Essays on Russian Novelists Page 7

  Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, like Pushkin, Lermontov, Bielinski, andGarshin, died young, and although he wrote a goodly number of playsand stories which gave him a high reputation in Russia, he did notlive to enjoy international fame. This is partly owing to the natureof his work, but more perhaps to the total eclipse of othercontemporary writers by Gorki. There are signs now that his delicateand unpretentious art will outlast the sensational flare of theother's reputation. Gorki himself has generously tried to help in theperpetuation of Chekhov's name, by publishing a volume of personalreminiscences of his dead friend.

  Like Gogol and Artsybashev, Chekhov was a man of the South, being bornat Taganrog, a seaport on a gulf of the Black Sea, near the mouth ofthe river Don. The date of his birth is the 17 January 1860. Hisfather was a clever serf, who, by good business foresight, bought hisfreedom early in life. Although the father never had much educationhimself, he gave his four children every possible advantage. Antonstudied in the Greek school, in his native city, and then entered theFaculty of Medicine at the University of Moscow. "I don't wellremember why I chose the medical faculty," he remarked later, "but Inever regretted that choice." He took his degree, but entered upon noregular practice. For a year he worked in a hospital in a small townnear Moscow, and in 1892 he freely offered his medical services duringan epidemic of cholera. His professional experiences were of immenseservice to him in analysing the characters of various patients whom hetreated, and his scientific training he always believed helped himgreatly in the writing of his stories and plays, which are allpsychological studies.

  He knew that he had not very long to live, for before he had reallybegun his literary career signs of tuberculosis had plainly becomemanifest. He died in Germany, the 2 July 1904, and his funeral atMoscow was a national event.

  Chekhov was a fine conversationalist, and fond of society; despite theterrible gloom of his stories, he had distinct gifts as a wit, and wasa great favourite at dinner-parties and social gatherings. He jokedfreely on his death-bed. He was warm-hearted and generous, and gavemoney gladly to poor students and overworked school-teachers. Hisinnate modesty and lack of self-assertion made him very slow atpersonal advertisement, and his dislike of Tolstoi's views preventedat first an acquaintance with the old sage. Later, however, Tolstoi,being deeply interested in him, sought him out, and the two writersbecame friends. At this time many Russians believed that Chekhov wasthe legitimate heir to Tolstoi's fame.

  In 1879, while still in the University of Moscow, Chekhov began towrite short stories, of a more or less humorous nature, which werepublished in reviews. His first book appeared in 1887. Some criticssounded a note of warning, which he heeded. They said "it was too badthat such a talented young man should spend all his time making peoplelaugh." This indirect advice, coupled with maturity of years andincipient disease, changed the writer's point of view, and his bestknown work is typically Russian in its tragic intensity.

  In Russia he enjoyed an enormous vogue. Kropotkin says that his worksran through ten to fourteen editions, and that his publications,appearing as a supplement to a weekly magazine, had a circulation oftwo hundred thousand copies in one year. Toward the end of his lifehis stories captivated Germany, and one of the Berlin journalistscried out, as the Germans have so often of Oscar Wilde, "Chekhov undkein Ende!"

  Chekhov, like Gorki and Andreev, was a dramatist as well as anovelist, though his plays are only beginning to be known outside ofhis native land. They resemble the dramatic work of Gorki, Andreev,and for that matter of practically all Russian playwrights, in beingformless and having no true movement; but they contain some of hisbest Russian portraits, and some of his most subtle interpretations ofRussian national life. Russian drama does not compare for an instantwith Russian fiction: I have never read a single well-constructedRussian play except "Revizor." Most of them are dull to a foreignreader, and leave him cold and weary. Mr. Baring, in his book"Landmarks in Russian Literature," has an excellent chapter on theplays of Chekhov, which partially explains the difficulties anoutsider has in studying Russian drama. But this chapter, like theother parts of his book, is marred by exaggeration. He says,"Chekhov's plays are as interesting to read as the work of anyfirst-rate novelist." And a few sentences farther in the sameparagraph, he adds, "Chekhov's plays are a thousand times moreinteresting to see on the stage than they are to read." Any one whobelieves Mr. Baring's statement, and starts to read Chekhov's dramaswith the faith that they are as interesting as "Anna Karenina," willbe sadly disappointed. And if on the stage they are a thousand timesmore interesting to see than "Anna Karenina" is to read, they mustindeed be thrilling. It is, however, perfectly true that a foreignercannot judge the real value of Russian plays by reading them. We oughtto hear them performed by a Russian company. That wonderful actress,Madame Komisarzhevskaya, who was lately followed to her grave by animmense concourse of weeping Russians, gave a performance of "TheCherry Garden" which stirred the whole nation. Madame Nazimova hassaid that Chekhov is her favourite writer, but that his plays couldnot possibly succeed in America, unless every part, even the minorones, could be interpreted by a brilliant actor.

  Chekhov is durch und durch echt russisch: no one but a Russian wouldever have conceived such characters, or reported such conversations.We often wonder that physical exercise and bodily recreation are soconspicuously absent from Russian books. But we should remember that aRussian conversation is one of the most violent forms of physicalexercise, as it is among the French and Italians. Although Chekhovbelongs to our day, and represents contemporary Russia, he stands inthe middle of the highway of Russian fiction, and in his method of artharks back to the great masters. He perhaps resembles Turgenev morethan any other of his predecessors, but he is only a faint echo. He islike Turgenev in the delicacy and in the aloofness of his art. He hasat times that combination of the absolutely real with the absolutelyfantastic that is so characteristic of Gogol: one of his best stories,"The Black Monk," might have been written by the author of "The Cloak"and "The Portrait." He is like Dostoevski in his uncompromisingdepiction of utter degradation; but he has little of Dostoevski'sglowing sympathy and heartpower. He resembles Tolstoi least of all.The two chief features of Tolstoi's work--self-revelation and moralteaching--must have been abhorrent to Chekhov, for his stories tell usalmost nothing about himself and his own opinions, and they teachnothing. His art is impersonal, and he is content with mere diagnosis.His only point of contact with Tolstoi is his grim fidelity to detail,the peculiar Russian realism common to every Russian novelist. Tolstoisaid that Chekhov resembled Guy de Maupassant. This is entirely wideof the mark. He resembles Guy de Maupassant merely in the fact that,like the Frenchman, he wrote short stories.

  Among recent writers Chekhov is at the farthest remove from his friendGorki, and most akin to Andreev. It is probable that Andreev learnedsomething from him. Unlike Turgenev, both Chekhov and Andreev studymental disease. Their best characters are abnormal; they have somefatal taint in the mind which turns this goodly frame, the earth, intoa sterile promontory; this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,into a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. Neither Chekhov norAndreev have attempted to lift that black pall of despair that hangsover Russian fiction.

  Just as the austere, intellectual beauty of Greek drama forms strikingevidence of the extraordinarily high average of culture in Athenianlife, so the success of an author like Chekhov is abundant proof ofthe immense number of readers of truly cultivated taste that arescattered over Holy Russia. For Chekhov's stories are exclusivelyintellectual and subtle. They appeal only to the mind, not to thepassions nor to any love of sensation. In many of them he deliberatelyavoids climaxes and all varieties of artificial effect. He would besimply incomprehensible to the millions of Americans who delight inmusical comedy and in pseudo-historical romance. He wrote only for theelect, for those who have behind them years of culture and habits ofconsecutive thought. That such a man should have a vogue in Russiasuch as a cheap romancer enjoys in America, is in itself a significan
tand painful fact.

  Chekhov's position in the main line of Russian literature and hislikeness to Turgenev are both evident when we study his analysis ofthe Russian temperament. His verdict is exactly the same as that givenby Turgenev and Sienkiewicz--slave improductivite. A majority of hischief characters are Rudins. They suffer from internal injuries,caused by a diseased will. In his story called "On the Way" the heroremarks, "Nature has set in every Russian an enquiring mind, atendency to speculation, and extraordinary capacity for belief; butall these are broken into dust against our improvidence, indolence,and fantastic triviality."*

  *The citations from Chekhov are from the translations by Long.

  The novelist who wrote that sentence was a physician as well as a manof letters. It is a professional diagnosis of the national sickness ofmind, which produces sickness of heart.

  It is absurd to join in the chorus that calls Turgenev old-fashioned,when we find his words accurately, if faintly, echoed by a Russian whodied in 1904! Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and wisheshave always been the legitimate fathers of thoughts. My friend andcolleague, Mr. Mandell, the translator of "The Cherry Garden,"* saysthat the play indicates that the useless people are dying away, "andthus making room for the regenerated young generation which is full ofhope and strength to make a fruitful cherry garden of Russia for theRussian people . . . the prospects of realisation are now bright. Buthow soon will this become a practical reality? Let us hope in the nearfuture!" Yes, let us hope, as Russians hoped in 1870 and in 1900.Kropotkin says that Chekhov gave an "impressive parting word" to theold generation, and that we are now on the eve of the "new types whichalready are budding in life." Gorki has violently protested againstthe irresolute Slav, and Artsybashev has given us in Jurii the Russianas he is (1903) and in Sanin the Russian as he ought to be. But adisease obstinately remains a disease until it is cured, and it cannotbe cured by hope or by protest.

  *Published at Yale University by the "Yale Courant."

  Chekhov was a physician and an invalid; he saw sickness without andsickness within. Small wonder that his stories deal with the unhealthyand the doomed. For just as Artsybashev's tuberculosis has made himcreate the modern Tamburlaine as a mental enjoyment of physicalactivity, so the less turbulent nature of Chekhov has made himreproduce in his creatures of the imagination his own sufferings andfears. I think he was afraid of mental as well as physical decay, forhe has studied insanity with the same assiduity as that displayed byAndreev in his nerve-wrecking story "A Dilemma."

  In "Ward No. 6," which no one should read late at night, Chekhov hasgiven us a picture of an insane asylum, which, if the conditions theredepicted are true to life, would indicate that some parts of Russiahave not advanced one step since Gogol wrote "Revizor." The patientsare beaten and hammered into insensibility by a brutal keeper; theylive amidst intolerable filth. The attending physician is a typicalRussian, who sees clearly the horror and abomination of the place, buthas not sufficient will-power to make a change. He is fascinated byone of the patients, with whom he talks for hours. His fondness forthis man leads his friends to believe that he is insane, and theybegin to treat him with that humouring condescension and pity whichwould be sufficient in itself to drive a man out of his mind. He isfinally invited by his younger colleague to visit the asylum toexamine a strange case; when he reaches the building, he himself isshoved into Ward No. 6, and realises that the doors are shut upon himforever. He is obliged to occupy a bed in the same filthy den where hehas so often visited the other patients, and his night-gown has aslimy smell of dried fish. In about twenty-four hours he dies, but inthose hours he goes through a hell of physical and mental torment.

  The fear of death, which to an intensely intellectual people like theRussians, is an obsession of terror, and shadows all their literature,--it appears all through Tolstoi's diary and novels,--is analysed inmany forms by Chekhov. In "Ward No. 6" Chekhov pays his respects toTolstoi's creed of self-denial, through the lips of the doctor'sfavourite madman. "A creed which teaches indifference to wealth,indifference to the conveniences of life, and contempt for sufferingis quite incomprehensible to the great majority who never knew eitherwealth or the conveniences of life, and to whom contempt for sufferingwould mean contempt for their own lives, which are made up of feelingsof hunger, cold, loss, insult, and a Hamlet-like terror of death. Alllife lies in these feelings, and life may be hated or wearied of, butnever despised. Yes, I repeat it, the teachings of the Stoics cannever have a future; from the beginning of time, life has consisted insensibility to pain and response to irritation."

  No better indictment has ever been made against those to whomself-denial and renunciation are merely a luxurious attitude of themind.

  Chekhov's sympathy with Imagination and his hatred for commonplacefolk who stupidly try to repress its manifestations are shown againand again in his tales. He loves especially the imagination ofchildren; and he shows them as infinitely wiser than their practicalparents. In the short sketch "An Event" the children are wild withdelight over the advent of three kittens, and cannot understand theirfather's disgust for the little beasts, and his cruel indifference totheir welfare. The cat is their mother, that they know; but who is thefather? The kittens must have a father, so the children drag out thewooden rocking-horse, and place him beside his wife and offspring.

  In the story "At Home" the father's bewilderment at the creativeimagination and the curious caprices of his little boy's mind istenderly and beautifully described. The father knows he is notbringing him up wisely, but is utterly at a loss how to go at theproblem, having none of the intuitive sympathy of a woman. The boy isbusy with his pencil, and represents sounds by shapes, letters bycolours. For example, "the sound of an orchestra he drew as a round,smoky spot; whistling as a spiral thread." In making letters, healways painted L yellow, M red, and A black. He draws a picture of ahouse with a soldier standing in front of it. The father rebukes himfor bad perspective, and tells him that the soldier in his picture istaller than the house. But the boy replies, "If you drew the soldiersmaller, you wouldn't be able to see his eyes."

  One of Chekhov's favourite pastimes was gardening. This, perhaps,accounts for his location of the scene in his comedy "The CherryGarden," where a business-like man, who had once been a serf, justlike the dramatist's own father, has prospered sufficiently to buy theorchard from the improvident and highly educated owners; and for allthe details about fruit-gardening given in the powerful story "TheBlack Monk." This story infallibly reminds one of Gogol. A man hasrepeatedly a vision of a black monk, who visits him through the air,with whom he carries on long conversations, and who inspires him withgreat thoughts and ideals. His wife and friends of course think he iscrazy, and instead of allowing him to continue his intercourse withthe familiar spirit, they persuade him he is ill, and make him takemedicine. The result is wholesale tragedy. His life is ruined, hiswife is separated from him; at last he dies. The idea seems to be thathe should not have been disobedient unto the heavenly vision.Imagination and inspiration are necessary to life; they are whatseparate man from the beasts that perish. The monk asks him, "How doyou know that the men of genius whom all the world trusts have notalso seen visions?"

  Chekhov is eternally at war with the practical, with thenarrow-minded, with the commonplace. Where there is no vision, thepeople perish.

  Professor Bruckner has well said that Chekhov was by profession aphysician, but an artist by the grace of God. He was indeed anexquisite artist, and if his place in Russian literature is not large,it seems permanent. He does not rank among the greatest. He lacks thetremendous force of Tolstoi, the flawless perfection of Turgenev, andthe mighty world-embracing sympathy of Great-heart Dostoevski. But heis a faithful interpreter of Russian life, and although his art wasobjective, one cannot help feeling the essential goodness of the manbehind his work, and loving him for it.

  VIII

  ARTSYBASHEV