CHEKHOV, RECORDER OF LOST ILLUSIONS
The history—that is, the philosophical history—of a national literature is sure to reveal the close relation subsisting between the significant social movements of that nation and its literature. Those who think lightly of fiction as a force in a people’s life fail to recognize that in the large it is something more than a mirror of the times, since worthy fiction must be an expression—and that the most vivid possible—of the ideals, the faiths, the scepticisms, the struggles, the foibles, the prejudices, the occupations light and serious, and, chiefly, the social ferment, of the era it represents, because out of, and not merely during, that era its fiction was born.
While really no more applicable to Russia than to any other nation, this representative quality of literature is more startlingly apparent in Slavic literature than in any other. During the period just preceding 1880, the “back to the people” movement was at its height. Tolstoi’s life among his peasants inspired many to imitation—but that is a story by itself. Enough to note here that the movement broke down of its own weight, as all social movements must which think to fill old skins with new wine. And Anton Pavlovich Chekhov came to a full though depressing inheritance of the stunned discouragement characteristic of the early eighties. In common with his entire school, Chekhov’s philosophy embraced three paramount tenets: The “system” in Russia is productive of evil, and evil only; there is no present hope of better things; but for the future, such hope as may gestate unborn can come to birth only by the Russian people’s facing the full truth honestly and fearlessly.
Here is a social philosophy which is something more than pessimism, for while it believes that things must be worse before they can be better, it neither denies nor predicts the coming of that meliorated day. The true basis of Russian realism is thus seen to differ from the French: French realism is sensational and of the senses; that of Russia is intellectual and largely for a patriotic purpose.
Chekhov was a south-Russian, born January 17, 1860, in Taganrog, a seaport on an arm of the Black Sea, near the mouth of the river Don. His father was a serf, whose ambition and ability led him early to buy his freedom and provide for the education of his four children. Anton passed through the local college and was graduated from the school of medicine at Moscow, but more than his year as a hospital interne, and a volunteer service during an epidemic of cholera, he did not practise.
His medical education, however, set the tone for Chekhov’s literary work, for he became a great pathologist of character, dealing chiefly with those sick of mind and heart whom we are wont to think of as unnormal. Early afflicted with the tubercular trouble which he combated in vain, and which carried him off July 2, 1904, in Badenweiler, Germany, at forty-four, he disclosed in his work, as Professor Phelps has pointed out, the double character of the observing physician and the sick patient. To the observer and in the observed, in such a dual rôle, trivialities would assume a larger interest than to the typical healthy man writing of complacent themes in a rosy land. And so they did to Chekhov—as will more and more appear.
While yet the youth was in the University (1879) he began to write “fugitive sketches” for the minor metropolitan newspapers, and eventually for the better-known Novoe Vremya and the St. Petersburg Gazette. A humor keen, if somewhat coarse, characterized these productions, which were often only a few hundred words in length. This light satirical tone prevailed until after the appearance in 1887 of his first book. Perhaps the critical disapproval it aroused made him see that one who could write so well might be better employed than in merely making people laugh, as one reviewer expressed it. At all events, his later work was more serious, though always a subtle, intellectual humor might be found—for it often lurked—in his most sober fictional and dramatic writings.
Chekhov was so modest, so retiring, so diffident even, that he came to his own by dint of sheer merit. When in the later years of his short life he married Olga Knipper, the blonde beauty of the Théâtre Libre, they took a villa at Yalta, on the Black Sea, for the husband’s enfeebled health demanded a milder climate than that of the metropolis. At Yalta, for a time, dwelt also Tolstoi and Gorki, and there Chekhov learned to know his brother writers. With that sincere big-heartedness which is happily characteristic of each of the Russian littérateurs chosen for inclusion in this series, both did much to bring his work to the attention of the public to which they were themselves looking.
With Tolstoi’s convictions Chekhov had little in common, so he did not seek him out. But the elder artist went to the younger, and a firm friendship ensued. That the enthusiastic prophesies of both Tolstoi and Gorki were not fully realized was doubtless due to the untimely ending of a career so full of promise and of real literary achievement.
Naturally, Chekhov’s attitude toward life was something more personal than was his conscious philosophy. The lost illusions of the Russian people—I speak now of the Russia of the late eighties and early nineties—were perfectly reflected in our author’s work. Of one of his characters he writes:
The Student remembered that when he left the house his mother sat in the hall, barefooted, and cleaned the samovar; and his father lay upon the stove and coughed; and because it was Good Friday nothing was being cooked at home, though he was tortured with desire to eat. And now, shivering with cold, the Student reflected that just the same icy wind blew in the reign of Rurik, in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and in the reign of Peter the Great; and that there was just the same gnawing hunger and poverty, just the same dilapidated thatched roofs, just the same ignorance, the same boredom with life, the same desert around, the same darkness within, the same sense of oppression—that all these terrors were and are and will be, and that, though a thousand years roll by, life can never be any better.
Could anything be more pitiful—and more hopeless! And yet it was not the pity of it that Chekhov was picturing. It was the fatalism, the mockery, the uselessness of struggle, the satire of even complaining, that seemed to him to demand a voice. All contemporary life was gray. To him it was a silly thing to seek to idealize it. The only course was to view things as they are—the venom, the scurrility, the disenchantment, the heart-break, the hunger, the chill of soul and body, were real; then why delude self by renaming them, for alter them one could not! Why struggle when inertia accomplished just as much—that is to say, nothing! Why dream when the visions brought one no nearer light than did waking! Again and again his characters set out cheered by hopes and warmed by illusions, but one by one they return, hardened, dulled, disenchanted. But even this experience is not worth fretting about. The gaunt, wild-eyed men, the flat, empty-breasted women, are products of the Russian system, so why should they aspire to the unattainable? Let them be indifferent, for that is the surest anæsthetic.
But in all this one feels the terrible arraignment of the god-of-things-as-they-are, and no blame for the individual. Chekhov doubtless pitied men, but he excoriated Russian society. If he laughed at misery, it was that misery might not crush out the very life. If he preached indifferentism, it was that the Juggernaut of society should not pulverize those over whom its wheels must surely pass.
In the banalities of life and its useless beatings against the bars Chekhov was quick to see effective literary material. If life was colorless, it still called for a master of grays and neutral tints to lay them effectively upon the canvas—and such a painter was Chekhov. Dealing with trivial things, and dealing with them in a manner sometimes bitterly laughing, again at times with fierce cynicism, but sometimes too with the gentle sadness of an accepted despair, the man became a sincere realist—an accurate delineator of “the unprofitable life.” He could picture, in “The Steppe,” that most monotonous of all landscapes with an idealized charm of variety which enchanted the reader, but his obligation to human nature was to paint it remorselessly with truth. Unhappily, his pathological mind saw little but the contemptible, the trivial, the stupid, and the mean. The nobler elements he did not omit, but he never asserted or even intimated their final triumph. He could strip the shreds of pretension and illusion from the soul of man as ruthlessly as a fiend would denude the body of his helpless victim. For old age to be despicable, or for youth to be polluted, was all the justification needed to picture them just so upon his canvas.
“Ward No. 6”—a pitiless tragedy disclosing the ultimate break-down of all that is noble in body, mind, and spirit—is probably Chekhov’s greatest story. It takes its title from the lunatic asylum in a “squalid, remote, and stagnant country town.... A pandemonium of brutality, corruption, and neglect.” The patients suffer unspeakable abuses from the attendants, chiefly from the porter, Nikita, whose brutal fists beat all protesting patients into insensibility.
The old doctor used to sell the hospital stores to enrich himself, but Ragin, the new physician, was a man of honesty, heart, and ability. The abuses of the place he detests, and the sufferings of the inmates make his gorge rise and his heart burn. But, as with most of Chekhov’s good men, his will is inert, and at last he condones and falls into indifference toward the horrors of the place.
One day he discovers an unusual intelligence in Gromof, one of the long-time inmates, and comes to take a great interest in him. For hours at a time he gives up his occupations and listens to Gromof’s wisdom. The nurses, at this, think Ragin insane, and by a trick shut him up in the very room whose terrible condition at first so inspired him with horror. “I am glad! You drank other men’s blood; now they will drink yours!” screams Gromof in a rage of madness.
After a short confinement, Ragin joins the other inmates in a revolt, but Nikita uses his huge fists, and the next day Ragin is dead.
I recite this at some length because no shorter story could so fully present the hopeless philosophy of its author. It is a powerful, impressionistic picture of Russia—at its worst, let us hope.
Chekhov made several excursions into the drama, but he was not given to plot, and all his efforts were subtle and intellectual, so that it requires a company of brilliant actors to present his plays. The most important are “The Cherry Orchard,” “The Seagull,” “The Bear,” and “The Gray Stocking.”
In the short-story our author excelled, but here too his tendency was not toward plot. The objectivist in fiction tends toward the impressionistic sketch, and Chekhov was a master in sensing a mood outside of himself and relentlessly reproducing the impression.
Of “Darling,” Tolstoi has said that the author intended to laugh at Darling, sneer at her self-sacrifice; but in spite of his plan he had created a character of beauty.
Olenka Plemyannikof, the daughter of a retired “college assessor,” cannot live unless she is loving some one. She loves her father, her mother, her relatives, and when at school she had fallen in love with the French-master. Observing her rosy cheeks and kind expression, and the naïve smile playing on her face when she is pleased, every one feels attracted to her, and frequently women stop in the midst of a conversation and grasp her hand, exclaiming, “You darling!”
Koukin, manager and proprietor of the Tivoli pleasure gardens, occupies the wing in the Plemyannikofs’ house. Troubles connected with rainy evenings, when his audiences are small, touch Olenka’s kind heart, and she stays awake at night until he comes home, so that she may smile encouragement through her window. At length they marry, and their life runs smoothly, Olenka helping her husband in many ways. Her radiant face alone draws people, and she tells them that the theatre is the greatest thing in the world. “What a wonderful man you are!” she says adoringly to her husband. But when on a business trip to Moscow Koukin dies; and Olenka feels then that the end of the world has come for her.
Three months after, returning from church one day, she meets Vassili Andreyich Pastovalof, manager of a timber merchant’s yard, and he tells her that she should bear submissively the fate which God willed. His grave voice stays in her memory—and shortly afterward they are married. They live happily, and now it seems to Olenka that she has been in the timber trade all her life. She echoes her husband’s opinions—whatever he thinks, she thinks, wherever he wants to go, or not to go, she does the same. When her friends suggest recreation, her reply is, “I and Vassichka have no time to frequent theatres. We are business people, with no time for trifles. Besides, what good is there in theatres?”
Thus they live harmoniously for six years. But one cold morning, after drinking some hot tea, Pastovalof steps into the yard without his hat and catches a chill. Four months later Olenka is again a widow.
Not till six months after her husband’s death does she remove her weeds and open the house shutters, so great is her grief. Then it is rumored that she takes tea with a regimental veterinary surgeon, Smirnin, who occupies one of the wings of her house. He is separated from his wife, but contributes to his son’s support. Olenka becomes absorbed in this new interest, for she cannot live without lavishing her affection on some one. Their happiness is interrupted by Smirnin’s being called away with his regiment; and now the woman is once more desolate.
The years pass and Olenka is entirely without fixed opinions, has nothing to speak about, so she grows old-looking and dormant. She has nothing to reflect. But one night Smirnin comes back. He has retired from the army, is reunited with his wife, and wants to settle down in the town. Olenka offers him her house free to live in, saying that the wing is quite enough for her; so the man and the woman and their child come to Olenka’s house. And in the little boy she finds an object to love, even taking him into her own rooms, where they play and study together. Then Olenka develops opinions on education, and grows young again.
In his earlier days Chekhov espoused satirical comedy. In “A Work of Art—The Story of a Gift” we have one of these typical nonsense stories.
A young man, Alexander Smirnoff, enters the office of Dr. Koshelkoff, his physician, and, with many expressions of profoundest gratitude, presents him with an exquisite bronze candelabrum. The youth is the only son of his mother, and out of the stock left by his father—for they are carrying on his business in antiques—they have reserved this treasure, which they now give to the physician because his care had saved the young man’s life. Smirnoff’s one regret is that he does not possess the mate, so as to give the doctor the pair.
The medical man is embarrassed. The piece is lovely, but—improper. The two dancing female figures are quite too unconventional for the doctor’s office—he has a wife, a family, a mother-in-law, and lady patients! No, he cannot accept the gift. But after many hurt protests on the part of the donor, the physician keeps it anyhow.
No sooner is the young man gone than the doctor remembers a gay bachelor lawyer to whom he owes many favors, and hurries off to give him the beautiful but immodest bronze. The lawyer cannot express his admiration—and regret. His patrons would be horrified, it would injure his reputation. No, he cannot keep it.
The physician in turn is deeply wounded, so to save his friend’s feelings the lawyer consents to keep it; and the doctor hurries off chuckling in glee.
Immediately the lawyer presents the statuette to an actor. The theatrical star is delighted, and soon his room is besieged by men who want to see the savory work of art. But presently the actor sees that he cannot receive lady visitors in the presence of such a statuette.
“Sell it,” suggests a friend, and at once he despatches the offending candelabrum to Madame Smirnoff, the old woman who deals in antiques.
Two days later Dr. Koshelkoff sat peacefully in his study—when suddenly the door of his room flew open, and Alexander Smirnoff burst upon his sight. His face beamed with joy, he fairly shone, and his whole body breathed inexpressible content.
In his hands he held an object wrapped in a newspaper.
“Doctor,” he began breathlessly, “imagine my joy! What good fortune! Luckily for you, my mother has succeeded in obtaining a companion piece to your candelabrum. You now have the pair complete. Mother is so happy. I am her only son, you know. You saved my life.”
Trembling with joy and with excess of gratitude, young Smirnoff placed the candelabrum before the doctor. The physician opened his mouth, attempted to say something, but the power of speech failed him—and he said nothing.
Again in a different vein is “The Safety Match.”
Lieutenant Klausoff, a retired officer of the Horse Guards, who has separated from his wife, Olga, on account of his own dissipations and her shrewish temper, is reported as missing by Psyekoff, the lieutenant’s agent. The examining magistrate, Chubikoff, and Dukovski, his ambitious assistant, learn that Klausoff has not been seen for a week, and when they break open his room all signs suggest a murder. Young Dukovski, who is a disciple of induction as a means of arriving at the facts of crime, discovers in the room one boot, a burned safety-match, marks of teeth on a pillow, signs of struggle about the bed, an unfastened window, footprints beneath it, the mark of a knee on the window-sill, and some threads of blue cloth caught in a burdock bush near-by. All these lead him to conclude that the murderers, one of whom wore blue trousers, climbed in the window, sprang upon Klausoff while he was taking off his boots, smothered him with a pillow, and dragged him away. The second boot is at length found near-by, and the investigators now seek for the criminals. The shrewd Dukovski, who is continually laughed at by his superior Chubikoff, infers that two of the murderers are the valet and Psyekoff, the agent, because it developed that first the valet and then Psyekoff had loved the same woman, whom their master had finally won. Besides, Psyekoff wears blue trousers. Jealousy must have been the cause, for the victim’s watch and money still lay upon his table. When confronted with these facts and a reconstruction of the deed, neither can make effective denial.
A third conspirator is found in the victim’s sister, who is a religious enthusiast and intensely indignant that her rakish brother should be living apart from his wife, Olga.
At last Dukovski succeeds in tracing the purchase of a box of safety matches to Olga, whereupon he concludes that she also is implicated. He and Chubikoff confront her with the circumstantial evidences which indicate that she and her accomplices have dragged off the body of her husband. Astounded, she breaks down, and leads the officers into an adjoining room, where the body of Klausoff is lying on a couch—asleep! The wife, who still loves her tipsy lord, has dragged him away and holds him in durance so that she may live with him whether he will or not.
Master of an alert, firm style, and skilled not only in penetration but in effective expression, Chekhov has a place in Russian literature which is less difficult to designate than is usual in the case of one only a few years dead. Certainly his themes are neither big nor vital enough, nor yet sufficiently human, to accord him position beside the philosophical Tolstoi, the titanic Turgenev, and the iron-hearted Dostoevski (a greater novelist than short-story writer). Rather do his workmanship, power of characterization, and subtle, sardonic humor point to a solitary niche close to the grim and morbid Andreev. His appeal—always intellectual—to his own people is tremendous, and in Germany his vogue is still important. It seems safe to say that among Russian fictionists he stands in the first rank of the second company.
To represent Chekhov’s work, I have chosen “In Exile,” which follows complete in a new translation, because, while it exhibits all his mature characteristics, it is less unpleasant on the one hand and on the other less trivial than many of his other short-stories. But of its qualities the reader may now judge.