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diff --git a/37129.txt b/37129.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe3cfc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/37129.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2608 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov, by +Maxim Gorky and Alexander Kuprin and I. A. Bunin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov + +Author: Maxim Gorky + Alexander Kuprin + I. A. Bunin + +Translator: S. S. Koteliansky + Leonard Woolf + +Release Date: August 19, 2011 [EBook #37129] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMINISCENCES OF ANTON CHEKHOV *** + + + + +Produced by Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + [ Transcriber's Notes: + + Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully + as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. + Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They + are listed at the end of the text. + + Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. + ] + + + + + REMINISCENCES OF + ANTON CHEKHOV + + BY + MAXIM GORKY, ALEXANDER KUPRIN + and I. A. BUNIN + + TRANSLATED BY + S. S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF + + NEW YORK + B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. + MCMXXI + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + +FRAGMENTS OF RECOLLECTIONS BY MAXIM GORKY, 1 + +TO CHEKHOV'S MEMORY BY ALEXANDER KUPRIN, 29 + +A. P. CHEKHOV BY I. A. BUNIN, 91 + + + + +ANTON CHEKHOV + +FRAGMENTS OF RECOLLECTIONS +BY +MAXIM GORKY + + +Once he invited me to the village Koutchouk-Koy where he had a tiny +strip of land and a white, two-storied house. There, while showing me +his "estate," he began to speak with animation: "If I had plenty of +money, I should build a sanatorium here for invalid village teachers. +You know, I would put up a large, bright building--very bright, with +large windows and lofty rooms. I would have a fine library, different +musical instruments, bees, a vegetable garden, an orchard.... There +would be lectures on agriculture, mythology.... Teachers ought to know +everything, everything, my dear fellow." + +He was suddenly silent, coughed, looked at me out of the corners of his +eyes, and smiled that tender, charming smile of his which attracted one +so irresistibly to him and made one listen so attentively to his words. + +"Does it bore you to listen to my fantasies? I do love to talk of it.... +If you knew how badly the Russian village needs a nice, sensible, +educated teacher! We ought in Russia to give the teacher particularly +good conditions, and it ought to be done as quickly as possible. We +ought to realize that without a wide education of the people, Russia +will collapse, like a house built of badly baked bricks. A teacher must +be an artist, in love with his calling; but with us he is a journeyman, +ill educated, who goes to the village to teach children as though he +were going into exile. He is starved, crushed, terrorized by the fear of +losing his daily bread. But he ought to be the first man in the village; +the peasants ought to recognize him as a power, worthy of attention and +respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humiliate him personally, +as with us every one does--the village constable, the rich shop-keeper, +the priest, the rural police commissioner, the school guardian, the +councilor, and that official who has the title of school-inspector, but +who cares nothing for the improvement of education and only sees that +the circulars of his chiefs are carried out.... It is ridiculous to pay +in farthings the man who has to educate the people. It is intolerable +that he should walk in rags, shiver with cold in damp and draughty +schools, catch cold, and about the age of thirty get laryngitis, +rheumatism, or tuberculosis. We ought to be ashamed of it. Our teacher, +for eight or nine months in the year, lives like a hermit: he has no one +to speak a word to; without company, books, or amusements, he is growing +stupid, and, if he invites his colleagues to visit him, then he becomes +politically suspect--a stupid word with which crafty men frighten fools. +All this is disgusting; it is the mockery of a man who is doing a great +and tremendously important work.... Do you know, whenever I see a +teacher, I feel ashamed for him, for his timidity, and because he is +badly dressed ... it seems to me that for the teacher's wretchedness I +am myself to blame--I mean it." + +He was silent, thinking; and then, waving his hand, he said gently: +"This Russia of ours is such an absurd, clumsy country." + +A shadow of sadness crossed his beautiful eyes; little rays of wrinkles +surrounded them and made them look still more meditative. Then, looking +round, he said jestingly: "You see, I have fired off at you a complete +leading article from a radical paper. Come, I'll give you tea to reward +your patience." + +That was characteristic of him, to speak so earnestly, with such warmth +and sincerity, and then suddenly to laugh at himself and his speech. In +that sad and gentle smile one felt the subtle skepticism of the man who +knows the value of words and dreams; and there also flashed in the smile +a lovable modesty and delicate sensitiveness.... + +We walked back slowly in silence to the house. It was a clear, hot day; +the waves sparkled under the bright rays of the sun; down below one +heard a dog barking joyfully. Chekhov took my arm, coughed, and said +slowly: "It is shameful and sad, but true: there are many men who envy +the dogs." + +And he added immediately with a laugh: "To-day I can only make feeble +speeches ... It means that I'm getting old." + +I often heard him say: "You know, a teacher has just come here--he's +ill, married ... couldn't you do something for him? I have made +arrangements for him for the time being." Or again: "Listen, Gorky, +there is a teacher here who would like to meet you. He can't go out, +he's ill. Won't you come and see him? Do." Or: "Look here, the women +teachers want books to be sent to them." + +Sometimes I would find that "teacher" at his house; usually he would be +sitting on the edge of his chair, blushing at the consciousness of his +own awkwardness, in the sweat of his brow picking and choosing his +words, trying to speak smoothly and "educatedly"; or, with the ease of +manner of a person who is morbidly shy, he would concentrate himself +upon the effort not to appear stupid in the eyes of an author, and he +would simply belabor Anton Chekhov with a hail of questions which had +never entered his head until that moment. + +Anton Chekhov would listen attentively to the dreary, incoherent speech; +now and again a smile came into his sad eyes, a little wrinkle appeared +on his forehead, and then, in his soft, lusterless voice, he began to +speak simple, clear, homely words, words which somehow or other +immediately made his questioner simple: the teacher stopped trying to be +clever, and therefore immediately became more clever and interesting.... + +I remember one teacher, a tall, thin man with a yellow, hungry face and +a long, hooked nose which drooped gloomily towards his chin. He sat +opposite Anton Chekhov and, looking fixedly into Chekhov's face with his +black eyes, said in a melancholy bass voice: + +"From such impressions of existence within the space of the tutorial +session there comes a psychical conglomeration which crushes every +possibility of an objective attitude towards the surrounding universe. +Of course, the universe is nothing but our presentation of it...." + +And he rushed headlong into philosophy, and he moved over its surface +like a drunkard skating on ice. + +"Tell me," Chekhov put in quietly and kindly, "who is that teacher in +your district who beats the children?" + +The teacher sprang from his chair and waved his arms indignantly: "Whom +do you mean? Me? Never! Beating?" + +He snorted with indignation. + +"Don't get excited," Anton Chekhov went on, smiling reassuringly; "I'm +not speaking of you. But I remember--I read it in the newspapers--there +is some one in your district who beats the children." + +The teacher sat down, wiped his perspiring face, and, with a sigh of +relief, said in his deep bass:-- + +"It's true ... there was such a case ... it was Makarov. You know, it's +not surprising. It's cruel, but explicable. He's married ... has four +children ... his wife is ill ... himself consumptive ... his salary is +20 roubles, the school like a cellar, and the teacher has but a single +room--under such circumstances you will give a thrashing to an angel of +God for no fault ... and the children--they're far from angels, believe +me." + +And the man, who had just been mercilessly belaboring Chekhov with his +store of clever words, suddenly, ominously wagging his hooked nose, +began to speak simple, weighty, clear-cut words, which illuminated, like +a fire, the terrible, accursed truth about the life of the Russian +village. + +When he said good-bye to his host, the teacher took Chekhov's small, dry +hand with its thin fingers in both his own, and, shaking it, said:-- + +"I came to you as though I were going to the authorities, in fear and +trembling ... I puffed myself out like a turkey-cock ... I wanted to +show you that I was no ordinary mortal.... And now I'm leaving you as a +nice, close friend who understands everything.... It's a great thing--to +understand everything! Thank you! I'm taking away with me a pleasant +thought: big men are simpler and more understandable ... and nearer in +soul to us fellow men than all those wretches among whom we live.... +Good-bye; I will never forget you." + +His nose quivered, his lips twisted into a good-natured smile, and he +added suddenly: + +"To tell the truth, scoundrels too are unhappy--the devil take them." + +When he went out, Chekhov followed him with a glance, smiled, and said: + +"He's a nice fellow.... He won't be a teacher long." + +"Why?" + +"They will run him down--whip him off." + +He thought for a bit, and added quietly: + +"In Russia an honest man is rather like the chimney-sweep with whom +nurses frighten children." + + * * * * * + +I think that in Anton Chekhov's presence every one involuntarily felt in +himself a desire to be simpler, more truthful, more one's self; I often +saw how people cast off the motley finery of bookish phrases, smart +words, and all the other cheap tricks with which a Russian, wishing to +figure as a European, adorns himself, like a savage with shells and +fish's teeth. Anton Chekhov disliked fish's teeth and cock's feathers; +anything "brilliant" or foreign, assumed by a man to make himself look +bigger, disturbed him; I noticed that, whenever he saw any one dressed +up in this way, he had a desire to free him from all that oppressive, +useless tinsel and to find underneath the genuine face and living soul +of the person. All his life Chekhov lived on his own soul; he was always +himself, inwardly free, and he never troubled about what some people +expected and others--coarser people--demanded of Anton Chekhov. He did +not like conversations about deep questions, conversations with which +our dear Russians so assiduously comfort themselves, forgetting that it +is ridiculous, and not at all amusing, to argue about velvet costumes in +the future when in the present one has not even a decent pair of +trousers. + +Beautifully simple himself, he loved everything simple, genuine, +sincere, and he had a peculiar way of making other people simple. + +Once, I remember, three luxuriously dressed ladies came to see him; they +filled his room with the rustle of silk skirts and the smell of strong +scent; they sat down politely opposite their host, pretended that they +were interested in politics, and began "putting questions":-- + +"Anton Pavlovitch, what do you think? How will the war end?" + +Anton Pavlovitch coughed, thought for a while, and then gently, in a +serious and kindly voice, replied: + +"Probably in peace." + +"Well, yes ... certainly. But who will win? The Greeks or the Turks?" + +"It seems to me that those will win who are the stronger." + +"And who, do you think, are the stronger?" all the ladies asked +together. + +"Those who are the better fed and the better educated." + +"Ah, how clever," one of them exclaimed. + +"And whom do you like best?" another asked. + +Anton Pavlovitch looked at her kindly, and answered with a meek smile: + +"I love candied fruits ... don't you?" + +"Very much," the lady exclaimed gayly. + +"Especially Abrikossov's," the second agreed solidly. And the third, +half closing her eyes, added with relish: + +"It smells so good." + +And all three began to talk with vivacity, revealing, on the subject of +candied fruit, great erudition and subtle knowledge. It was obvious that +they were happy at not having to strain their minds and pretend to be +seriously interested in Turks and Greeks, to whom up to that moment they +had not given a thought. + +When they left, they merrily promised Anton Pavlovitch: + +"We will send you some candied fruit." + +"You managed that nicely," I observed when they had gone. + +Anton Pavlovitch laughed quietly and said: + +"Every one should speak his own language." + +On another occasion I found at his house a young and prettyish crown +prosecutor. He was standing in front of Chekhov, shaking his curly head, +and speaking briskly: + +"In your story, 'The Conspirator,' you, Anton Pavlovitch, put before me +a very complex case. If I admit in Denis Grigoriev a criminal and +conscious intention, then I must, without any reservation, bundle him +into prison, in the interests of the community. But he is a savage; he +did not realize the criminality of his act.... I feel pity for him. But +suppose I regard him as a man who acted without understanding, and +suppose I yield to my feeling of pity, how can I guarantee the community +that Denis will not again unscrew the nut in the sleepers and wreck a +train? That's the question. What's to be done?" + +He stopped, threw himself back, and fixed an inquiring look on Anton +Pavlovitch's face. His uniform was quite new, and the buttons shone as +self-confidently and dully on his chest as did the little eyes in the +pretty, clean, little face of the youthful enthusiast for justice. + +"If I were judge," said Anton Pavlovitch gravely, "I would acquit +Denis." + +"On what grounds?" + +"I would say to him: you, Denis, have not yet ripened into the type of +the deliberate criminal; go--and ripen." + +The lawyer began to laugh, but instantly again became pompously serious +and said: + +"No, sir, the question put by you must be answered only in the interests +of the community whose life and property I am called upon to protect. +Denis is a savage, but he is also a criminal--that is the truth." + +"Do you like gramophones?" suddenly asked Anton Pavlovitch in his soft +voice. + +"O yes, very much. An amazing invention!" the youth answered gayly. + +"And I can't stand gramophones," Anton Pavlovitch confessed sadly. + +"Why?" + +"They speak and sing without feeling. Everything seems like a caricature +... dead. Do you like photography?" + +It appeared that the lawyer was a passionate lover of photography; he +began at once to speak of it with enthusiasm, completely uninterested, +as Chekhov had subtly and truly noticed, in the gramophone, despite his +admiration for that "amazing invention." And again I observed how there +looked out of that uniform a living and rather amusing little man, whose +feelings towards life were still those of a puppy hunting. + +When Anton Pavlovitch had seen him out, he said sternly: + +"They are like pimples on the seat of justice--disposing of the fate of +people." + +And after a short silence: + +"Crown prosecutors must be very fond of fishing ... especially for +little fish." + + * * * * * + +He had the art of revealing everywhere and driving away banality, an art +which is only possible to a man who demands much from life and which +comes from a keen desire to see men simple, beautiful, harmonious. +Banality always found in him a discerning and merciless judge. + +Some one told in his presence how the editor of a popular magazine, who +was always talking of the necessity of love and pity, had, for no reason +at all, insulted a railway guard, and how he usually acted with extreme +rudeness towards his inferiors. + +"Well," said Anton Pavlovitch with a gloomy smile, "but isn't he an +aristocrat, an educated gentleman? He studied at the seminary. His +father wore bast shoes, and he wears patent-leather boots." + +And in his tone there was something which at once made the "aristocrat" +trivial and ridiculous. + +"He's a very gifted man," he said of a certain journalist. "He always +writes so nobly, humanely, ... lemonadely. Calls his wife a fool in +public ... the servants' rooms are damp and the maids constantly get +rheumatics." + +"Don't you like N. N., Anton Pavlovitch?" + +"Yes, I do--very much. He's a pleasant fellow," Anton Pavlovitch agrees, +coughing. "He knows everything ... reads a lot ... he hasn't returned +three of my books ... he's absent-minded. To-day he will tell you that +you're a wonderful fellow, and to-morrow he will tell somebody else that +you cheat your servants, and that you have stolen from your mistress's +husband his silk socks ... the black ones with the blue stripes." + +Some one in his presence complained of the heaviness and tediousness of +the "serious" sections in thick monthly magazines. + +"But you mustn't read those articles," said Anton Pavlovitch. "They are +friends' literature--written for friends. They are written by Messrs. +Red, Black, and White. One writes an article; the other replies to it; +and the third reconciles the contradictions of the other two. It is like +playing whist with a dummy. Yet none of them asks himself what good it +is to the reader." + +Once a plump, healthy, handsome, well-dressed lady came to him and began +to speak _a la Chekhov_:-- + +"Life is so boring, Anton Pavlovitch. Everything is so gray: people, the +sea, even the flowers seem to me gray.... And I have no desires ... my +soul is in pain ... it is like a disease." + +"It is a disease," said Anton Pavlovitch with conviction, "it is a +disease; in Latin it is called _morbus imitatis_." + +Fortunately the lady did not seem to know Latin, or, perhaps, she +pretended not to know it. + +"Critics are like horse-flies which prevent the horse from plowing," he +said, smiling his wise smile. "The horse works, all its muscles drawn +tight like the strings on a doublebass, and a fly settles on his flanks +and tickles and buzzes ... he has to twitch his skin and swish his tail. +And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply +because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on +the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.' For twenty-five +years I have read criticisms of my stories, and I don't remember a +single remark of any value or one word of valuable advice. Only once +Skabitchevsky wrote something which made an impression on me ... he said +I would die in a ditch, drunk." + +Nearly always there was an ironical smile in his gray eyes, but at times +they became cold, sharp, hard; at such times a harder tone sounded in +his soft, sincere voice, and then it appeared that this modest, gentle +man, when he found it necessary, could rouse himself vigorously against +a hostile force and would not yield. + +But sometimes, I thought, there was in his attitude towards people a +feeling of hopelessness, almost of cold, resigned despair. + +"A Russian is a strange creature," he said once. "He is like a sieve; +nothing remains in him. In his youth he fills himself greedily with +anything which he comes across, and after thirty years nothing remains +but a kind of gray rubbish.... In order to live well and humanly one +must work--work with love and with faith. But we, we can't do it. An +architect, having built a couple of decent buildings, sits down to play +cards, plays all his life, or else is to be found somewhere behind the +scenes of some theatre. A doctor, if he has a practice, ceases to be +interested in science, and reads nothing but _The Medical Journal_, and +at forty seriously believes that all diseases have their origin in +catarrh. I have never met a single civil servant who had any idea of the +meaning of his work: usually he sits in the metropolis or the chief town +of the province, and writes papers and sends them off to Zmiev or +Smorgon for attention. But that those papers will deprive some one in +Zmiev or Smorgon of freedom of movement--of that the civil servant +thinks as little as an atheist of the tortures of hell. A lawyer who has +made a name by a successful defense ceases to care about justice, and +defends only the rights of property, gambles on the Turf, eats oysters, +figures as a connoisseur of all the arts. An actor, having taken two or +three parts tolerably, no longer troubles to learn his parts, puts on a +silk hat, and thinks himself a genius. Russia is a land of insatiable +and lazy people: they eat enormously of nice things, drink, like to +sleep in the day-time, and snore in their sleep. They marry in order to +get their house looked after and keep mistresses in order to be thought +well of in society. Their psychology is that of a dog: when they are +beaten, they whine shrilly and run into their kennels; when petted, they +lie on their backs with their paws in the air and wag their tails." + +Pain and cold contempt sounded in these words. But, though contemptuous, +he felt pity, and, if in his presence you abused any one, Anton +Pavlovitch would immediately defend him. + +"Why do you say that? He is an old man ... he's seventy." Or: "But he's +still so young ... it's only stupidity." + +And, when he spoke like that, I never saw a sign of aversion in his +face. + + * * * * * + +When a man is young, banality seems only amusing and unimportant, but +little by little it possesses a man; it permeates his brain and blood +like poison or asphyxiating fumes; he becomes like an old, rusty +sign-board: something is painted on it, but what?--You can't make out. + +Anton Pavlovitch in his early stories was already able to reveal in the +dim sea of banality its tragic humor; one has only to read his +"humorous" stories with attention to see what a lot of cruel and +disgusting things, behind the humorous words and situations, had been +observed by the author with sorrow and were concealed by him. + +He was ingenuously shy; he would not say aloud and openly to people: +"Now do be more decent"; he hoped in vain that they would themselves see +how necessary it was that they should be more decent. He hated +everything banal and foul, and he described the abominations of life in +the noble language of a poet, with the humorist's gentle smile, and +behind the beautiful form of his stories people scarcely noticed the +inner meaning, full of bitter reproach. + +The dear public, when it reads his "Daughter of Albion," laughs and +hardly realizes how abominable is the well-fed squire's mockery of a +person who is lonely and strange to every one and everything. In each of +his humorous stories I hear the quiet, deep sigh of a pure and human +heart, the hopeless sigh of sympathy for men who do not know how to +respect human dignity, who submit without any resistance to mere force, +live like fish, believe in nothing but the necessity of swallowing every +day as much thick soup as possible, and feel nothing but fear that some +one, strong and insolent, will give them a hiding. + +No one understood as clearly and finely as Anton Chekhov, the tragedy of +life's trivialities, no one before him showed men with such merciless +truth the terrible and shameful picture of their life in the dim chaos +of bourgeois every-day existence. + +His enemy was banality; he fought it all his life long; he ridiculed it, +drawing it with a pointed and unimpassioned pen, finding the mustiness +of banality even where at the first glance everything seemed to be +arranged very nicely, comfortably, and even brilliantly--and banality +revenged itself upon him by a nasty prank, for it saw that his corpse, +the corpse of a poet, was put into a railway truck "For the Conveyance +of Oysters." + +That dirty green railway truck seems to me precisely the great, +triumphant laugh of banality over its tired enemy; and all the +"Recollections" in the gutter press are hypocritical sorrow, behind +which I feel the cold and smelly breath of banality, secretly rejoicing +over the death of its enemy. + + * * * * * + +Reading Anton Chekhov's stories, one feels oneself in a melancholy day +of late autumn, when the air is transparent and the outline of naked +trees, narrow houses, grayish people, is sharp. Everything is strange, +lonely, motionless, helpless. The horizon, blue and empty, melts into +the pale sky and its breath is terribly cold upon the earth which is +covered with frozen mud. The author's mind, like the autumn sun, shows +up in hard outline the monotonous roads, the crooked streets, the little +squalid houses in which tiny, miserable people are stifled by boredom +and laziness and fill the houses with an unintelligible, drowsy bustle. +Here anxiously, like a gray mouse, scurries "The Darling," the dear, +meek woman who loves so slavishly and who can love so much. You can slap +her cheek and she won't even dare to utter a sigh aloud, the meek +slave.... And by her side is Olga of "The Three Sisters": she too loves +much, and submits with resignation to the caprices of the dissolute, +banal wife of her good-for-nothing brother; the life of her sisters +crumbles before her eyes, she weeps and cannot help any one in anything, +and she has not within her a single live, strong word of protest against +banality. + +And here is the lachrymose Ranevskaya and the other owners of "The +Cherry Orchard," egotistical like children, with the flabbiness of +senility. They missed the right moment for dying; they whine, seeing +nothing of what is going on around them, understanding nothing, +parasites without the power of again taking root in life. The wretched +little student, Trofimov, speaks eloquently of the necessity of +working--and does nothing but amuse himself, out of sheer boredom, with +stupid mockery of Varya who works ceaselessly for the good of the +idlers. + +Vershinin dreams of how pleasant life will be in three hundred years, +and lives without perceiving that everything around him is falling into +ruin before his eyes; Solyony, from boredom and stupidity, is ready to +kill the pitiable Baron Tousenbach. + +There passes before one a long file of men and women, slaves of their +love, of their stupidity and idleness, of their greed for the good +things of life; there walk the slaves of the dark fear of life; they +straggle anxiously along, filling life with incoherent words about the +future, feeling that in the present there is no place for them. + +At moments out of the gray mass of them one hears the sound of a shot: +Ivanov or Triepliev has guessed what he ought to do, and has died. + +Many of them have nice dreams of how pleasant life will be in two +hundred years, but it occurs to none of them to ask themselves who will +make life pleasant if we only dream. + +In front of that dreary, gray crowd of helpless people there passed a +great, wise, and observant man; he looked at all these dreary +inhabitants of his country, and, with a sad smile, with a tone of gentle +but deep reproach, with anguish in his face and in his heart, in a +beautiful and sincere voice, he said to them: + +"You live badly, my friends. It is shameful to live like that." + + + + +TO CHEKHOV'S MEMORY +BY +ALEXANDER KUPRIN + +_He lived among us...._ + + +You remember how, in early childhood, after the long summer holidays, +one went back to school. Everything was gray; it was like a barrack; it +smelt of fresh paint and putty; one's school-fellows rough, the +authorities unkind. Still one tried somehow to keep up one's courage, +though at moments one was seized with home-sickness. One was occupied in +greeting friends, struck by changes in faces, deafened by the noise and +movement. + +But when evening comes and the bustle in the half dark dormitory ceases, +O what an unbearable sadness, what despair possesses one's soul. One +bites one's pillow, suppressing one's sobs, one whispers dear names and +cries, cries with tears that burn, and knows that this sorrow is +unquenchable. It is then that one realizes for the first time all the +shattering horror of two things: the irrevocability of the past and the +feeling of loneliness. It seems as if one would gladly give up all the +rest of life, gladly suffer any tortures, for a single day of that +bright, beautiful life which will never repeat itself. It seems as if +one would snatch each kind, caressing word and enclose it forever in +one's memory, as if one would drink into one's soul, slowly and +greedily, drop by drop, every caress. And one is cruelly tormented by +the thought that, through carelessness, in the hurry, and because time +seemed inexhaustible, one had not made the most of each hour and moment +that flashed by in vain. + +A child's sorrows are sharp, but will melt in sleep and disappear with +the morning sun. We, grown-up people, do not feel them so passionately, +but we remember longer and grieve more deeply. After Chekhov's funeral, +coming back from the service in the cemetery, one great writer spoke +words that were simple, but full of meaning: + +"Now we have buried him, the hopeless keenness of the loss is passing +away. But do you realize, forever, till the end of our days, there will +remain in us a constant, dull, sad, consciousness that Chekhov is not +there?" + +And now that he is not here, one feels with peculiar pain how precious +was each word of his, each smile, movement, glance, in which shone out +his beautiful, elect, aristocratic soul. One is sorry that one was not +always attentive to those special details, which sometimes more potently +and intimately than great deeds reveal the inner man. One reproaches +oneself that in the fluster of life one has not managed to remember--to +write down much of what is interesting, characteristic and important. +And at the same time one knows that these feelings are shared by all +those who were near him, who loved him truly as a man of incomparable +spiritual fineness and beauty; and with eternal gratitude they will +respect his memory, as the memory of one of the most remarkable of +Russian writers. + +To the love, to the tender and subtle sorrow of these men, I dedicate +these lines. + + * * * * * + +Chekhov's cottage in Yalta stood nearly outside the town, right on the +white and dusty Antka road. I do not know who had built it, but it was +the most original building in Yalta. All bright, pure, light, +beautifully-proportioned, built in no definite architectural style +whatsoever, with a watch-tower like a castle, with unexpected gables, +with a glass verandah on the ground and an open terrace above, with +scattered windows--both wide and narrow--the bungalow resembled a +building of the modern school, if there were not obvious in its plan the +attentive and original thought, the original, peculiar taste of an +individual. The bungalow stood in the corner of an orchard, surrounded +by a flower-garden. Adjoining the garden, on the side opposite the road +was an old deserted Tartar cemetery, fenced with a low little wall; +always green, still and unpeopled, with modest stones on the graves. + +The flower garden was tiny, not at all luxurious, and the fruit orchard +was still very young. There grew in it pears and crab-apples, apricots, +peaches, almonds. During the last year the orchard began to bear fruit, +which caused Anton Pavlovitch much worry and a touching and childish +pleasure. When the time came to gather almonds, they were also gathered +in Chekhov's orchard. They usually lay in a little heap in the +window-sill of the drawing room, and it seemed as if nobody could be +cruel enough to take them, although they were offered. + +Anton Pavlovitch did not like it and was even cross when people told him +that his bungalow was too little protected from the dust, which came +from the Antka road, and that the orchard was insufficiently supplied +with water. Without on the whole liking the Crimea, and certainly not +Yalta, he regarded his orchard with a special, zealous love. People saw +him sometimes in the morning, sitting on his heels, carefully coating +the stems of his roses with sulphur or pulling weeds from the flower +beds. And what rejoicing there would be, when in the summer drought +there at last began a rain that filled the spare clay cisterns with +water! + +But his love was not that of a proprietor, it was something else--a +mightier and wiser consciousness. He would often say, looking at his +orchard with a twinkle in his eye: + +"Look, I have planted each tree here and certainly they are dear to me. +But this is of no consequence. Before I came here all this was waste +land and ravines, all covered with stones and thistles. Then I came and +turned this wilderness into a cultivated, beautiful place. Do you +know?"--he would suddenly add with a grave face, in a tone of profound +belief--"do you know that in three or four hundred years all the earth +will become a flourishing garden. And life will then be exceedingly +light and comfortable." + +The thought of the beauty of the coming life, which is expressed so +tenderly, sadly, and charmingly in all his latest works, was in his life +also one of his most intimate, most cherished thoughts. How often must +he have thought of the future happiness of mankind when, in the +mornings, alone, silently, he trimmed his roses, still moist from the +dew, or examined carefully a young sapling, wounded by the wind. And how +much there was in that thought of meek, wise, and humble +self-forgetfulness. + +No, it was not a thirst for life, a clinging to life coming from the +insatiable human heart, neither was it a greedy curiosity as to what +will come after one's own life, nor an envious jealousy of remote +generations. It was the agony of an exceptionally refined, charming, and +sensitive soul, who suffered beyond measure from banality, coarseness, +dreariness, nothingness, violence, savagery--the whole horror and +darkness of modern everyday existence. And that is why, when towards the +end of his life there came to him immense fame and comparative security, +together with the devoted love of all that was sensitive, talented and +honest in Russian society,--that is why he did not lock himself up in +the inaccessibility of cold greatness nor become a masterful prophet nor +shrink into a venomous and petty hostility against the fame of others. +No, the sum of his wide and hard experience of life, of his sorrows, +joys, and disappointments was expressed in that beautiful, anxious, +self-forgetting dream of the coming happiness of others. + +--"How beautiful life will be in three or four hundred years." + +And that is why he looked lovingly after his flower beds, as if he saw +in them the symbol of beauty to come, and watched new paths being laid +out by human intellect and knowledge. He looked with pleasure at new +original buildings and at large, seagoing steamers; he was eagerly +interested in every new invention and was not bored by the company of +specialists. With firm conviction he said that crimes such as murder, +theft, and adultery are decreasing, and have nearly disappeared among +the intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, and authors. He believed that in +the future true culture would ennoble mankind. + +Telling of Chekhov's orchard I forgot to mention that there stood in the +middle of it swings and a wooden bench. Both these latter remained from +"Uncle Vanya," which play the Moscow Art Theatre acted at Yalta, +evidently with the sole purpose of showing the performance to Anton +Pavlovitch who was ill then. Both objects were specially dear to Chekhov +and, pointing to them, he would recollect with gratitude the attention +paid him so kindly by the Art Theatre. It is fitting to say here that +these fine actors, by their exceptionally subtle response to Chekhov's +talent and their friendly devotion to himself, much sweetened his last +days. + + +II + +There lived in the yard a tame crane and two dogs. It must be said that +Anton Chekhov loved all animals very much with the exception of cats, +for whom he felt an invincible disgust. He loved dogs specially. His +dead "Kashtanka," his "Bromide," and "Quinine," which he had in +Melikhovo, he remembered and spoke of, as one remembers one's dead +friends. "Fine race, dogs!"--he would say at times with a good-natured +smile. + +The crane was a pompous, grave bird. He generally mistrusted people, but +had a close friendship with Arseniy, Anton Chekhov's pious servant. He +would run after Arseniy anywhere, in the garden, orchard or yard and +would jump amusingly and wave his wide-open wings, performing a +characteristic crane dance, which always made Anton Pavlovitch laugh. + +One dog was called "Tusik," and the other "Kashtan," in honor of the +famous "Kashtanka." "Kashtan" was distinguished in nothing but stupidity +and idleness. In appearance he was fat, smooth and clumsy, of a bright +chocolate color, with senseless yellow eyes. He would bark after "Tusik" +at strangers, but one had only to call him and he would turn on his back +and begin servilely to crawl on the ground. Anton Pavlovitch would give +him a little push with his stick, when he came up fawning, and would say +with mock sternness: + +--"Go away, go away, fool.... Leave me alone." + +And would add, turning to his interlocutor, with annoyance, but with +laughter in his eyes: + +--"Wouldn't you like me to give you this dog? You can't believe how +stupid he is." + +But it happened once that "Kashtan," through his stupidity and +clumsiness, got under the wheels of a cab which crushed his leg. The +poor dog came home running on three legs, howling terribly. His hind leg +was crippled, the flesh cut nearly to the bone, bleeding profusely. +Anton Pavlovitch instantly washed his wound with warm water and +sublimate, sprinkled iodoform and put on a bandage. And with what +tenderness, how dexterously and warily his big beautiful fingers touched +the torn skin of the dog, and with what compassionate reproof he soothed +the howling "Kashtan": + +--"Ah, you silly, silly.... How did you do it? Be quiet ... you'll be +better ... little stupid ..." + +I have to repeat a commonplace, but there is no doubt that animals and +children were instinctively drawn to Chekhov. Sometimes a girl who was +ill would come to A. P. and bring with her a little orphan girl of three +or four, whom she was bringing up. Between the tiny child and the sad +invalid man, the famous author, was established a peculiar, serious and +trusting friendship. They would sit for a long time on the bench, in the +verandah. Anton Pavlovitch listened with attention and concentration, +and she would whisper to him without ceasing her funny words and tangle +her little hands in his beard. + +Chekhov was regarded with a great and heart-felt love by all sorts of +simple people with whom he came into contact--servants, messengers, +porters, beggars, tramps, postmen,--and not only with love, but with +subtle sensitiveness, with concern and with understanding. I cannot help +telling here one story which was told me by a small official of the +Russian Navigation and Trade Company, a downright man, reserved and +perfectly direct in receiving and telling his impressions. + +It was autumn. Chekhov, returning from Moscow, had just arrived by +steamer from Sebastopol at Yalta, and had not yet left the deck. It was +that interval of chaos, of shouts and bustle which comes while the +gangway is being put in place. At that chaotic moment the porter, a +Tartar, who always waited on Chekhov, saw him from the distance and +managed to climb up on the steamer sooner than any one else. He found +Chekhov's luggage and was already on the point of carrying it down, when +suddenly a rough and fierce-looking chief mate rushed on him. The man +did not confine himself to obscene language, but in the access of his +official anger, he struck the Tartar on the face. + +"And then an unbelievable scene took place," my friend told me--"the +Tartar threw the luggage on the deck, beat his breast with his fists +and, with wild eyes, was ready to fall on the chief mate, while he +shouted in a voice which rang all over the port:" + +--"'What? Striking me? D'ye think you struck me? It is him--him, that +you struck!'" + +"And he pointed his finger at Chekhov. And Chekhov, you know, was pale, +his lips trembled. He came up to the mate and said to him quietly and +distinctly, but with an unusual expression: 'Are not you ashamed!' +Believe me, by Jove, if I were that chief mate, I would rather be spat +upon twenty times in the face than hear that 'are not you ashamed.' And +although the mate was sufficiently thick-skinned, even he felt it. He +bustled about for a moment, murmured something and disappeared +instantly. No more of him was seen on deck." + + +III + +Chekhov's study in his Yalta house was not big, about twelve strides +long and six wide, modest, but breathing a peculiar charm. Just opposite +the entrance was a large square window in a frame of yellow colored +glass. To the left of the entrance, by the window, stood a writing +table, and behind it was a small niche, lighted from the ceiling, by a +tiny window. In the niche was a Turkish divan. To the right, in the +middle of the wall was a brown fireplace of Dutch tiles. On the top of +the fireplace there is a small hole where a tile is missing, and in this +is a carelessly painted but lovely landscape of an evening field with +hayricks in the distance; the work of Levitan. Further, in the corner, +there is a door, through which is seen Anton Pavlovitch's bachelor +bedroom, a bright, gay room, shining with a certain virgin cleanliness, +whiteness and innocence. The walls of the study are covered with dark +and gold papers, and by the writing table hangs a printed placard: "You +are requested not to smoke." Immediately by the entrance door, to the +right, there is a book-case with books. On the mantelpiece there are +some bric-a-brac and among them a beautifully made model of a sailing +ship. There are many pretty things made of ivory and wood on the writing +table; models of elephants being in the majority. On the walls hang +portraits of Tolstoy, Grigorovitch, and Turgenev. On a little table with +a fan-like stand are a number of photographs of actors and authors. +Heavy dark curtains fall on both sides of the window. On the floor is a +large carpet of oriental design. This softens all the outlines and +darkens the study; yet the light from the window falls evenly and +pleasantly on the writing table. The room smells of very fine scents of +which A. Pavlovitch was very fond. From the window is seen an open +horseshoe-shaped hollow, running down to the sea, and the sea itself, +surrounded by an amphitheatre of houses. On the left, on the right, and +behind, rise mountains in a semi-circle. In the evenings, when the +lights are lit in the hilly environs of Yalta and the lights and the +stars over them are so mixed that you cannot distinguish one from the +other,--then the place reminds one of certain spots in the Caucasus. + +This is what always happens--you get to know a man; you have studied his +appearance, bearing, voice and manners, and still you can always recall +his face as it was when you saw it for the first time, completely +different from the present. Thus, after several years of friendship with +Anton Pavlovitch, there is preserved in my memory the Chekhov, whom I +saw for the first time in the public room of the hotel "London" in +Odessa. He seemed to me then tall, lean, but broad in the shoulders, +with a somewhat stern look. Signs of illness were not then noticeable, +unless in his walk--weak, and as if on somewhat bent knees. If I were +asked what he was like at first sight, I should say: "A Zemstvo doctor +or a teacher of a provincial secondary school." But there was also in +him something plain and modest, something extraordinarily Russian--of +the people. In his face, speech and manners there was also a touch of +the Moscow undergraduate's carelessness. Many people saw that in him, +and I among them. But a few hours later I saw a completely different +Chekhov--the Chekhov, whose face could never be caught by any +photograph, who, unfortunately, was not understood by any painter who +drew him. I saw the most beautiful, refined and spiritual face that I +have ever come across in my life. + +Many said that Chekhov had blue eyes. It is a mistake, but a mistake +strangely common to all who knew him. His eyes were dark, almost brown, +and the iris of his right eye was considerably brighter, which gave +A. P.'s look, at certain moments, an expression of absent-mindedness. +His eyelids hung rather heavy upon his eyes, as is so often observed in +artists, hunters and sailors, and all those who concentrate their gaze. +Owing to his pince-nez and his manner of looking through the bottom of +his glasses, with his head somewhat tilted upwards, Anton Pavlovitch's +face often seemed stern. But one ought to have seen Chekhov at certain +moments (rare, alas, during the last years) when gayety possessed him, +and when with a quick movement of the hand, he threw off his glasses and +swung his chair and burst into gay, sincere and deep laughter. Then his +eyes became narrow and bright, with good-natured little wrinkles at the +corners, and he reminded one then of that youthful portrait in which he +is seen as a beardless boy, smiling, short-sighted and naive, looking +rather sideways. And--strange though it is--each time that I look at +that photograph, I cannot rid myself of the thought that Chekhov's eyes +were really blue. + +Looking at Chekhov one noticed his forehead, which was wide, white and +pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came between the +eyebrows, by the bridge of the nose, two vertical melancholy folds. +Chekhov's ears were large and not shapely, but such sensible, +intelligent ears I have seen only in one other man--Tolstoy. + +Once in the summer, availing myself of A. P.'s good humor, I took +several photographs of him with a little camera. Unfortunately the best +of them and those most like him turned out very pale, owing to the weak +light of the study. Of the others, which were more successful, A. P. +said as he looked at them: + +"Well, you know, it is not me but some Frenchman." + +I remember now very vividly the grip of his large, dry and hot hand,--a +grip, always strong and manly but at the same time reserved, as if it +were consciously concealing something. I also visualize now his +handwriting: thin, with extremely fine strokes, careless at first sight +and inelegant, but, when you look closer, it appears very distinct, +tender, fine and characteristic, as everything else about him. + + +IV + +A. P. used to get up, in the summer at least, very early. None even of +his most intimate friends saw him carelessly dressed, nor did he approve +of lazy habits, like wearing slippers, dressing gowns or light jackets. +At eight or nine he was already pacing his study or at his writing +table, invariably impeccably and neatly dressed. + +Evidently, his best time for work was in the morning before lunch, +although nobody ever managed to find him writing: in this respect he was +extraordinarily reserved and shy. All the same, on nice warm mornings he +could be seen sitting on a slope behind the house, in the cosiest part +of the place, where oleanders stood in tubs along the walls, and where +he had planted a cypress. There he sat sometimes for an hour or longer, +alone, without stirring, with his hands on his knees, looking in front +of him at the sea. + +About midday and later visitors began to fill the house. Girls stood for +hours at the iron railings, separating the bungalow from the road, with +open mouths, in white felt hats. The most diverse people came to +Chekhov: scholars, authors, Zemstvo workers, doctors, military, +painters, admirers of both sexes, professors, society men and women, +senators, priests, actors--and God knows who else. Often he was asked to +give advice or help and still more often to give his opinion upon +manuscripts. Casual newspaper reporters and people who were merely +inquisitive would appear; also people who came to him with the sole +purpose of "directing the big, but erring talent to the proper, ideal +side." Beggars came--genuine and sham. These never met with a refusal. I +do not think it right, myself, to mention private cases, but I know for +certain that Chekhov's generosity towards students of both sexes, was +immeasurably beyond what his modest means would allow. + +People came to him from all strata of society, of all camps, of all +shades. Notwithstanding the worry of so continuous a stream of visitors, +there was something attractive in it to Chekhov. He got first-hand +knowledge of everything that was going on at any given moment in Russia. +How mistaken were those who wrote or supposed that he was a man +indifferent to public interests, to the whirling life of the +intelligentsia, and to the burning questions of his time! He watched +everything carefully, and thoughtfully. He was tormented and distressed +by all the things which tormented the minds of the best Russians. One +had only to see how in those terrible times, when the absurd, dark, evil +phenomena of our public life were discussed in his presence, he knitted +his thick eyebrows, and how martyred his face looked, and what a deep +sorrow shone in his beautiful eyes. + +It is fitting to mention here one fact which, in my opinion, superbly +illustrates Chekhov's attitude to the stupidities of Russian life. Many +know that he resigned the rank of an honorary member of the Academy; the +motives of his resignation are known; but very few have read his letter +to the Academy,--a splendid letter, written with a simple and noble +dignity, and the restrained indignation of a great soul. + + To the August President of the Academy + 25 August, 1902 + Yalta. + + _Your Imperial Highness_, + August President! + + In December of last year I received a notice of the election of + A. M. Pyeshkov (Maxim Gorky) as an honorary academician, and I took + the first opportunity of seeing A. M. Pyeshkov, who was then in + Crimea. I was the first to bring him news of his election and I was + the first to congratulate him. Some time later, it was announced in + the newspapers that, in view of proceedings according to Art. 1035 + being instituted against Pyeshkov for his political views, his + election was cancelled. It was expressly stated that this act came + from the Academy of Sciences; and since I am an honorary + academician, I also am partly responsible for this act. I have + congratulated him heartily on becoming an academician and I consider + his election cancelled--such a contradiction does not agree with my + conscience, I cannot reconcile my conscience to it. The study of + Art. 1035 has explained nothing to me. And after long deliberation I + can only come to one decision, which is extremely painful and + regrettable to me, and that is to ask most respectfully to be + relieved of the rank of honorary academician. With a feeling of + deepest respect I have the honor to remain + + Your most devoted + Anton Chekhov. + +Queer--to what an extent people misunderstood Chekhov! He, the +"incorrigible pessimist," as he was labelled,--never tired of hoping for +a bright future, never ceased to believe in the invisible but persistent +and fruitful work of the best forces of our country. Which of his +friends does not remember the favorite phrase, which he so often, +sometimes so incongruously and unexpectedly, uttered in a tone of +assurance: + +--"Look here, don't you see? There is sure to be a constitution in +Russia in ten years time." + +Yes, even in that there sounds the _motif_ of the joyous future which is +awaiting mankind; the _motif_ that was audible in all the work of his +last years. + + * * * * * + +The truth must be told: by no means all visitors spared A. P.'s time and +nerves, and some of them were quite merciless. I remember one striking, +and almost incredible instance of the banality and indelicacy which +could be displayed by a man of the so-called artistic power. + +It was a pleasant, cool and windless summer morning. A. P. was in an +unusually light and cheerful mood. Suddenly there appeared as from the +blue a stout gentleman (who subsequently turned out to be an architect), +who sent his card to Chekhov and asked for an interview. A. P. received +him. The architect came in, introduced himself, and, without taking any +notice of the placard "You are requested not to smoke," without asking +any permission, lit a huge stinking Riga cigar. Then, after paying, as +was inevitable, a few stone-heavy compliments to his host, he began on +the business which brought him here. + +The business consisted in the fact that the architect's little son, a +school boy of the third form, was running in the streets the other day +and from a habit peculiar to boys, whilst running, touched with his hand +anything he came across: lamp-posts, or posts or fences. At last he +managed to push his hand into a barbed wire fence and thus scratched his +palm. "You see now, my worthy A. P.,"--the architect concluded his tale, +"I shall very much like you to write a letter about it in the +newspapers. It is lucky that Kolya (his boy) got off with a scratch, but +it's only a chance. He might have cut an artery--what would have +happened then?" "Yes, it's a nuisance," Chekhov answered, "but, +unfortunately, I cannot be of any use to you. I do not write, nor have +ever written, letters in the newspapers. I only write stories." "So much +the better, so much the better! Put it in a story"--the architect was +delighted. "Just put the name of the landlord in full letters. You may +even put my own name, I do not object to it.... Still ... it would be +best if you only put my initials, not the full name.... There are only +two genuine authors left in Russia, you and Mr. P." (and the architect +gave the name of a notorious literary tailor). + +I am not able to repeat even a hundredth part of the boring commonplaces +which the injured architect managed to speak, since he made the +interview last until he finished the cigar to the end, and the study had +to be aired for a long time to get rid of the smell. But when at last he +left, A. P. came out into the garden completely upset with red spots on +his cheeks. His voice trembled, when he turned reproachfully to his +sister Marie and to a friend who sat on the bench: + +"Could you not shield me from that man? You should have sent word that I +was needed somewhere. He has tortured me!" + +I also remember,--and this I am sorry to say was partly my fault--how a +certain self-assured general came to him to express his appreciation as +a reader, and, probably, desiring to give Chekhov pleasure, he began, +with his legs spread open and the fists of his turned-out hand leaning +on them, to vilify a young author, whose great popularity was then only +beginning to grow. And Chekhov, at once, shrank into himself, and sat +all the time with his eyes cast down, coldly, without saying a single +word. And only from the quick reproachful look, which he cast at my +friend, who had introduced that general, did he show what pain he +caused. + +Just as shyly and coldly he regarded praises lavished on him. He would +retire into his niche, on the divan, his eyelids trembled, slowly fell +and were not again raised, and his face became motionless and gloomy. +Sometimes, when immoderate raptures came from some one he knew, he would +try to turn the conversation into a joke, and give it a different +direction. He would suddenly say, without rhyme or reason, with a light +little laugh: + +--"I like reading what the Odessa reporters write about me." + +"What is that?" + +"It is very funny--all lies. Last spring one of them appeared in my +hotel. He asked for an interview. And I had no time for it. So I said: +'Excuse me but I am busy now. But write whatever you like; it is of no +consequence to me.' Well, he did write. It drove me into a fever." + +And once with a most serious face he said: + +--"You know, in Yalta every cabman knows me. They say: 'O, Chekhov, that +man, the reader? I know him.' For some reason they call me reader. +Perhaps they think that I read psalm-services for the dead? You, old +fellow, ought to ask a cabman what my occupation is...." + + +V + +At one o'clock Chekhov dined downstairs, in a cool bright dining-room, +and there was nearly always a guest at dinner. It was difficult not to +yield to the fascination of that simple, kind, cordial family. One felt +constant solicitude and love, not expressed with a single high-sounding +word,--an amazing amount of refinement and attention, which never, as if +on purpose, got beyond the limits of ordinary, everyday relations. One +always noticed a truly Chekhovian fear of everything high-flown, +insincere, or showy. In that family one felt very much at one's ease, +light and warm, and I perfectly understand a certain author who said +that he was in love with all the Chekhovs at the same time. + +Anton Pavlovitch ate exceedingly little and did not like to sit at +table, but usually passed from the window to the door and back. Often +after dinner, staying behind with some one in the dining-room, Yevguenia +Yakovlevna (A. P.'s mother) said quietly with anxiety in her voice: + +"Again Antosha ate nothing at dinner." + +He was very hospitable and loved it when people stayed to dinner, and he +knew how to treat guests in his own peculiar way, simply and heartily. +He would say, standing behind one's chair: + +--"Listen, have some vodka. When I was young and healthy I loved it. I +would pick mushrooms for a whole morning, get tired out, hardly able to +reach home, and before lunch I would have two or three thimblefuls. +Wonderful!..." + +After dinner he had tea upstairs, on the open verandah, or in his study, +or he would come down into the garden and sit there on the bench, in his +overcoat, with a cane, pushing his soft black hat down to his very eyes +and looking out under its brim with screwed up eyes. + +These hours were the most crowded. There were constant rings on the +telephone, asking if Anton Chekhov could be seen; and perpetual +visitors. Strangers also came, sending in their cards and asking for +help, for autographs or books. Then queer things happened. + +One "Tambov squire," as Chekhov christened him, came to him for medical +advice. In vain did Anton Pavlovitch answer him, that he had given up +medical practice long ago and that he was behind the times in medicine. +In vain did he recommend a more experienced physician,--the "Tambov +squire" persisted: no doctor would he trust but Chekhov. Willy-nilly he +had to give a few trifling, perfectly innocent pieces of advice. On +taking leave the "Tambov squire" put on the table two gold coins and, in +spite of all Chekhov's persuasion, he would not agree to take them back. +Anton Pavlovitch had to give way. He said that as he neither wished nor +considered himself entitled to take money as a fee, he would give it to +the Yalta Charitable Society, and at once wrote a receipt. It turned out +that it was that the "Tambov squire" wanted. With a radiant face, he +carefully put the receipt in his pocket-book, and then confessed that +the sole purpose of his visit was to obtain Chekhov's autograph. Chekhov +himself told me the story of this original and persistent +patient--half-laughing, half-cross. + +I repeat, many of these visitors plagued him fearfully and even +irritated him, but, owing to the amazing delicacy peculiar to him, he +was with all patient, attentive and accessible to those who wished to +see him. His delicacy at times reached a limit that bordered on +weakness. Thus, for instance, one nice, well-meaning lady, a great +admirer of Chekhov, gave him for a birthday present a huge pug-dog in a +sitting position, made of colored plaster of Paris, over a yard high, +i. e., about five times larger than its natural size. That pug-dog was +placed downstairs, on the landing near the dining room, and there he sat +with an angry face chewing his teeth and frightening those who had +forgotten him. + +--"O, I'm afraid of that stone dog myself," Chekhov confessed, "but it +is awkward to move him; it might hurt her. Let him stay on here." + +And suddenly, with eyes full of laughter, he added unexpectedly, in his +usual manner: + +"Have you noticed in the houses of rich Jews, such plaster dogs often +sit by the fireplace?" + +At times, for days on end, he would be annoyed with every sort of +admirer and detractor and even adviser. "O, I have such a mass of +visitors,"--he complained in a letter,--"that my head swims. I cannot +work." But still he did not remain indifferent to a sincere feeling of +love and respect and always distinguished it from idle and fulsome +tittle-tattle. Once he returned in a very gay mood from the quay where +he sometimes took a walk, and with great animation told us: + +--"I just had a wonderful meeting. An artillery officer suddenly came up +to me on the quay, quite a young man, a sub-lieutenant.--'Are you A. P. +Chekhov?'--'Yes. Do you want anything?'--'Excuse me please for my +importunity, but for so long I have wanted to shake your hand!' And he +blushed--he was a wonderful fellow with a fine face. We shook hands and +parted." + +Chekhov was at his best towards evening, about seven o'clock, when +people gathered in the dining room for tea and a light supper. +Sometimes--but more and more rarely as the years went on--there revived +in him the old Chekhov, inexhaustibly gay, witty, with a bubbling, +charming, youthful humor. Then he improvised stories in which the +characters were his friends, and he was particularly fond of arranging +imaginary weddings, which sometimes ended with the young husband the +following morning, sitting at the table and having his tea, saying as it +were by the way in an unconcerned and businesslike tone: + +--"Do you know, my dear, after tea we'll get ready and go to a +solicitor's. Why should you have unnecessary bother about your money?" + +He invented wonderful Chekhovian names, of which I now--alas!--remember +only a certain mythical sailor Koshkodovenko-cat-slayer. He also liked +as a joke to make young writers appear old. "What are you saying--Bunin +is my age"--he would assure one with mock seriousness. "So is Teleshov: +he is an old writer. Well, ask him yourself: he will tell you what a +spree we had at T. A. Bieloussov's wedding. What a long time ago!" To a +talented novelist, a serious writer and a man of ideas, he said: "Look +here, you're twenty years my senior: surely you wrote previously under +the nom-de-plume 'Nestor Kukolnik.'" + +But his jokes never left any bitterness any more than he consciously +ever caused the slightest pain to any living thing. + +After dinner he would keep some one in his study for half an hour or an +hour. On his table candles would be lit. Later, when all had gone and he +remained alone, a light would still be seen in his large window for a +long time. Whether he worked at that time, or looked through his +note-books, putting down the impressions of the day nobody seems to +know. + + +VI + +It is true, on the whole, that we know nearly nothing, not only of his +creative activities, but even of the external methods of his work. In +this respect Anton Pavlovitch was almost eccentric in his reserve and +silence. I remember him saying, as if by the way, something very +significant: + +--"For God's sake don't read your work to any one until it is published. +Don't read it to others in proof even." + +This was always his own habit, although he sometimes made exceptions for +his wife and sister. Formerly he is said to have been more communicative +in this respect. + +That was when he wrote a great deal and at great speed. He himself said +that he used to write a story a day. E. T. Chekhov, his mother, used to +say: "When he was still an undergraduate, Antosha would sit at the table +in the morning, having his tea and suddenly fall to thinking; he would +sometimes look straight into one's eyes, but I knew that he saw nothing. +Then he would get his note-book out of his pocket and write quickly, +quickly. And again he would fall to thinking...." + +But during the last years Chekhov began to treat himself with ever +increasing strictness and exactitude: he kept his stories for several +years, continually correcting and copying them, and nevertheless in +spite of such minute work, the final proofs, which came from him, were +speckled throughout with signs, corrections, and insertions. In order to +finish a work he had to write without tearing himself away. "If I leave +a story for a long time,"--he once said--"I cannot make myself finish it +afterwards. I have to begin again." + +Where did he draw his images from? Where did he find his observations +and his similes? Where did he forge his superb language, unique in +Russian literature? He confided in nobody, never revealed his creative +methods. Many note-books are said to have been left by him; perhaps in +them will in time be found the keys to those mysteries. Or perhaps they +will forever remain unsolved. Who knows? At any rate we must limit +ourselves to vague hints and guesses. + +I think that always, from morning to night, and perhaps at night even, +in his sleep and sleeplessness, there was going on in him an invisible +but persistent--at times even unconscious--activity, the activity of +weighing, defining and remembering. He knew how to listen and ask +questions, as no one else did; but often, in the middle of a lively +conversation, it would be noticed, how his attentive and kindly look +became motionless and deep, as if it were withdrawing somewhere inside, +contemplating something mysterious and important, which was going on +there. At those moments A. P. would put his strange questions, amazing +through their unexpectedness, completely out of touch with the +conversation, questions which confused many people. The conversation was +about neo-marxists, and he would suddenly ask: "Have you ever been to a +stud-farm? You ought to see one. It is interesting." Or he would repeat +a question for the second time, which had already been answered. + +Chekhov was not remarkable for a memory of external things. I speak of +that power of minute memory, which women so often possess in a very high +degree, also peasants, which consists in remembering, how a person was +dressed, whether he has a beard and mustaches, what his watch chain was +like or his boots, what color his hair was. These details were simply +unimportant and uninteresting to him. But, instead, he took the whole +person and defined quickly and truly, exactly like an experienced +chemist, his specific gravity, his quality and order, and he knew +already how to describe his essential qualities in a couple of strokes. + +Once Chekhov spoke with slight displeasure of a good friend of his, a +famous scholar, who, in spite of a long-standing friendship, somewhat +oppressed Chekhov with his talkativeness. No sooner would he arrive in +Yalta, than he at once came to Chekhov and sat there with him all the +morning till lunch. Then he would go to his hotel for half an hour, and +come back and sit until late at night, all the time talking, talking, +talking.... And so on day after day. + +Suddenly, abruptly breaking off his story, as if carried away by a new +interesting thought, Anton Pavlovitch added with animation: + +--"And nobody would guess what is most characteristic in that man. I +know it. That he is a professor and a savant with a European reputation, +is to him a secondary matter. The chief thing is that in his heart he +considers himself to be a remarkable actor, and he profoundly believes +that it is only by chance that he has not won universal popularity on +the stage. At home he always reads Ostrovsky aloud." + +Once, smiling at his recollection, he suddenly observed: + +--"D'you know, Moscow is the most peculiar city. In it everything is +unexpected. Once on a spring morning S., the publicist, and myself came +out of the Great Moscow Hotel. It was after a late and merry supper. +Suddenly S. dragged me to the Tversky Church, just opposite. He took a +handful of coppers and began to share it out to the beggars--there are +dozens standing about there. He would give one a penny and whisper: +'Pray for the health of Michael the slave of God.' It is his Christian +name Michael. And again: 'for the servant of God, Michael; for Michael, +the servant of God.' And he himself does not believe in God.... Queer +fellow!" ... + +I now approach a delicate point which may not perhaps please every one. +I am convinced that Chekhov talked to a scholar and a peddler, a beggar +and a litterateur, with a prominent Zemstvo worker and a suspicious monk +or shop assistant or a small postman, with the same attention and +curiosity. Is not that the reason why in his stories the professor +speaks and thinks just like an old professor, and the tramp just like a +veritable tramp? And is it not because of this, that immediately after +his death there appeared so many "bosom" friends, for whom, in their +words, he would be ready to go through fire and water? + +I think that he did not open or give his heart completely to any one +(there is a legend, though, of an intimate, beloved friend, a Taganrog +official). But he regarded all kindly, indifferently so far as +friendship is concerned--and at the same time with a great, perhaps +unconscious, interest. + +His Chekhovian _mots_ and those little _traits_ that astonish us by +their neatness and appositeness, he often took direct from life. The +expression "it displeasures me" which quickly became, after the +"Bishop," a bye-word with a wide circulation, he got from a certain +gloomy tramp, half-drunkard, half-madman, half-prophet. I also remember +talking once with Chekhov of a long dead Moscow poet, and Chekhov +glowingly remembered him, and his mistress, and his empty rooms, and his +St. Bernard, "Ami," who suffered from constant indigestion. "Certainly, +I remember,"--Chekhov said laughing gayly--"At five o'clock his mistress +would always come in and ask: 'Liodor Tranitch, I say, Liodor Tranitch, +is it not time you drank your beer?'" And then I imprudently said: "O, +that's where it comes from in your 'Ward N 6'?"--"Yes, well, +yes"--replied Chekhov with displeasure. + +He had friends also among those merchants' wives, who, in spite of their +millions and the most fashionable dresses, and an outward interest in +literature, say "ideal" and "in principal." Some of them would for hours +pour out their souls before Chekhov, wishing to convey what +extraordinarily refined, neurotic characters they were, and what a +remarkable novel could be written by a writer of genius about their +lives, if only they could tell everything. And he would sit quietly, in +silence, and listen with apparent pleasure--only under his moustache +glided an almost imperceptible smile. + +I do not wish to say that he _looked_ for models, like many other +writers. But I think, that everywhere and always he saw material for +observation, and this happened involuntarily, often perhaps against his +will, through his long-cultivated and ineradicable habit of diving into +people, of analyzing and generalizing them. In this hidden process was +to him, probably, all the torment and joy of his creative activity. + +He shared his impressions with no one, just as he never spoke of what +and how he was going to write. Also very rarely was the artist and +novelist shown in his talk. He, partly deliberately, partly +instinctively, used in his speech ordinary, average, common expressions, +without having recourse either to simile or picturesqueness. He guarded +his treasures in his soul, not permitting them to be wasted in wordy +foam, and in this there was a huge difference between him and those +novelists who tell their stories much better than they write them. + +This, I think, came from a natural reserve, but also from a peculiar +shyness. There are people who constitutionally cannot endure and are +morbidly shy of too demonstrative attitudes, gestures and words, and +Anton Pavlovitch possessed this quality in the highest degree. Herein, +maybe, is hidden the key to his _seeming_ indifference towards question +of struggle and protest and his aloofness towards topical events, which +did and do agitate the Russian intelligentsia. He had a horror of +pathos, of vehement emotions and the theatrical effects inseparable from +them. I can only compare him in this with a man who loves a woman with +all the ardor, tenderness and depth, of which a man of refinement and +great intelligence is capable. He will never try to speak of it in +pompous, high-flown words, and he cannot even imagine himself falling on +his knees and pressing his hand to his heart and speaking in the +tremulous voice of a young lover on the stage. And therefore he loves +and is silent, and suffers in silence, and will never attempt to utter +what the average man will express freely and noisily according to all +the rules of rhetoric. + + +VII + +To young writers, Chekhov was always sympathetic and kind. No one left +him oppressed by his enormous talent and by one's own insignificance. He +never said to any one: "Do as I do; see how I behave." If in despair one +complained to him: "Is it worth going on, if one will forever remain +'our young and promising author'?" he answered quietly and seriously: + +--"But, my dear fellow, not every one can write like Tolstoy." His +considerateness was at times pathetic. A certain young writer came to +Yalta and took a little room in a big and noisy Greek family somewhere +beyond Antka, on the outskirts of the city. He once complained to +Chekhov that it was difficult to work in such surroundings, and Chekhov +insisted that the writer should come to him in the mornings and work +downstairs in the room adjoining the dining room. "You will write +downstairs, and I upstairs"--he said with his charming smile--"And you +will have dinner with me. When you finish something, do read it to me, +or, if you go away, send me the proofs." + +He read an amazing amount and always remembered everything, and never +confused one writer with another. If writers asked his opinion, he +always praised their work, not so as to get rid of them, but because he +knew how cruelly a sharp, even if just, criticism cuts the wings of +beginners, and what an encouragement and hope a little praise gives +sometimes. "I have read your story. It is marvelously well done," he +would say on such occasions in a hearty voice. But when a certain +confidence was established and they got to know each other, especially +if an author insisted, he gave his opinion more definitely, directly, +and at greater length. I have two letters of his, written to one and the +same novelist, concerning one and the same tale. Here is a quotation +from the first: + +"Dear N., I received your tale and have read it; many thanks. The tale +is good, I have read it at one go, as I did the previous one, and with +the same pleasure...." + +But as the author was not satisfied with praise alone, he soon received +a second letter from Anton Pavlovitch. + +"You want me to speak of defects only, and thereby you put me in an +embarrassing situation. There are no defects in that story, and if one +finds fault, it is only with a few of its peculiarities. For instance, +your heroes, characters, you treat in the old style, as they have been +treated for a hundred years by all who have written about them--nothing +new. Secondly, in the first chapter you are busy describing people's +faces--again that is the old way, it is a description which can be +dispensed with. Five minutely described faces tire the attention, and in +the end lose their value. Clean-shaved characters are like each other, +like Catholic priests, and remain alike, however studiously you describe +them. Thirdly, you overdo your rough manner in the description of +drunken people. That is all I can say in reply to your question about +the defects; I can find nothing more that is wrong." + +To those writers with whom he had any common spiritual bond, he always +behaved with great care and attention. He never missed an occasion to +tell them any news which he knew would be pleasing or useful. + +"Dear N.," he wrote to a certain friend of mine,--"I hereby inform you +that your story was read by L. N. Tolstoy and he liked it _very much_. +Be so good as to send him your book at this address; Koreiz, Tauric +Province, and on the title page underline the stories which you consider +best, so that he should begin with them. Or send the book to me and I +will hand it to him." + +To the writer of these lines he also once showed a delightful kindness, +communicating by letter that, "in the 'Dictionary of the Russian +Language,' published by the Academy of Sciences, in the sixth number of +the second volume, which number I received to-day, you too appeared at +last." + +All these of course are details, but in them is apparent much sympathy +and concern, so that now, when this great artist and remarkable man is +no longer among us, his letters acquire the significance of a far-away, +irrevocable caress. + +"Write, write as much as possible"--he would say to young novelists. "It +does not matter if it does not come off. Later on it will come off. The +chief thing is, do not waste your youth and elasticity. It's now the +time for working. See, you write superbly, but your vocabulary is small. +You must acquire words and turns of speech, and for this you must write +every day." + +And he himself worked untiringly on himself, enriching his charming, +varied vocabulary from every source: from conversations, dictionaries, +catalogues, from learned works, from sacred writings. The store of words +which that silent man had was extraordinary. + +--"Listen, travel third class as often as possible"--he advised--"I am +sorry that illness prevents me from traveling third. There you will +sometimes hear remarkably interesting things." + +He also wondered at those authors who for years on end see nothing but +the next door house from the windows of their Petersburg flats. And +often he said with a shade of impatience: + +--"I cannot understand why you--young, healthy, and free--don't go, for +instance, to Australia (Australia for some reason was his favorite part +of the world), or to Siberia. As soon as I am better, I shall certainly +go to Siberia. I was there when I went to Saghalien. You cannot imagine, +my dear fellow, what a wonderful country it is. It is quite different. +You know, I am convinced Siberia will some day sever herself completely +from Russia, just as America severed herself from her motherland. You +must, must go there without fail...." + +"Why don't you write a play?"--he would sometimes ask. "Do write one, +really. Every writer must write at least four plays." + +But he would confess now and then, that the dramatic form is losing its +interest now. + +"The drama must either degenerate completely, or take a completely new +form"--he said. "We cannot even imagine what the theatre will be like in +a hundred years." + +There were some little inconsistencies in Anton Pavlovitch which were +particularly attractive in him and had at the same time a deep inner +significance. This was once the case with regard to note-books. Chekhov +had just strongly advised us not to have recourse to them for help but +to rely wholly on our memory and imagination. "The big things will +remain"--he argued--"and the details you can always invent or find." But +then, an hour later, one of the company, who had been for a year on the +stage, began to talk of his theatrical impressions and incidentally +mentioned this case. A rehearsal was taking place in the theatre of a +tiny provincial town. The "young lover" paced the stage in a hat and +check trousers, with his hands in his pockets, showing off before a +casual public which had straggled into the theatre. The "ingenue," his +mistress, who was also on the stage, said to him: "Sasha, what was it +you whistled yesterday from _Pagliacci_? Do please whistle it again." +The "young lover" turned to her, and looking her up and down with a +devastating expression said in a fat, actor's voice: "Wha-at! Whistle on +the stage? Would you whistle in church? Then know that the stage is the +same as a church!" + +At the end of that story Anton Pavlovitch threw off his pince-nez, flung +himself back in his chair, and began to laugh with his clear, ringing +laughter. He immediately opened the drawer of his table to get his +note-book. "Wait, wait, how did you say it? The stage is a temple?" ... +And he put down the whole anecdote. + +There was no essential contradiction in this, and Anton Pavlovitch +explained it himself. "One should not put down similes, characteristic +_traits_, details, scenes from nature--this must come of itself when it +is needed. But a bare fact, a rare name, a technical term, should be put +down in the note-book--otherwise it may be forgotten and lost." + +Chekhov frequently recalled the difficulties put in his way by the +editors of serious magazines, until with the helping hand of "Sieverny +Viestnik" he finally overcame them. + +"For one thing you all ought to be grateful to me,"--he would say to +young writers.--"It was I who opened the way for writers of short +stories. Formerly, when one took a manuscript to an editor, he did not +even read it. He just looked scornfully at one. 'What? You call this a +work? But this is shorter than a sparrow's nose. No, we do not want such +trifles.' But, see, I got round them and paved the way for others. But +that is nothing; they treated me much worse than that! They used my name +as a synonym for a writer of short stories. They would make merry: 'O, +you Chekhovs!' It seemed to them amusing." + +Anton Pavlovitch had a high opinion of modern writing, i. e., properly +speaking, of the technique of modern writing. "All write superbly now; +there are no bad writers"--he said in a resolute tone. "And hence it is +becoming more and more difficult to win fame. Do you know whom that is +due to?--Maupassant. He, as an artist in language, put the standard +before an author so high that it is no longer possible to write as of +old. You try to re-read some of our classics, say, Pissemsky, +Grigorovitch, or Ostrovsky; try, and you will see what obsolete, +commonplace stuff it is. Take on the other hand our decadents. They are +only pretending to be sick and crazy,--they all are burly peasants. But +so far as writing goes,--they are masters." + +At the same time he asked that writers should choose ordinary, everyday +themes, simplicity of treatment, and absence of showy tricks. "Why +write,"--he wondered--"about a man getting into a submarine and going to +the North Pole to reconcile himself with the world, while his beloved at +that moment throws herself with a hysterical shriek from the belfry? All +this is untrue and does not happen in reality. One must write about +simple things: how Peter Semionovitch married Marie Ivanovna. That is +all. And again, why those subtitles: a psychological study, genre, +nouvelle? All these are mere pretense. Put as plain a title as +possible--any that occurs to your mind--and nothing else. Also use as +few brackets, italics and hyphens as possible. They are mannerisms." + +He also taught that an author should be indifferent to the joys and +sorrows of his characters. "In a good story"--he said--"I have read a +description of a restaurant by the sea in a large city. You saw at once +that the author was all admiration for the music, the electric light, +the flowers in the buttonholes; that he himself delighted in +contemplating them. One has to stand outside these things, and, although +knowing them in minute detail, one must look at them from top to bottom +with contempt. And then it will be true." + + +VIII + +The son of Alphonse Daudet in his memoirs of his father relates that the +gifted French writer half jokingly called himself a "seller of +happiness." People of all sorts would constantly apply to him for advice +and assistance. They came with their sorrows and worries, and he, +already bedridden with a painful and incurable disease, found sufficient +courage, patience, and love of mankind in himself to penetrate into +other people's grief, to console and encourage them. + +Chekhov, certainly, with his extraordinary modesty and his dislike of +phrase-making, would never have said anything like that. But how often +he had to listen to people's confessions, to help by word and deed, to +hold out a tender and strong hand to the falling.... In his wonderful +objectivity, standing above personal sorrows and joys, he knew and saw +everything. But personal feeling stood in the way of his understanding. +He could be kind and generous without loving; tender and sympathetic +without attachment; a benefactor, without counting on gratitude. And +these traits which were never understood by those round him, contained +the chief key to his personality. + +Availing myself of the permission of a friend of mine, I will quote a +short extract from a Chekhov letter. The man was greatly alarmed and +troubled during the first pregnancy of a much beloved wife, and, to tell +the truth, he distressed Anton Pavlovitch greatly with his own trouble. +Chekhov once wrote to him: + +"Tell your wife she should not be anxious, everything will be all right. +The travail will last twenty hours, and then will ensue a most blissful +state, when she will smile, and you will long to cry from love and +gratitude. Twenty hours is the usual maximum for the first childbirth." + +What a subtle cure for another's anxiety is heard in these few simple +lines! But it is still more characteristic that later, when my friend +had become a happy father, and, recollecting that letter, asked Chekhov +how he understood these feelings so well, Anton Pavlovitch answered +quietly, even indifferently: + +"When I lived in the country, I always had to attend peasant women. It +was just the same--there too is the same joy." + +If Chekhov had not been such a remarkable writer, he would have been a +great doctor. Physicians who sometimes invited him to a consultation +spoke of him as an unusually thoughtful observer and penetrating in +diagnosis. It would not be surprising if his diagnosis were more perfect +and profound than a diagnosis given by a fashionable celebrity. He saw +and heard in man--in his face, voice, and bearing--what was hidden and +would escape the notice of an average observer. + +He himself preferred to recommend, in the rare cases when his advice was +sought, medicines that were tried, simple, and mostly domestic. By the +way he treated children with great success. + +He believed in medicine firmly and soundly, and nothing could shake that +belief. I remember how cross he was once when some one began to talk +slightingly of medicine, basing his remarks on Zola's novel "Doctor +Pascal." + +--"Zola understands nothing and invents it all in his study,"--he said +in agitation, coughing. "Let him come and see how our Zemstvo doctors +work and what they do for the people." + +Every one knows how often--with what sympathy and love beneath an +external hardness, he describes those superb workers, those obscure and +inconspicuous heroes who deliberately doomed their names to oblivion. He +described them, even without sparing them. + + +IX + +There is a saying: the death of each man is like him. One recalls it +involuntarily when one thinks of the last years of Chekhov's life, of +the last days, even of the last minutes. Even into his funeral fate +brought, by some fatal consistency, many purely Chekhovian traits. + +He struggled long, terribly long, with an implacable disease, but bore +it with manly simplicity and patience, without irritation, without +complaints, almost in silence. Only just before his death, he mentions +his disease, just by the way, in his letters. "My health is recovered, +although I still walk with a compress on." ... "I have just got through +a pleurisy, but am better now." ... "My health is not grand.... I write +on." + +He did not like to talk of his disease and was annoyed when questioned +about it. Only from Arseniy (the servant) one would learn. "This morning +he was very bad--there was blood," he would say in a whisper, shaking +his head. Or Yevguenia Yakovlevna, Chekhov's mother, would say secretly +with anguish in her voice: + +"Antosha again coughed all night. I hear through the wall." + +Did he know the extent and meaning of his disease? I think he did, but +intrepidly, like a doctor and a philosopher, he looked into the eyes of +imminent death. There were various, trifling circumstances pointing to +the fact that he knew. Thus, for instance, to a lady, who complained to +him of insomnia and nervous breakdown, he said quietly, with an +indefinable sadness: + +"You see; whilst a man's lungs are right, everything is right." + +He died simply, pathetically, and fully conscious. They say his last +words were: "Ich sterbe." And his last days were darkened by a deep +sorrow for Russia, and by the anxiety of the monstrous Japanese war. + +His funeral comes back to mind like a dream. The cold, grayish +Petersburg, a mistake about a telegram, a small gathering of people at +the railway station, "Wagon for oysters," in which his remains were +brought from Germany, the station authorities who had never heard of +Chekhov and saw in his body only a railway cargo.... Then, as a +contrast, Moscow, profound sorrow, thousands of bereaved people, +tear-stained faces. And at last his grave in the Novodevitchy cemetery, +filled with flowers, side by side with the humble grave of the +"Cossack's widow, Olga Coocaretnikov." + +I remember the service in the cemetery the day after his funeral. It was +a still July evening, and the old lime trees over the graves stood +motionless and golden in the sun. With a quiet, tender sadness and +sighing sounded the women's voices. And in the souls of many, then, was +a deep perplexity. + +Slowly and in silence the people left the cemetery. I went up to +Chekhov's mother and silently kissed her hand. And she said in a low, +tired voice: + +"Our trial is bitter.... Antosha is dead." + +O, the overwhelming depth of these simple, ordinary, very Chekhovian +words! The enormous abyss of the loss, the irrevocable nature of the +great event, opened behind. No! Consolations would be useless. Can the +sorrow of those, whose souls have been so close to the great soul of the +dead, ever be assuaged? + +But let their unquenchable anguish be stayed by the consciousness that +their distress is our common distress. Let it be softened by the thought +of the immortality of his great and pure name. Indeed: there will pass +years and centuries, and time will efface the very memory of thousands +and thousands of those living now. But the posterity, of whose happiness +Chekhov dreamt with such fascinating sadness, will speak his name with +gratitude and silent sorrow for his fate. + + + + +A. P. CHEKHOV +BY +I. A. BUNIN + + +I made Chekhov's acquaintance in Moscow, towards the end of '95. We met +then at intervals and I should not think it worth mentioning, if I did +not remember some very characteristic phrases. + +"Do you write much?" he asked me once. + +I answered that I wrote little. + +"Bad," he said, almost sternly, in his low, deep voice. "One must work +... without sparing oneself ... all one's life." + +And, after a pause, without any visible connection, he added: + +"When one has written a story I believe that one ought to strike out +both the beginning and the end. That is where we novelists are most +inclined to lie. And one must write shortly--as shortly as possible." + +Then we spoke of poetry, and he suddenly became excited. "Tell me, do +you care for Alexey Tolstoy's poems? To me he is an actor. When he was a +boy he put on evening dress and he has never taken it off." + +After these stray meetings in which we touched upon some of Chekhov's +favorite topics--as that one must work "without sparing oneself" and +must write simply and without the shadow of falsehood--we did not meet +till the spring of '99. I came to Yalta for a few days, and one evening +I met Chekhov on the quay. + +"Why don't you come to see me?" were his first words. "Be sure to come +to-morrow." + +"At what time?" I asked. + +"In the morning about eight." + +And seeing perhaps that I looked surprised he added: + +"We get up early. Don't you?" + +"Yes I do too," I said. + +"Well then, come when you get up. We will give you coffee. You take +coffee?" + +"Sometimes." + +"You ought to always. It's a wonderful drink. When I am working, I drink +nothing but coffee and chicken broth until the evening. Coffee in the +morning and chicken broth at midday. If I don't, my work suffers." + +I thanked him for asking me, and we crossed the quay in silence and sat +down on a bench. + +"Do you love the sea?" I asked. + +"Yes," he replied. "But it is too lonely." + +"That's what I like about it," I replied. + +"I wonder," he mused, looking through his spectacles away into the +distance and thinking his own thoughts. "It must be nice to be a +soldier, or a young undergraduate ... to sit in a crowd and listen to +the band...." + +And then, as was usual with him, after a pause and without apparent +connection, he added: + +"It is very difficult to describe the sea. Do you know the description +that a school-boy gave in an exercise? 'The sea is vast.' Only that. +Wonderful, I think." + +Some people might think him affected in saying this. But +Chekhov--affected! + +"I grant," said one who knew Chekhov well, "that I have met men as +sincere as Chekhov. But any one so simple, and so free from pose and +affectation I have never known!" + +And that is true. He loved all that was sincere, vital, and gay, so long +as it was neither coarse nor dull, and could not endure pedants, or +book-worms who have got so much into the habit of making phrases that +they can talk in no other way. In his writings he scarcely ever spoke of +himself or of his views, and this led people to think him a man without +principles or sense of duty to his kind. In life, too, he was no +egotist, and seldom spoke of his likings and dislikings. But both were +very strong and lasting, and simplicity was one of the things he liked +best. "The sea is vast." ... To him, with his passion for simplicity and +his loathing of the strained and affected, that was "wonderful." His +words about the officer and the music showed another characteristic of +his: his reserve. The transition from the sea to the officer was no +doubt inspired by his secret craving for youth and health. The sea is +lonely.... And Chekhov loved life and joy. During his last years his +desire for happiness, even of the simplest kind, would constantly show +itself in his conversation. It would be hinted at, not expressed. + +In Moscow, in the year 1895, I saw a middle-aged man (Chekhov was then +35) wearing pince-nez, quietly dressed, rather tall, and light and +graceful in his movements. He welcomed me, but so quietly that I, then a +boy, took his quietness for coldness.... In Yalta, in the year 1899, I +found him already much changed; he had grown thin; his face was sadder; +his distinction was as great as ever but it was the distinction of an +elderly man, who has gone through much, and been ennobled by his +suffering. His voice was gentler.... In other respects he was much as he +had been in Moscow; cordial, speaking with animation, but even more +simply and shortly, and, while he talked, he went on with his own +thoughts. He let me grasp the connections between his thoughts as well +as I could, while he looked through his glasses at the sea, his face +slightly raised. Next morning after meeting him on the quay I went to +his house. I well remember the bright sunny morning that I spent with +Chekhov in his garden. He was very lively, and laughed and read me the +only poem, so he said, that he had ever written, "Horses, Hares and +Chinamen, a fable for children." (Chekhov wrote it for the children of a +friend. See Letters.) + + Once walked over a bridge + Fat Chinamen, + In front of them, with their tails up, + Hares ran quickly. + Suddenly the Chinamen shouted: + "Stop! Whoa! Ho! Ho!" + The hares raised their tails still higher + And hid in the bushes. + The moral of this fable is clear: + He who wants to eat hares + Every day getting out of bed + Must obey his father. + +After that visit I went to him more and more frequently. Chekhov's +attitude towards me therefore changed. He became more friendly and +cordial.... But he was still reserved, yet, as he was reserved not only +with me but with those who were most intimate with him, it rose, I +believed, not from coldness, but from something much more important. + +The charming white stone house, bright in the sun; the little orchard, +planted and tended by Chekhov himself who loved all flowers, trees, and +animals; his study, with its few pictures, and the large window which +looked out onto the valley of the river Utchan-Spo, and the blue +triangle of the sea; the hours, days, and even months which I spent +there, and my friendship with the man who fascinated me not only by his +genius but also by his stern voice and his child-like smile--all this +will always remain one of the happiest memories of my life. He was +friendly to me and at times almost tender. But the reserve which I have +spoken of never disappeared even when we were most intimate. He was +reserved about everything. + +He was very humorous and loved laughter, but he only laughed his +charming infectious laugh when somebody else had made a joke: he himself +would say the most amusing things without the slightest smile. He +delighted in jokes, in absurd nicknames, and in mystifying people.... +Even towards the end when he felt a little better his humor was +irrepressible. And with what subtle humor he would make one laugh! He +would drop a couple of words and wink his eye above his glasses.... His +letters too, though their form is perfect, are full of delightful humor. + +But Chekhov's reserve was shown in a great many other ways which proved +the strength of his character. No one ever heard him complain, though no +one had more reason to complain. He was one of a large family, which +lived in a state of actual want. He had to work for money under +conditions which would have extinguished the most fiery inspiration. He +lived in a tiny flat, writing at the edge of a table, in the midst of +talk and noise with the whole family and often several visitors sitting +round him. For many years he was very poor.... Yet he scarcely ever +grumbled at his lot. It was not that he asked little of life: on the +contrary, he hated what was mean and meager though he was nobly Spartan +in the way he lived. For fifteen years he suffered from an exhausting +illness which finally killed him, but his readers never knew it. The +same could not be said of most writers. Indeed, the manliness with which +he bore his sufferings and met his death was admirable. Even at his +worst he almost succeeded in hiding his pain. + +"You are not feeling well, Antosha?" his mother or sister would say, +seeing him sitting all day with his eyes shut. + +"I?" he would answer, quietly, opening the eyes which looked so clear +and mild without his glasses. "Oh, it's nothing. I have a little +headache." + +He loved literature passionately, and to talk of writers and to praise +Maupassant, Flaubert, or Tolstoy was a great joy to him. He spoke with +particular enthusiasm of those just mentioned and also of Lermontov's +"Taman." + +"I cannot understand," he would say, "how a mere boy could have written +Taman! Ah, if one had written that and a good comedy--then one would be +content to die!" + +But his talk about literature was very different from the usual shop +talked by writers, with its narrowness, and smallness, and petty +personal spite. He would only discuss books with people who loved +literature above all other arts and were disinterested and pure in their +love of it. + +"You should not read your writing to other people before it is +published," he often said. "And it is most important never to take any +one's advice. If you have made a mess of it, let the blood be on your +own head. Maupassant by his greatness has so raised the standard of +writing that it is very hard to write; but we have to write, especially +we Russians, and in writing one must be courageous. There are big dogs +and little dogs, but the little dogs should not be disheartened by the +existence of the big dogs. All must bark--and bark with the voice God +gave them." + +All that went on in the world of letters interested him keenly, and he +was indignant with the stupidity, falsehood, affectation and charlatanry +which batten upon literature. But though he was angry he was never +irritable and there was nothing personal in his anger. It is usual to +say of dead writers that they rejoiced in the success of others, and +were not jealous of them. If, therefore, I suspected Chekhov of the +least jealousy I should be content to say nothing about it. But the fact +is that he rejoiced in the existence of talent, spontaneously. The word +"talentless" was, I think, the most damaging expression he could use. +His own failures and successes he took as he alone knew how to take +them. + +He was writing for twenty-five years and during that time his writing +was constantly attacked. Being one of the greatest and most subtle of +Russian writers, he never used his art to preach. That being so, Russian +critics could neither understand him nor approve of him. Did they not +insist that Levitan should "light up" his landscapes--that is paint in a +cow, a goose, or the figure of a woman? Such criticism hurt Chekhov a +good deal, and embittered him even more than he was already embittered +by Russian life itself. His bitterness would show itself +momentarily--only momentarily. + +"We shall soon be celebrating your jubilee, Anton Pavlovitch!" + +"I know your jubilees. For twenty-five years they do nothing but abuse +and ridicule a man, and then you give him a pen made of aluminum and +slobber over him for a whole day, and cry, and kiss him, and gush!" + +To talk of his fame and his popularity he would answer in the same +way--with two or three words or a jest. + +"Have you read it, Anton Pavlovitch?" one would ask, having read an +article about him. + +He would look slyly over his spectacles, ludicrously lengthen his face, +and say in his deep voice: + +"Oh, a thousand thanks! There is a whole column, and at the bottom of +it, 'There is also a writer called Chekhov: a discontented man, a +grumbler.'" + +Sometimes he would add seriously: + +"When you find yourself criticized, remember us sinners. The critics +boxed our ears for trifles just as if we were school-boys. One of them +foretold that I should die in a ditch. He supposed that I had been +expelled from school for drunkenness." + +I never saw Chekhov lose his temper. Very seldom was he irritated, and +if it did happen he controlled himself astonishingly. I remember, for +instance, that he was once annoyed by reading in a book that he was +"indifferent" to questions of morality and society, and that he was a +pessimist. Yet his annoyance showed itself only in two words: + +"Utter idiot!" + +Nor did I find him cold. He said that he was cold when he wrote, and +that he only wrote when the thoughts and images that he was about to +express were perfectly clear to him, and then he wrote on, steadily, +without interruptions, until he had brought it to an end. + +"One ought only to write when one feels completely calm," he said once. + +But this calm was of a very peculiar nature. No other Russian writer had +his sensibility and his complexity. + +Indeed, it would take a very versatile mind to throw any light upon this +profound and complex spirit--this "incomparable artist" as Tolstoy +called him. I can only bear witness that he was a man of rare spiritual +nobleness, distinguished and cultivated in the best sense, who combined +tenderness and delicacy with complete sincerity, kindness and +sensitiveness with complete candour. + +To be truthful and natural and yet retain great charm implies a nature +of rare beauty, integrity, and power. I speak so frequently of Chekhov's +composure because his composure seems to me a proof of the strength of +his character. It was always his, I think, even when he was young and in +the highest spirits, and it was that, perhaps, that made him so +independent, and able to begin his work unpretentiously and +courageously, without paltering with his conscience. + +Do you remember the words of the old professor in "The Tedious Story?" + +"I won't say that French books are good and gifted and noble; but they +are not so dull as Russian books, and the chief element of creative +power is often to be found in them--the sense of personal freedom." + +Chekhov had in the highest degree that "sense of personal freedom" and +he could not bear that others should be without it. He would become +bitter and uncompromising if he thought that others were taking +liberties with it. + +That "freedom," it is well known, cost him a great deal; but he was not +one of those people who have two different ideals--one for themselves, +the other for the public. His success was for a very long time much less +than he deserved. But he never during the whole of his life made the +least effort to increase his popularity. He was extremely severe upon +all the wire-pulling which is now resorted to in order to achieve +success. + +"Do you still call them writers? They are cab-men!" he said bitterly. + +His dislike to being made a show of at times seemed excessive. + +"The Scorpion (a publishing firm) advertise their books badly," he wrote +to me after the publication of "Northern Flowers." "They put my name +first, and when I read the advertisement in the daily _Russkya +Vedonosti_ I swore I would never again have any truck with scorpions, +crocodiles, or snakes." + +This was the winter of 1900 when Chekhov who had become interested in +certain features of the new publishing firm "Scorpion" gave them at my +request one of his youthful stories, "On the Sea." They printed it in a +volume of collected stories and he many times regretted it. + +"All this new Russian art is nonsense," he would say. "I remember that I +once saw a sign-board in Taganrog: Arfeticial (for 'artificial') mineral +waters are sold here! Well, this new art is the same as that." + +His reserve came from the loftiness of his spirit and from his incessant +endeavor to express himself exactly. It will eventually happen that +people will know that he was not only an "incomparable artist," not only +an amazing master of language but an incomparable man into the bargain. +But it will take many years for people to grasp in its fullness his +subtlety, power, and delicacy. + +"How are you, dear Ivan Alexeyevitch?" he wrote to me at Nice. "I wish +you a happy New Year. I received your letter, thank you. In Moscow +everything is safe, sound, and dull. There is no news (except the New +Year) nor is any news expected. My play is not yet produced, nor do I +know when it will be. It is possible that I may come to Nice in +February.... Greet the lovely hot sun from me, and the quiet sea. Enjoy +yourself, be happy, don't think about illness, and write often to your +friends.... Keep well, and cheerful, and don't forget your sallow +northern countrymen, who suffer from indigestion and bad temper." (8th +January, 1904). + +"Greet the lovely hot sun and the quiet sea from me" ... I seldom heard +him say that. But I often felt that he ought to say it, and then my +heart ached sadly. + +I remember one night in early spring. It was late. Suddenly the +telephone rang. I heard Chekhov's deep voice: + +"Sir, take a cab and come here. Let us go for a drive." + +"A drive? At this time of night?" I answered. "What's the matter, Anton +Pavlovitch?" + +"I am in love." + +"That's good. But it is past nine.... You will catch cold." + +"Young man, don't quibble!" + +Ten minutes later I was at Antka. The house, where during the winter +Chekhov lived alone with his mother, was dark and silent, save that a +light came through the key-hole of his mother's room, and two little +candles burnt in the semi-darkness of his study. My heart shrank as +usual at the sight of that quiet study, where Chekhov passed so many +lonely winter nights, thinking bitterly perhaps on the fate which had +given him so much and mocked him so cruelly. + +"What a night!" he said to me with even more than his usual tenderness +and pensive gladness, meeting me in the doorway. "It is so dull here! +The only excitement is when the telephone rings and Sophie Pavlovna asks +what I am doing, and I answer: 'I am catching mice.' Come, let us drive +to Orianda. I don't care a hang if I do catch cold!" + +The night was warm and still, with a bright moon, light clouds, and a +few stars in the deep blue sky. The carriage rolled softly along the +white road, and, soothed by the stillness of the night, we sat silent +looking at the sea glowing a dim gold.... Then came the forest cobwebbed +over with shadows, but already spring-like and beautiful.... Black +troops of giant cypresses rose majestically into the sky. We stopped the +carriage and walked beneath them, past the ruins of the castle, which +were pale blue in the moonlight. Chekhov suddenly said to me: + +"Do you know for how many years I shall be read? Seven." + +"Why seven?" I asked. + +"Seven and a half, then." + +"No," I said. "Poetry lives long, and the longer it lives the better it +becomes--like wine." + +He said nothing, but when we had sat down on a bench from which we could +see the sea shining in the moonlight, he took off his glasses and said, +looking at me with his kind, tired eyes: + +"Poets, sir, are those who use such phrases as 'the silvery distance,' +'accord,' or 'onward, onward, to the fight with the powers of +darkness'!" + +"You are sad to-night, Anton Pavlovitch," I said, looking at his kind +and beautiful face, pale in the moonlight. + +He was thoughtfully digging up little pebbles with the end of his stick, +with his eyes on the ground. But when I said that he was sad, he looked +across at me, humorously. + +"It is you who are sad," he answered. "You are sad because you have +spent such a lot on the cab." + +Then he added gravely: + +"Yes, I shall only be read for another seven years; and I shall live for +less--perhaps for six. But don't go and tell that to the newspaper +reporters." + +He was wrong there: he did not live for six years.... + +He died peacefully without suffering in the stillness and beauty of a +summer's dawn which he had always loved. When he was dead a look of +happiness came upon his face, and it looked like the face of a very +young man. There came to my mind the words of Leconte de Lisle: + + Moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calme et noir + D'etre affranchi de vivre et de ne plus savoir + La honte de penser et l'horreur d'etre un homme! + + + + + [ Transcriber's Note: + + The following is a list of corrections made to the original. + The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. + + respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humilate him personally, + respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humiliate him personally, + + began at once to speak of it with enthusiaism, completely uninterested, + began at once to speak of it with enthusiasm, completely uninterested, + + you struck!" + you struck!'" + + pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came beween the + pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came between the + + old. You try to re-read some of our classics, say, Pissensky, + old. You try to re-read some of our classics, say, Pissemsky, + + Moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calm et noir + Moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calme et noir + + ] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov, by +Maxim Gorky and Alexander Kuprin and I. A. 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