not long after Chekhov's death in 1904, Kornei Chukovsky called this now-famous letter "a gauntlet flung in the face of an entire age, a rebellion against everything it held sacred." The anger in it is far from the sobriety of a detached observer of life. It is the anger of a man looking back over decades of empty rhetoric, of the posturings of literary professionals, of newspaper battles between various factions and tendencies, of general ideas that led nowhere, of new political and artistic movements that drew young people in, distorted their lives, and left them with nothing, of falsity and cruelty coming both from the authorities and from their opponents. Chekhov portrayed these things time and again in his stories and plays, obstinately opposing them in the name of his "holy of holies." The restraint of the cool scientist, which was his artistic ideal, was nourished by strong feeling and, as Chukovsky rightly says, by rebellion. written not long after Chekhov's death in 1904, Kornei Chukovsky called this now-famous letter "a gauntlet flung in the face of an entire age, a rebellion against everything it held sacred." The anger in it is far from the sobriety of a detached observer of life. It is the anger of a man looking back over decades of empty rhetoric, of the posturings of literary professionals, of newspaper battles between various factions and tendencies, of general ideas that led nowhere, of new political and artistic movements that drew young people in, distorted their lives, and left them with nothing, of falsity and cruelty coming both from the authorities and from their opponents. Chekhov portrayed these things time and again in his stories and plays, obstinately opposing them in the name of his "holy of holies." The restraint of the cool scientist, which was his artistic ideal, was nourished by strong feeling and, as Chukovsky rightly says, by rebellion.Chekhov's "impressionism" was not simply a literary manner: it corresponded to something much deeper in his perception of the world. The fragmentation of the picture into "separate brushstrokes" and the vagueness of the general outline reflect an inner state, perhaps best described by the old professor in "A Boring Story" (1889). This famous doctor, teacher, and man of science discovers something of a disturbingly non-scientific sort at the end of his life:... in all the thoughts, feelings, and conceptions I form about everything, something general is lacking that would unite it all into a single whole. Each feeling and thought lives separately in me, and in all my opinions about science, the theater, literature, students, and in all the pictures drawn by my imagination, even the most skillful a.n.a.lyst would be unable to find what is known as a general idea or the G.o.d of the living man.The professor's dilemma amounts to a commentary on Chekhov's artistic method. Like his hero, Chekhov refused to subst.i.tute a false G.o.d for the absent "G.o.d of the living man." In his revolt against general ideas, according to the philosopher Lev Shestov, he "finally frees himself from ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection between the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and original characteristic of his creation." Shestov's essay "Creation from the Void," written in 1908 and still one of the most penetrating discussions of Chekhov's art, contains the following description of the spiritual condition of that time:To calculate beforehand is impossible. Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity. One believes and disbelieves-everything.This was the condition within which, and against which, Chekhov worked. He was more acutely aware of it than most of his contemporaries, which is why we still read him with a sense of immediacy.Chekhov came to literature by an unlikely path. He was born in 1860, in the town of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His grandfather was a serf, but bought freedom for himself and his family even before the emanc.i.p.ation of 1861. His father was a grocer. The family- there were three more brothers and a sister-was a very close one, and Chekhov always had the greatest respect for his parents, who were simple people, pious and not very educated. When he was seventeen, he wrote to his younger brother Mikhail: "Our parents are the only persons in the world for whom I will never stint in anything. If something becomes of me, it will be the work of their hands. The unlimited love they bear for their children is enough to put them beyond all praise and to cover up the faults provoked in them by a thankless life." He never separated from them, supported them as soon as he could, and in 1892, when he bought the small estate of Melikhovo, south of Moscow, brought them there to live with him, together with his sister and younger brother. Such family closeness was rare ("extremely rare," according to D. S. Mirsky) among the intelligentsia, but not among the peasants from whom Chekhov came.From 1867 to 1879, he attended the Greek school in Taganrog, where he received an Orthodox religious education. His upbringing was also religious; he and his brothers sang in the church choir, conducted by their father; they read the Epistles and Psalms in church, served as altar boys and bell ringers. He looked back on the experience as rather gloomy, and later lost his faith, but his familiarity with church life shows in many of his stories, and his knowledge of the services and prayers was probably more precise than that of any other Russian writer. His work is also imbued with a Christian understanding of suffering. The critic Leonid Grossman has described him as "a probing Darwinist with the love of St. Francis of a.s.sisi for every living creature."*In 1876 Chekhov's father lost his business and to escape debtor's prison had to flee to Moscow, where his eldest son, Alexander, was studying. The rest of the family went with him, leaving the sixteen-year-old Anton to finish high school alone in Taganrog. He gave lessons to support himself, lived very poorly, but completed his studies in 1879, after which he joined his family in Moscow and entered medical school. Ten years later he gave an oblique description of the change he went through during this period of his life in a letter to Suvorin (January 7, 1889):What aristocratic writers take from nature gratis, the less privileged must pay for with their youth. Try and write a story about a young man-the son of a serf, a former grocer, choirboy, schoolboy and university student, raised on respect for rank, kissing priests' hands, wors.h.i.+pping the ideas of others, and giving thanks for every piece of bread, receiving frequent whippings, making the rounds as a tutor without galoshes, brawling, torturing animals, enjoying dinners at the houses of rich relatives, needlessly hypocritical before G.o.d and man merely to acknowledge his own insignificance- write about how this young man squeezes the slave out of himself drop by drop and how, on waking up one fine morning, he finds that the blood coursing through his veins is no longer the blood of a slave, but that of a real human being.To support his medical studies, and his family, Chekhov followed his brother Alexander's example and began to contribute brief sketches and stories to popular magazines, signing his work in various camouflaged ways, most often with the nickname "Antosha Chekhonte," bestowed on him by one of his teachers in Taganrog. He finished medical school in 1884, and though he never finally set up as a doctor, he always remained faithful to medicine and acknowledged that he owed a great deal to his study of the natural sciences and his acquaintance with the scientific method. "Both anatomy and belles-lettres are of equally n.o.ble descent," he once wrote to Suvorin, "they have identical goals and an identical enemy-the devil-and there is absolutely no reason for them to fight ... Goethe the poet coexisted splendidly with Goethe the naturalist." During his years in Melikhovo, he organized clinics and gave free treatment to hundreds of peasants from the district. He helped to fight the cholera epidemics of 1891 and 1892, and worked for famine relief during the same period. He also built a school in Melikhovo in 1892, which came out so well that he was asked to build two more in neighboring villages during the next three years. He also built a bell tower for the village church. He donated thousands of books to the library in Taganrog and helped to set up a marine biology station in Yalta, where he lived after 1898. In practical matters, Chekhov was an enormously active man, and one can sense from his letters the relief he felt in taking up such work. Literature, his mistress, was a more ambiguous affair.As early as 1888, he wrote to Suvorin expressing his admiration for men of action, in particular the explorer N. M. Przhevalsky:I do infinitely love people like Przhevalsky. Their personality is a living doc.u.ment which shows society that beside the people who argue about optimism and pessimism, who, out of boredom, write trivial stories, unnecessary projects, and cheap dissertations, who lead a depraved existence in the name of denial of life, and who lie for the sake of a hunk of bread-beside the skeptics, mystics, psychopaths, Jesuits, philosophers, liberals, and conservatives-there are still people of another order, people of heroic action, of faith and a clear, conscious goal.*It was in this same spirit that Chekhov decided, in 1890, to travel to Sakhalin Island, off the far eastern coast of Russia, to study conditions in this place that had been founded as a penal colony and to take a census of the population. "I owed a debt to medicine," he explained. The trip took him across the whole of Russia. He spent several months on the island, interviewed hundreds of people, took voluminous notes, and returned by s.h.i.+p via Hong Kong, Singapore, and Ceylon-an experience reflected in the story "Gusev."** The result of the trip was the doc.u.mentary book The result of the trip was the doc.u.mentary book Sakhalin Island Sakhalin Island (1893), which in turn resulted in certain reforms in the treatment of prisoners and the administration of the colony. Later Chekhov also sent s.h.i.+pments of books to the island's library. (1893), which in turn resulted in certain reforms in the treatment of prisoners and the administration of the colony. Later Chekhov also sent s.h.i.+pments of books to the island's library.Faithful to his family, to medicine, to the places that marked his life-Taganrog, Sakhalin, Melikhovo, Yalta-Chekhov was also faithful to his friends. A case in point is his resignation from the Russian Academy in quiet protest when the young Maxim Gorky was refused members.h.i.+p. His relations with Alexei Suvorin are another case in point, and a more telling one. The publisher of New Time New Time became more and more conservative and pro-government as he grew older. Chekhov was far from sharing Suvorin's views and often wrote him caustic letters about them, but they remained friends. The only real break between them came over the Dreyfus affair. Chekhov had suffered a severe hemorrhage of the lungs in March of 1897 and was living in Nice when the Dreyfus case was reopened. He became a staunch Dreyfusard, and even went to Paris in April of the next year to meet with Dreyfus's brother and the journalist Bernard Lazare, whose articles had forced the reopening of the case, and offer them his support. Suvorin meanwhile took a strongly anti-Dreyfus and anti-Semitic position in his magazine, which so disgusted Chekhov that he stopped meeting and corresponding with him. But they made peace again before too long. Chekhov even managed to remain on good terms with his chief ideological opponent, Nikolai Mikhailovsky, whom he referred to privately as "an important sociologist and failed literary critic." became more and more conservative and pro-government as he grew older. Chekhov was far from sharing Suvorin's views and often wrote him caustic letters about them, but they remained friends. The only real break between them came over the Dreyfus affair. Chekhov had suffered a severe hemorrhage of the lungs in March of 1897 and was living in Nice when the Dreyfus case was reopened. He became a staunch Dreyfusard, and even went to Paris in April of the next year to meet with Dreyfus's brother and the journalist Bernard Lazare, whose articles had forced the reopening of the case, and offer them his support. Suvorin meanwhile took a strongly anti-Dreyfus and anti-Semitic position in his magazine, which so disgusted Chekhov that he stopped meeting and corresponding with him. But they made peace again before too long. Chekhov even managed to remain on good terms with his chief ideological opponent, Nikolai Mikhailovsky, whom he referred to privately as "an important sociologist and failed literary critic."Chekhov was less faithful to the women who fell in love with him-and many did. There was Lika Mizinova, with whom he was "nearly" in love, but then failed to keep a rendezvous while traveling abroad in 1894. There was the novelist Lydia Avilova, whom he called to his bedside when he was hospitalized with consumption in 1897, and who left slightly deluded memoirs about their romance. There was also the mysterious "fiancee" he mentions in a letter, whose family nickname, "Missyus," he gave to the younger sister in "The House with the Mezzanine." It was only in 1899 that he met the woman he would finally marry: Olga Knipper, a young actress in the Moscow Art Theater. It was there, in the theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, that his last plays were staged: The Seagull, The Seagull, which became the company's "totem," in 1898, followed by which became the company's "totem," in 1898, followed by Uncle Vanya Uncle Vanya in 1899. In 1901, the year of their marriage, came the triumphant production of in 1899. In 1901, the year of their marriage, came the triumphant production of Three Sisters, Three Sisters, and in 1904, just months before his death, the still greater triumph of and in 1904, just months before his death, the still greater triumph of The Cherry Orchard. The Cherry Orchard.Chekhov's admiration for men of "heroic action" like Przhevalsky, and his own energetic activity as a doctor, a builder of schools and clinics, are oddly contradicted by the weakness, anguish, ineffectuality, and resignation of the protagonists in his stories and plays. In fact, contradiction runs deep in Chekhov's nature. It is not hard to find examples. He was the most humane of writers, yet his stories are as merciless as any ever written. He constantly portrayed himself in his work, and constantly denied it. His art has an air of impa.s.sivity, but is fueled by indignation and protest. He believed in progress, yet he shows only the natural and human waste it has caused. He scorned the new Symbolist movement in literature, but the surface objectivity of his work gives way time and again to a visionary symbolism of his own (of which "The Black Monk" is the most obvious, and least successful, example). This well-known Chekhovian ambiguity is not a halfhearted mixture of contraries. Resignation and revolt are equally extreme in his work and are mysteriously held together, though they ought to tear his world apart.We may find the source of these contradictions in Chekhov's att.i.tude toward science. "Goethe the poet coexisted splendidly with Goethe the naturalist," he wrote to Suvorin, expressing his own ideal. He had no doubt that his scientific training had been of benefit to his artistic work. "It significantly broadened the scope of my observations and enriched me with knowledge whose value for me as a writer only a doctor can appreciate ... My familiarity with the natural sciences and the scientific method has always kept me on my guard; I have tried wherever possible to take scientific data into account, and where it has not been possible I have preferred not writing at all" (letter of October 11, 1899). But what sort of knowledge did he draw from science and the scientific worldview?The chief thing it taught him was that the order of the world is implacable and indifferent to human suffering. He could observe its operation in the progress of his own illness, the first definite symptoms of which appeared in 1889, the year he wrote "A Boring Story," which marked the beginning of his maturity. He could also observe it in his medical practice, which, as Leonid Grossman has written, "brought home to Chekhov with remarkable fullness the horror of life, the cruelty of nature, and the impotence of man." Doctor-protagonists confront the same cruelty and impotence in scenes repeated throughout his work-with the brutality and indifference of human beings added to it, or simply making one with it.Nikolai Stepanovich, the old professor in "A Boring Story," likes reading the current French authors, because "not seldom one finds in them the main element of creative work-a sense of personal freedom, which Russian authors don't have." Chekhov also preferred Flaubert, Zola, Maupa.s.sant, who, along with Tolstoy, were his acknowledged masters. Zola's notion of the writer-scientist and his concept of the "experimental novel" interested him, but formally speaking it was Maupa.s.sant who influenced him most. He learned much from Maupa.s.sant's handling of the short story, in which artistic refinement is hidden behind an apparent casualness and superficiality As Leonid Grossman notes, Maupa.s.sant also "reinforced Chekhov's convictions about the colorlessness of life, the horror of death, the animal nature of man. Life in its basic nature is much simpler, shallower, and more insignificant than we are accustomed to think it-here is the hard core of Maupa.s.sant's work." But the contradictions in Chekhov were more profound and more fruitful than in the French naturalists. He absorbed their "dark tenets," but at the same time he rebelled against them with all his strength.Andrei Yefimych, the doctor-protagonist of "Ward No. 6," meditating one night on the "life cycle," the naturalists' final solution to the question of human immortality, thinks to himself: "Only a coward whose fear of death is greater than his dignity can comfort himself with the thought that in time his body will live in gra.s.s, a stone, a toad ... To see one's own immortality in the life cycle is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future to the case after the costly violin has been broken and made useless." In a letter of April 16, 1897, Chekhov rejected Tolstoy's idealist notion of immortality in almost the same terms: "He recognizes immortality in its Kantian form, a.s.suming that all of us (men and animals) will live on in some principle (such as reason or love), the essence of which is a mystery. But I can only imagine such a principle or force as a shapeless, gelatinous ma.s.s; my I, my individuality, my consciousness would merge with this ma.s.s-and I feel no need for this kind of immortality ..."Here we touch on the paradox that Lev Shestov finds at the heart of Chekhov's work:Idealism of every kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable bitterness in Chekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power is in the world, crus.h.i.+ng and crippling man-this is clear and even palpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most insignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself about it as long as one knows of it only by hearsay But the man who has once been in the iron claws of necessity loses forever his taste for idealistic self-delusion.And thus, says Shestov, "the only philosophy which Chekhov took seriously, and therefore seriously fought, was positivist materialism," which says that "man, brought face to face with the laws of nature, must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way" The human spirit can only submit. And yet in Chekhov "the submission is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant hatred of the unknown enemy."It is worth pursuing Shestov's argument, because it is easy to mistake his meaning. He calls Chekhov "the poet of hopelessness." This sounds like the same old accusation of pessimism and resignation that is so often leveled at Chekhov. But Shestov means something very different.Thus the real, the only hero of Chekhov, is the hopeless man. He has absolutely no action action left for him in life, save to beat his head against the stones ... He has nothing, he must create everything for himself. And this "creation out of the void," or more truly the possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and inspire Chekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Chekhov begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mikhailovsky did not call "evil" in vain. left for him in life, save to beat his head against the stones ... He has nothing, he must create everything for himself. And this "creation out of the void," or more truly the possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and inspire Chekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Chekhov begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mikhailovsky did not call "evil" in vain.Shestov is right to state the paradox in the most extreme terms. Chekhov, who admired men of action, has no action action left except to beat his head against the wall. It is hardly a scientific way to proceed. But then, readily as he acknowledged his debt to science, it is precisely science that has "robbed him of everything." His only hope lies in utter hopelessness. Anything else would be a lie or a form of violence, a general idea or a utopia at gunpoint. And it is here, in this "void," that Chekhov begins "seeking new paths." left except to beat his head against the wall. It is hardly a scientific way to proceed. But then, readily as he acknowledged his debt to science, it is precisely science that has "robbed him of everything." His only hope lies in utter hopelessness. Anything else would be a lie or a form of violence, a general idea or a utopia at gunpoint. And it is here, in this "void," that Chekhov begins "seeking new paths."Like Hamlet, he would dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience and fort.i.tude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to many intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark, but Chekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving ... An inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all. It may be Chekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is moving forward or marking time.That is how Chekhov formulates the question. formulates the question. In a conversation with Ivan Bunin, he mentioned that his own favorite among his stories was "The Student," and wondered how people could call him a pessimist after that. The story is one of his shortest. It interweaves the student's grim thoughts about poverty and hunger and the surrounding emptiness and darkness-"all these horrors had been, and were, and would be, and when another thousand years had pa.s.sed, life would be no better"-with his sudden recollection of Peter's denial of Christ. He tells the story to an old widow and her daughter, and they both begin to "weep bitterly," as Peter wept after his betrayal. The student goes on his way. "A cruel wind was blowing, and winter was indeed coming back, and it did not seem that in two days it would be Easter." He begins thinking about the widow: "If she wept, it meant that everything that had happened with Peter on that dreadful night had some relation to her ..." And joy suddenly stirs in his soul: "The past, he thought, is connected with the present in an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of the other. And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of the chain: he touched one end, and the other moved." The student's thoughts are given only the slightest shade of irony, just enough to call his youthful "antic.i.p.ation of happiness, an unknown, mysterious happiness" into question without demolis.h.i.+ng it. That happiness remains, along with the tears of Peter and of the two women, along with the cold wind, the surrounding darkness, and the promise of Easter. "In his revelation of those evangelical elements," writes Leonid Grossman, "the atheist Chekhov is unquestionably one of the most Christian poets of world literature." In a conversation with Ivan Bunin, he mentioned that his own favorite among his stories was "The Student," and wondered how people could call him a pessimist after that. The story is one of his shortest. It interweaves the student's grim thoughts about poverty and hunger and the surrounding emptiness and darkness-"all these horrors had been, and were, and would be, and when another thousand years had pa.s.sed, life would be no better"-with his sudden recollection of Peter's denial of Christ. He tells the story to an old widow and her daughter, and they both begin to "weep bitterly," as Peter wept after his betrayal. The student goes on his way. "A cruel wind was blowing, and winter was indeed coming back, and it did not seem that in two days it would be Easter." He begins thinking about the widow: "If she wept, it meant that everything that had happened with Peter on that dreadful night had some relation to her ..." And joy suddenly stirs in his soul: "The past, he thought, is connected with the present in an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of the other. And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of the chain: he touched one end, and the other moved." The student's thoughts are given only the slightest shade of irony, just enough to call his youthful "antic.i.p.ation of happiness, an unknown, mysterious happiness" into question without demolis.h.i.+ng it. That happiness remains, along with the tears of Peter and of the two women, along with the cold wind, the surrounding darkness, and the promise of Easter. "In his revelation of those evangelical elements," writes Leonid Grossman, "the atheist Chekhov is unquestionably one of the most Christian poets of world literature."The old professor of "A Boring Story," who knows that he has only six months to live, finds something strange happening to him, despite his faith in science and indifference to "questions about the darkness beyond the grave."In the midst of a lecture, tears suddenly choke me, my eyes begin to itch, and I feel a pa.s.sionate, hysterical desire to stretch my arms out and complain loudly I want to cry in a loud voice that fate has sentenced me, a famous man, to capital punishment, and that in six months or so another man will be master of this auditorium. I want to cry out that I've been poisoned; new thoughts such as I have never known before have poisoned the last days of my life and go on stinging my brain like mosquitoes. And at such times my situation seems so terrible that I want all my listeners to be horrified, to jump up from their seats and, in panic fear, rush for the exit with a desperate cry.His stifled protest and hysteria have little in common with the dignity with which the bishop dies in almost the last story Chekhov wrote. But are the two men not essentially alike? The one belongs to the hierarchy of science, the other to the hierarchy of the Church, but life, which is given to us only once (how often Chekhov repeats that trite phrase!), is being taken from both of them, senselessly and ineluctably Each of them is isolated from his family and friends in this incommunicable and incomprehensible experience. The bishop "goes to the Lord's Pa.s.sion," to read the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion on Good Friday, and dies on Holy Sat.u.r.day, before the bells joyfully announce the resurrection. What happens to him is the same as what happens to the old professor. By very different means, with opposite tonalities, both stories reveal the infinite value of what is peris.h.i.+ng. Through the forms Chekhov finds to express this living contradiction, the world begins to show itself in a new way.RICHARD P PEVEAR* Quotations of Chekhov's letters, unless otherwise noted, are from Quotations of Chekhov's letters, unless otherwise noted, are from Letters of Anton Chekhov, Letters of Anton Chekhov, selection, introduction, and commentary by Simon Karlinsky, trans. by Michael Henry Heim in collaboration with Simon Karlinsky, New York, 1973. selection, introduction, and commentary by Simon Karlinsky, trans. by Michael Henry Heim in collaboration with Simon Karlinsky, New York, 1973.* "Chekhov at Large" (1944), in "Chekhov at Large" (1944), in Chekhov: A Collection of Critical Essays, Chekhov: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. R. L. Jackson, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967. ed. R. L. Jackson, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967.** See the chapter on Chekhov in his See the chapter on Chekhov in his History of Russian Literature. History of Russian Literature.* "Chekhov as Naturalist" (1914), in "Chekhov as Naturalist" (1914), in Chekhov, Chekhov, ed. R. L. Jackson. ed. R. L. Jackson.* Trans. by Elizabeth Henderson, in Trans. by Elizabeth Henderson, in Chekhov, Chekhov, ed. R. L. Jackson. ed. R. L. Jackson.** According to the memoirs of his brother Mikhail, Chekhov sometimes swam off the s.h.i.+p with a towline and in that way once happened to observe the movements of a shark and a school of pilot fish. He also witnessed the burial of two men at sea: "When you see a dead man wrapped in sailcloth flying head over heels into the water ... you grow frightened and somehow start thinking that you are going to die too and that you too will be thrown into the sea" (letter of Suvorin, December 9, 1890). According to the memoirs of his brother Mikhail, Chekhov sometimes swam off the s.h.i.+p with a towline and in that way once happened to observe the movements of a shark and a school of pilot fish. He also witnessed the burial of two men at sea: "When you see a dead man wrapped in sailcloth flying head over heels into the water ... you grow frightened and somehow start thinking that you are going to die too and that you too will be thrown into the sea" (letter of Suvorin, December 9, 1890).

THE DEATH OF A CLERK

One fine evening the no less fine office manager Ivan Dmitrich Cherviakov1 was sitting in the second row of the stalls, watching was sitting in the second row of the stalls, watching The Bells of Corneville The Bells of Corneville2 through opera gla.s.ses. He watched and felt himself at the height of bliss. But suddenly ... This "but suddenly" occurs often in stories. The authors are right: life is so full of the unexpected! But suddenly his face wrinkled, his eyes rolled, his breath stopped ... he put down the opera gla.s.ses, bent forward, and ... ah-choo!!! As you see, he sneezed. Sneezing is not prohibited to anyone anywhere. Peasants sneeze, police chiefs sneeze, sometimes even privy councillors sneeze. Everybody sneezes. Cherviakov, not embarra.s.sed in the least, wiped his nose with his handkerchief and, being a polite man, looked around to see whether his sneezing had disturbed anyone. And now he did become embarra.s.sed. He saw that the little old man sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and neck with his glove and muttering something. Cherviakov recognized the little old man as General Brizzhalov, through opera gla.s.ses. He watched and felt himself at the height of bliss. But suddenly ... This "but suddenly" occurs often in stories. The authors are right: life is so full of the unexpected! But suddenly his face wrinkled, his eyes rolled, his breath stopped ... he put down the opera gla.s.ses, bent forward, and ... ah-choo!!! As you see, he sneezed. Sneezing is not prohibited to anyone anywhere. Peasants sneeze, police chiefs sneeze, sometimes even privy councillors sneeze. Everybody sneezes. Cherviakov, not embarra.s.sed in the least, wiped his nose with his handkerchief and, being a polite man, looked around to see whether his sneezing had disturbed anyone. And now he did become embarra.s.sed. He saw that the little old man sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and neck with his glove and muttering something. Cherviakov recognized the little old man as General Brizzhalov,3 who served in the Department of Transportation. who served in the Department of Transportation."I sprayed him!" thought Cherviakov. "He's not my superior, he serves elsewhere, but still it's awkward. I must apologize."Cherviakov coughed, leaned forward, and whispered in the general's ear:"Excuse me, Yr'xcellency, I sprayed you ... I accidentally ...""Never mind, never mind ...""For G.o.d's sake, excuse me. I ... I didn't mean it!""Ah, do sit down, please! Let me listen!"Cherviakov became embarra.s.sed, smiled stupidly, and began looking at the stage. He looked, but felt no more bliss. Anxiety began to torment him. In the intermission he went up to Brizzhalov, walked around him, and, overcoming his timidity, murmured:"I sprayed you, Yr'xcellency ... Forgive me ... I ... it's not that I ...""Ah, come now... I've already forgotten, and you keep at it!" said the general, impatiently twitching his lower lip."Forgotten, but there's malice in his eyes," thought Cherviakov, glancing suspiciously at the general. "He doesn't even want to talk. I must explain to him that I really didn't mean it ... that it's a law of nature, otherwise he'll think I wanted to spit. If he doesn't think so now, he will later! ..."On returning home, Cherviakov told his wife about his rudeness. His wife, it seemed to him, treated the incident much too lightly. She merely got frightened, but then, on learning that Brizzhalov served "elsewhere," she calmed down."But all the same you should go and apologize," she said. "He might think you don't know how to behave in public!""That's just it! I apologized, but he was somehow strange ... Didn't say a single sensible word. And then there was no time to talk."The next day Cherviakov put on a new uniform, had his hair cut, and went to Brizzhalov to explain ... Going into the general's reception room, he saw many pet.i.tioners there, and among them was the general himself, who had already begun to receive pet.i.tions. Having questioned several pet.i.tioners, the general raised his eyes to Cherviakov."Yesterday, in the Arcadia, if you recall, Yr'xcellency," the office manager began, "I sneezed, sir, and ... accidentally sprayed you ... Forg ...""Such trifles ... G.o.d knows! Can I be of help to you?" the general addressed the next pet.i.tioner."He doesn't want to talk!" thought Cherviakov, turning pale. "That means he's angry ... No, it can't be left like this ... I'll explain to him ..."When the general finished his discussion with the last pet.i.tioner and headed for the inner rooms, Cherviakov followed him and murmured:"Yr'xcellency! If I venture to trouble Yr'xcellency, it's precisely, I might say, from a feeling of repentance! ... It wasn't on purpose, you know that yourself, sir!"The general made a tearful face and waved his hand."You must be joking, my dear sir!" he said, disappearing behind the door."What kind of joke is it?" thought Cherviakov. "This is no kind of joke at all! A general, yet he can't understand! If that's the way it is, I won't apologize to the swaggerer any more! Devil take him! I'll write him a letter, but I won't come myself! By G.o.d, I won't!"So Cherviakov thought, walking home. He wrote no letter to the general. He thought and thought, and simply could not think up that letter. So the next day he had to go himself and explain."I came yesterday to trouble Yr'xcellency," he began to murmur, when the general raised his questioning eyes to him, "not for a joke, as you were pleased to say. I was apologizing for having sneezed and sprayed you, sir ... and I never even thought of joking. Would I dare joke with you? If we start joking, soon there won't be any respect for persons ... left...""Get out!!" barked the general, suddenly turning blue and shaking."What, sir?" Cherviakov asked in a whisper, sinking with terror."Get out!!" the general repeated, stamping his feet.Something in Cherviakov's stomach snapped. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, he backed his way to the door, went out, and plodded off... Reaching home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and ... died.JULY 1883 1883

SMALL FRY

Dear sir, father and benefactor!" the clerk Nevyrazimov1 wrote in the draft of a letter of congratulations. "May you spend this bright day, wrote in the draft of a letter of congratulations. "May you spend this bright day,2 and many more to come, in good health and prosperity And may your fam ..." and many more to come, in good health and prosperity And may your fam ..."The lamp, which was running out of kerosene, smoked and stank of burning. On the table, near Nevyrazimov's writing hand, a stray c.o.c.kroach was anxiously running about. Two rooms away from the duty-room, the hall porter Paramon was polis.h.i.+ng his Sunday boots for the third time, and with such energy that his spitting and the noise of the shoe brush could be heard in all the rooms."What else shall I write to the scoundrel?" Nevyrazimov reflected, raising his eyes to the sooty ceiling.On the ceiling he saw a dark circle-the shadow of the lampshade. Further down were dusty cornices; still further down-walls that had once been painted a bluish-brown color. And the duty-room looked like such a wasteland to him that he felt pity not only for himself but even for the c.o.c.kroach ..."I'll finish my duty and leave, but he'll spend his whole c.o.c.kroach life on duty here," he thought, stretching. "Agony! Shall I polish my boots, or what?"And, stretching once more, Nevyrazimov trudged lazily to the porter's lodge. Paramon was no longer polis.h.i.+ng his boots ... Holding the brush in one hand and crossing himself with the other, he was standing by the open vent window,3 listening ... listening ..."They're ringing!" he whispered to Nevyrazimov, looking at him with fixed, wide-open eyes. "Already, sir!"Nevyrazimov put his ear to the vent and listened. Through the vent, together with the fresh spring air, the ringing of the Easter bells came bursting into the room. The booming of the bells mingled with the noise of carriages, and all that stood out from the chaos of sounds was a pert tenor ringing in the nearest church and someone's loud, shrill laughter."So many people!" sighed Nevyrazimov, looking down the street, where human shadows flitted one after another past the lighted lamps. "Everybody's running to church ... Our fellows must've had a drink by now and be hanging around the city. All that laughter and talking! I'm the only one so wretched as to have to sit here on such a day. And every year I have to do it!""Who tells you to get yourself hired? You weren't on duty today, it was Zastupov hired you to replace him. Whenever there's a holiday, you get yourself hired ... It's greed!""The devil it's greed! What's there to be greedy about: two roubles in cash, plus a necktie ... It's need, not greed! And, you know, it would be nice to go with them all to church now, and then break the fast4... Have a drink, a bite to eat, then hit the sack ... You sit at the table, the kulich5 has been blessed, and there's a hissing samovar, and some little object beside you ... You drink a gla.s.s, chuck her under the chin, and it feels good ... you feel you're a human being ... Ehh ... life's gone to h.e.l.l! There's some rogue driving by in a carriage, and you just sit here thinking your thoughts ..." has been blessed, and there's a hissing samovar, and some little object beside you ... You drink a gla.s.s, chuck her under the chin, and it feels good ... you feel you're a human being ... Ehh ... life's gone to h.e.l.l! There's some rogue driving by in a carriage, and you just sit here thinking your thoughts ...""To each his own, Ivan Danilych. G.o.d willing, you'll get promoted, too, and drive around in carriages.""Me? No, brother, that I won't. I'll never get beyond t.i.tular councillor,6 even if I burst... I'm uneducated." even if I burst... I'm uneducated.""Our general hasn't got any education either, and yet ...""Well, the general, before he amounted to all that, stole a hundred thousand. And his bearing is nothing like mine, brother ... With my bearing you don't get far! And my name is so scoundrelly: Nevyrazimov! In short, brother, the situation's hopeless. Live like that if you want, and if you don't-go hang yourself..."Nevyrazimov left the vent window and began pacing the rooms in anguish. The booming of the bells grew louder and louder ... It was no longer necessary to stand by the window in order to hear it. And the clearer the sound of the ringing, the noisier the clatter of the carriages, the darker seemed the brownish walls and sooty cornices, and the worse the smoking of the lamp."Maybe I'll skip work?" thought Nevyrazimov.But escape did not promise anything worthwhile ... After leaving the office and loitering around town, Nevyrazimov would go to his place, and his place was still grayer and worse than the duty-room ... Suppose he spent that day nicely, in comfort, what then? The same gray walls, the same work for hire and letters of congratulations ...Nevyrazimov stopped in the middle of the duty-room and pondered.The need for a new, better life wrung his heart with unbearable anguish. He pa.s.sionately longed to find himself suddenly in the street, to merge with the living crowd, to take part in the festivity, in honor of which the bells were all booming and the carriages clattering. He wanted something he used to experience in childhood: the family circle, the festive faces of his relatives, the white table cloth, light, warmth ... He remembered the carriage in which a lady had just pa.s.sed by, the overcoat in which the office manager strutted about, the gold chain adorning the secretary's chest ... He remembered a warm bed, a Stanislas,7 new boots, a uniform with no holes in the elbows ... remembered, because he did not have any of it ... new boots, a uniform with no holes in the elbows ... remembered, because he did not have any of it ..."Maybe try stealing?" he thought. "Stealing's not hard, I suppose, but the problem is hiding it ... They say people run away to America with what they steal, but, devil knows, where is this America? In order to steal, you also have to have education."The ringing stopped. Only the distant noise of a carriage was heard, and Paramon's coughing, and Nevyrazimov's sadness and spite grew stronger and more unbearable. The office clock struck half-past midnight."Maybe write a denunciation? Proshkin denounced somebody and started rising in the world ..."Nevyrazimov sat down at his desk and pondered. The lamp, which had completely run out of kerosene, was smoking badly now and threatening to go out. The stray c.o.c.kroach still scurried about the table and found no shelter ..."I could denounce somebody, but how write it out! It has to be with all those equivocations and dodges, like Proshkin ... Not me! I'll write something and get in trouble for it myself. A complete nitwit, devil take me!"And Nevyrazimov, racking his brain for some way out of his hopeless situation, stared at the draft of the letter he had written. The letter was to a man he hated and feared with all his soul, and from whom he had been trying for ten years to obtain a transfer from a sixteen-rouble post to an eighteen-rouble ..."Ah ... running about here, you devil!" With the palm of his hand he spitefully swatted the c.o.c.kroach, which had had the misfortune of catching his eye. "What vileness!"The c.o.c.kroach fell on its back and desperately waved its legs ... Nevyrazimov took it by one leg and threw it into the lamp. The lamp flared and crackled ...And Nevyrazimov felt better.MARCH 1885 1885

THE HUNTS MAN

Asultry and stifling day. Not a cloud in the sky ... The sun-scorched gra.s.s looks bleak, hopeless: there may be rain, but it will never be green again ... The forest stands silent, motionless, as if its treetops were looking off somewhere or waiting for something.A tall, narrow-shouldered man of about forty, in a red s.h.i.+rt, patched gentleman's trousers, and big boots, lazily saunters along the edge of the clearing. He saunters down the road. To his right are green trees, to his left, all the way to the horizon, stretches a golden sea of ripe rye ... His face is red and sweaty. A white cap with a straight jockey's visor, apparently the gift of some generous squire, sits das.h.i.+ngly on his handsome blond head. Over his shoulder hangs a game bag with a crumpled black grouse in it. The man is carrying a c.o.c.ked double-barreled shotgun and squinting his eyes at his old, skinny dog, who runs ahead, sniffing about in the bushes. It is quiet, not a sound anywhere ... Everything alive is hiding from the heat."Yegor Vlasych!" the hunter suddenly hears a soft voice.He gives a start and turns around, scowling. Beside him, as if sprung from the ground, stands a pale-faced woman of about thirty with a sickle in her hand. She tries to peer into his face and smiles shyly."Ah, it's you, Pelageya!" says the hunter, stopping and slowly un-c.o.c.king his gun. "Hm! ... How did you turn up here?""The women from our village are working here, so I'm here with them ... Hired help, Yegor Vlasych.""So-o ..." Yegor Vlasych grunts and slowly goes on.Pelageya follows him. They go about twenty steps in silence."I haven't seen you for a long time, Yegor Vlasych ..." says Pelageya, gazing tenderly at the hunter's moving shoulders and shoulder blades. "You stopped by our cottage for a drink of water on Easter day, and we haven't seen you since ... You stopped for a minute on Easter day, and that G.o.d knows how ... in a drunken state ... You swore at me, beat me, and left ... I've been waiting and waiting ... I've looked my eyes out waiting for you ... Eh, Yegor Vlasych, Yegor Vlasych! If only you'd come one little time!""What's there for me to do at your place?""There's nothing to do there, of course, just ... anyway there's the household ... Things to be seen to ... You're the master ... Look at you, shot a grouse, Yegor Vlasych! Why don't you sit down and rest ..."As she says all this, Pelageya laughs like a fool and looks up at Yegor's face ... Her own face breathes happiness ..."Sit down? Why not ..." Yegor says in an indifferent tone and picks a spot between two pine saplings. "Why are you standing? Sit down, too!"Pelageya sits down a bit further away in a patch of sun and, ashamed of her joy, covers her smiling mouth with her hand. Two minutes pa.s.s in silence."If only you'd come one little time," Pelageya says softly."What for?" sighs Yegor, taking off his cap and wiping his red forehead with his sleeve. "There's no need. To stop by for an hour or two-dally around, get you stirred up-and my soul can't stand living all the time in the village ... You know I'm a spoiled man ... I want there to be a bed, and good tea, and delicate conversation ... I want to have all the degrees, and in the village there you've got poverty, soot ... I couldn't even live there a day. Suppose they issued a decree that I absolutely had to live with you, I'd either