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.
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.”
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 naïve, 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.
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….”
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
