Uncle Ványa ends also in the most depressing way; but there is some faint hope in it. The drama reveals an even still more complete breakdown of the educated “intellectual,” and especially of the main representative of that class—the professor, the little god of the family, for whom all others have been sacrificing themselves, but who all his life has only written beautiful words about the sacred problems of art, while all his life he remained the most perfect egotist. But the end of this drama is different. The girl, Sónya, who is the counterpart of Sásha, and has been one of those who sacrificed themselves for the professor, remains more or less in the background of the drama, until, at its very end she comes forward in a halo of endless love. She is neglected by the man whom she loves. This man—an enthusiast—prefers, however, a beautiful woman (the second wife of the professor) to Sónya, who is only one of those workers who bring life into the darkness of Russian village life, by helping the dark mass to pull through the hardships of their lives.
The drama ends in a heart-rending musical accord of devotion and self-sacrifice on behalf of Sónya and her uncle. “It cannot be helped”—Sónya says—“we must live! Uncle John, we shall live. We shall live through a long succession of days, and of long nights; we shall patiently bear the sufferings which fate will send upon us; we shall work for the others—now, and later on, in old age, knowing no rest; and when our hour shall have come, we shall die without murmur, and there, beyond the grave * * * we shall rest!”
There is, after all, a redeeming feature in that despair. There remains the faith of Sónya in her capacity to work, her readiness to face the work, even without personal happiness.
But in proportion as Russian life becomes less gloomy; in proportion as hopes of a better future for our country begin to bud once more in the youthful beginnings of a movement amongst the working classes in the industrial centres, to the call of which the educated youth answer immediately; in proportion as the “intellectuals” revive again, ready to sacrifice themselves in order to conquer freedom for the grand whole—the Russian people—Tchéhoff also begins to look into the future with hope and optimism. The Cherry-Tree Garden was his last swan-song, and the last words of this drama sound a note full of hope in a better future. The cherry-tree garden of a noble landlord, which used to be a true fairy garden when the trees were in full bloom, and nightingales sang in their thickets, has been pitilessly cut down by the money-making middle class man. No blossom, no nightingales—only dollars instead. But Tchéhoff looks further into the future: he sees the place again in new hands, and a new garden is going to grow instead of the old one—a garden where all will find a new happiness in new surroundings. Those whose whole life was for themselves alone could never grow such a garden; but some day soon this will be done by beings like Anya, the heroine, and her friend, “the perpetual student”....
The influence of Tchéhoff, as Tolstóy has remarked, will last, and will not be limited to Russia only. He has given such a prominence to the short story and its ways of dealing with human life that he has thus become a reformer of our literary forms. In Russia he has already a number of imitators who look upon him as upon the head of a school; but—will they have also the same inimitable poetical feeling, the same charming intimacy in the way of telling the stories, that special form of love of nature, and above all, the beauty of Tchéhoff’s smile amidst his tears?—all qualities inseparable from his personality.
As to his dramas, they are favourites on the Russian stage, both in the capitals and in the provinces. They are admirable for the stage and produce a deep effect; and when they are played by such a superior cast as that of the Artistic Theatre at Moscow—as the Cherry-Tree Garden was played lately—they become dramatic events.
In Russia Tchéhoff is now perhaps the most popular of the younger writers. Speaking of the living novelists only, he is placed immediately after Tolstóy, and his works are read immensely. Separate volumes of his stories, published under different titles—In Twilight, Sad People and so on—ran each through ten to fourteen editions, while full editions of Tchéhoff’s Works in ten and fourteen volumes, sold in fabulous numbers: of the latter, which was given as a supplement to a weekly, more than 200,000 copies were circulated in one single year.
In Germany Tchéhoff has produced a deep impression; his best stories have been translated more than once, so that one of the leading Berlin critics exclaimed lately: “Tschéchoff, Tschéchoff, und kein Ende!” (Tchéhoff, Tchéhoff, and no end.) In Italy he begins to be widely read. And yet it is only his stories which are known beyond Russia. His dramas seem to be too “Russian,” and they hardly can deeply move audiences outside the borders of Russia, where such dramas of inner contradiction are not a characteristic feature of the moment.
If there is any logic in the evolution of societies, such a writer as Tchéhoff had to appear before literature could take a new direction and produce the new types which already are budding in life. At any rate, an impressive parting word had to be pronounced, and this is what Tchéhoff has done.