The only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore
seriously fought, was positivist materialism--just the positivist
materialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to
theoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful
dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and
ostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all
scientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in
pursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly
reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.
The experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us
that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,
must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old
professor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could
not recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth
with which he was covered--interminable series of implacable, purely
materialistic _non possumus,_ against which human genius can set
nothing but submission or forgetfulness. _Résigne-toi, mon cœur,
dors ton sommeil de brute--_we shall find no other words before
the pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission
is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant
hatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.
Does a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, _sommeil
de brute_? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which
_The Tedious Story_ is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up
indignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to
human dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is _Uncle Vanya._ Like
the old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and
makes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice
not his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life
is over,'--as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the
whole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and
lamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with
insults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins
shooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.
His voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire
all the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To
him it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is
sleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for
any extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at
once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then
begins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can
he refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head
against the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but
how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every
one has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises
that he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain
things to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye
cannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over--you have
yourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human
things are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,
but strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect
help from them. Your destiny is--absolute loneliness.' Little by little
Tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: _Uncle Vanya_ is the last
trial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'
And even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although
there are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might
also avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the
cannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and
angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say
that their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon
the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from
life: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to
their presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as
with the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their
neighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to
touch their inward life.
What is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour
in those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this
question as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not
know.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death
than life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew
softer and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has
the softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.
They create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible
by their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von
Koren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with
himself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.
'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'--what did Von
Koren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker
wants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously
positive thinkers--idealists and metaphysicians--do not use abusive
words. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic
cemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself
abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to
which most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he
continues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing
to lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare
suspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or
death? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'--those words which
arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some
mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's
people. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though
so hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can
compel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but
it does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it
does not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A
man may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with
it--he is right; if he fails--_vae victis._ How comfortably sounds
the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,
indifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies
of idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again--and
this is the chiefest thing of all--men can struggle with nature still!
And in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle
with nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever
means he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept
the fundamental principle of the world's being--the indestructibility
of matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest--since who will
dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to
man? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!
Before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must
serve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something
understood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then
that in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined
to the latter--the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man
can struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing
to be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with
materialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may
seem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to
the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the
prophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.
Without thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote
from their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces
of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.
Have you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific
methods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to
create from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using
normal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must
first leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue
our scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.
Science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in
principle unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain
of her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,
scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which
she puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by
beating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned
though it is--I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by
them--promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and
deductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since
the beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious
instinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.
Science condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.