cynicism. Evil is in everything and everywhere: "in the great
manufacturers who drive along the streets of the village, crushing
men and beasts; in the bailiff and the recorder, who are such bad
characters that their very faces betray their knavery;" and finally,
in the central figure of the story, Axinia, the wife of Stepan, the
youngest son of Tzibukine, a usurer and monopolist.
The unhealthy ravine hides a village inhabited by factory workers.
The best house belongs to Gregory Tzibukine, who traffics in
everything: brandy, wheat, cattle, lumber, and usury, on the side.
His eldest son, Anissme, is employed at the police station and
seldom comes home; the second son, Stepan, is deaf and sickly; he
helps his father both well and badly, and his wife, the pretty and
coquettish Axinia, runs all day between the cellar and the shop. The
father Tzibukine is also friendly to her and respects this young
woman, for she is a very good worker and is most intelligent.
Tzibukine, a widower, has married Varvara, an affable and pious soul
who gives alms,--a strange thing in this family who cheat everybody.
Anissme often sends home beautiful letters and presents. One day, he
comes unexpectedly; he has an unquiet, and, at the same time,
flippant air. His parents have decided to get him married, and,
although he is a drunkard, ugly and vulgar, they have found him a
pretty wife. The girl is Lipa, daughter of a poor widow, a laborer
like her mother. Anissme whistles and looks at the ceiling, and
shows no signs of pleasure at his coming marriage. He leaves the
house in a strange manner, and appears again three days before the
wedding, bringing to his parents, as gifts, some newly coined money.
The wedding day has come. The clergy and the well-to-do of the
neighborhood are present at the dinner, which is sumptuously served.
Lipa seems petrified with fear, for she barely knows her husband.
The festivities last a long time; at intervals the voices of women
can be heard outside hurling curses at the usurer. Then Anissme,
red, drunk, and sweating, is shoved into the room where Lipa has
already disrobed. Five days later, Anissme comes to his mother and
bids her good-bye. He confides in her that some one has given him
advice, and that he has decided either to become rich or to perish.
Now that her husband has departed, Lipa again becomes gay.
Meanwhile, they have arrested a reaper accused of having circulated
a bad piece of money which he says he received from Anissme the
night of the wedding. Tzibukine goes home, examines the money that
his son has given him, and decides that it is all counterfeit. He
orders Axinia to throw every bit of it into the well. But, instead
of obeying, she pays it out as wages to the workmen. A week passes;
they find out that Anissme has been thrown into prison as a
counterfeiter. Tzibukine despairs; he feels his strength
diminishing. Varvara continues to pray and to watch, while Stepan
and Axinia continue to ply their trade as before. When, later on,
Anissme is sentenced to ten years at hard labor in Siberia, Varvara
suggests to her husband that he should leave one of his houses to
the child which has just been born to Lipa, so that no one will
speak badly of him after his death. But, at this suggestion, Axinia
flies into such a fury, that, in her homicidal rage, she throws a
kettle of boiling water over the child, who dies later at the
hospital. Finally, she drives the young woman out of the house. Lipa
returns to her mother. Soon Axinia reigns as absolute mistress of
the house. Tzibukine becomes distracted; he does not take care of
his money any more, because he cannot tell the good from the bad.
Rumor has it that his daughter-in-law is letting him die of hunger.
Varvara still goes on with her good work. Anissme is forgotten. The
old man, starving, and driven from home, lodges a complaint against
the young woman. Coming back to the village, the old man, tottering
along the street, meets Lipa and her mother, who are now doing tile
work.
"Both bow deeply to him, and he looks at them with tears in his
eyes. Lipa offers him a piece of oatmeal cake, and the two women go
on their way, crossing themselves several times...."
The virtuous Varvara is an extremely characteristic type, with a
subtle psychology, carefully worked out; her honesty and goodness
form an indispensable contrast to the ambient horrors.
The author himself explains the role of Varvara and her action in
this system of evil. "Her alms seem to be something strange, joyous
and free, like the red flowers and the lights that glow before the
saintly images." On holidays, and on jubilees, which last three
days, when coarse and rotten meat is sold to the peasants who come
to pawn their scythes and hats, or their wives' shawls; when the
workingmen lie in the gutter under the influence of bad brandy, then
"one feels a bit relieved at the thought that down there, in that
house, there is a good and quiet woman, always ready to help
unfortunates."
Lipa and her mother are good and timid souls who suffer in silence,
and give to the poor the little that they possess:
"It seemed to them that some one up on high, further up than the
azure, there among the stars, saw what was going on in their
village, and watched. Big as the evil is, in spite of it, the night
is beautiful and calm; justice is and will be calm and beautiful on
God's earth also; the universe awaits the moment when it can melt
into this justice, as the light of the moon melts into the night."
* * * * *
These, then, are Tchekoff's favorite themes, on which he has traced
numerous variations, always breathing forth a profound melancholy.
"The life of our industrial classes," he says, "is dark, and drags
itself along in sort of a twilight; as to the life of our common
people, workingmen and peasants, it is a black night, made up of
ignorance, poverty, and all sorts of prejudices."
But from this ocean of ignorance, of barbarity, of misery which
makes up the life of a peasant, Tchekoff has taken out the things of
most importance, things that always happen in the most solemn
moments of their existence.
"All," he says, in describing a religious procession in the country,
"the old man, his wife and the others, all stretch forth their hands
to the ikon of the holy Virgin, regard her ardently, and say through
their tears: 'Protectress! Virgin protectress!' And all seem to have
understood that the space between Heaven and Earth is not empty;
that the rich and the mighty have not swallowed up everything; that
there is protection against all wrongs, slavery, misery, the fatal
brandy...."
Besides, in a story entitled "My Life," Poloznev, speaking of the
peasants, expresses himself in the following manner:
"They were, for the most part, nervous and irritable people,
ignorant, and improvident, who could think of nothing but the grey
earth and black bread; a people who were crafty, but were stupid
about it, like the birds, who, when they want to hide themselves,
only hide their heads. They would not do the mowing for you for
twenty rubles, but they would do it for six liters of brandy,
notwithstanding the fact that with twenty rubles they can buy eight
times as much. What vice and foolishness! Nevertheless, one feels
that the life of the peasant has a great deal of depth. It makes no
difference that he, behind his plough, resembles an awkward beast,
or that he gets intoxicated. In spite of all, when you look at him
closely, you feel that he possesses the essential thing, the
sentiment of justice."
This love of justice Tchekoff has had occasion to observe even among
convicts. "The convict," he says, in his book on the prison of
Sakhaline, of which he made a profound study during his stay on the
island, "the prisoner, completely corrupted and unjust as he himself
is, loves justice more than any one else does, and if he does not
find it in his superiors, he becomes angry, and grows baser and more
distrustful from year to year."
* * * * *
In the last works of Tchekoff the pessimistic tendency grows greater
and greater. It seems as if the writer had gone through a sort of
moral crisis, brought on by the conflict of his old despair and his
new hopes. At this time, Russian society itself began to shake off
its apathy, and this awakening, sweeping like a vivifying wave into
the soul of the sad artist, opened for him, at the same time,
perspectives of new ideas.
This second aspect of Tchekoff's talent is perceptible in the story
called "The Student." A seminarist, Velikopolsky by name, tells the
gardener Vassilissa and her daughter Lukeria about St. Peter's
denial of Christ. As a result of the impression which this story
makes on her Vassilissa suddenly breaks into tears; she weeps a long
time and hides her face as if she were ashamed of crying. Lukeria,
who has been watching the student fixedly, blushes and her face
takes on the tender and sad expression which is characteristic of
those whose life is made up of deep suffering. After taking leave of
them, the student thinks that Vassilissa's tears and the emotion of
her daughter come from sorrows connected with the things he has just
told them.
"If the old woman wept, it was not because he knew how to tell the
story in a touching manner, but because Peter was near to her, and
because she was interested, heart and soul, in what was going on in
the mind of the apostle...."
Joy suddenly fills his heart, and he stops a moment to take a long
breath. "The past," he muses, "is bound to the present by an
uninterrupted chain of events." "And it seems to him that he has
just seen the two ends of this chain: he has touched one, and the
other has vibrated...."
* * * * *
In an ironical manner and by using very personal material, Tchekoff
paints more than anything else, life in its passive or negative
manifestations. Nevertheless, it is not satire, at least not in its
general trend, for in his work we find too much human tenderness for
satire. He does not laugh at his characters, and does not nail them
to the pillory in an outburst of indignation. In his writing, the
fundamental idea is fused with the form; his talent is calm,
thoughtful, observing; but it seems, at times, that this calmness,
this seeming indifference, is only a mask. A critic, speaking of
Tchekoff, has said: "He is a tender crayon." It would be hard to
find a more suitable expression. The delicacy of tone, the softness
of touch in the outlines, the polish of some of the details, the
capricious incompleteness of others are, in fact, the mark of his
talent.
Tchekoff was such a voluminous author that it would require a
veritable effort to remember the throng of characters which exists
in his books; and it is more than difficult not to confuse their
individual doings and achievements. This abundance is connected with
a peculiarity in the author's talent. He does not exhaust his
subject; the psychology of his characters is emphasized by two or
three expressive traits only, and this epitome is enough to make the
theme of a story, the simplicity and naturalness of which demand,
nevertheless, a high degree of art. The author is not interested in
outlining the details, but the picture that he has sparingly
conjured up stands out lifelike; he is always in a hurry to observe
and to tell. Therefore the brevity and quantity of his stories. His
stories seldom exceed ten pages in length, while some do not exceed
four. They constitute a series of sketches, of miniatures of rare
value, among which can be found some real gems. One cannot say as
much for his longer works, where certain parts are exaggerated, as
in "The Valet de Chambre," "Ward No. 6," "The Steppe," and "The
Duel."
The characters of the latter novel are especially weak and bad.
There is but one exception, the zoologist von Koren, a man of
determination, who believes that the suppression of useless people
and degenerates would be a meritorious piece of work. This idea is
suggested to him by the sight of a functionary called Layevsky, an
insignificant and lazy person, who has taken the wife of one of his
friends and fled with her to the Caucasus.
"The Valet de Chambre" is an equally unsatisfactory story. The
principal character is a young man who is supposed to be a
revolutionist. He enters the service of a Petersburg dandy in hopes
of meeting there a minister whom he wants to kill. The employer of
the pseudo-lackey, who is not aware of any of his projects, is a
masterful presentation of a type which we know as the sybaritical
citizen; the character of the valet is so fantastical that the
account of his adventures belongs absolutely to the "genre" of the
newspaper novel.[3]
[3] In many European papers there is always to be found a part
called the "feuilleton," which usually consists of a serial story,
continued from day to day.
"Ward No. 6" is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful
story that Tchekoff has written. It is an analysis of moral
degeneration, leading progressively to insanity, in a doctor who is
seized by the pervasive banality of the village in which he
practises. Tchekoff, like many other Russian writers, has shown
himself a master in the study of certain psychological anomalies.
Certain conversations between the doctor, who himself is going mad,
and a patient who has long since lost his reason, interesting as
they are from a philosophical standpoint, leave the world of reality
and run free according to the imagination of the author, who takes
advantage of this to formulate some of his favorite theories.
* * * * *
Tchekoff has also tried himself out on the drama, and he has there
established himself in a peculiar manner. His plays, like his other
literary productions, belong to two distinct periods.
There are some amusing little trifles that do not amount to much.
Among these are: "The Bear," "The Asking in Marriage," and others.
Then come the more serious plays, where one feels for a moment the
influence of Ibsen. We find here again the same heroes, each of whom
talks about his own particular case, and acts only in starts. These
are specimens of "failures" belonging to the most tiresome
provincial society.
In "Ivanov," the author studies the mentality of a "failure."
Dominated by a sickly self-love, he has known nothing but losses. He
continually complains of his real and his imaginary sufferings.
After squandering all his fortune, he marries a young girl, whom he
wants to have act as his nurse. This empty life ends in suicide.
In "Uncle Vanya," we have Vanya, a man full of goodness, modesty,
and self-abnegation contrasted with the celebrated professor
Serebriakof, an egoist, unfeeling, scornful, and ungrateful. The
latter, who has recently remarried, comes back to the estate which
Uncle Vanya, the brother of his first wife, has managed for him. For
several years Vanya has been working incessantly; he has saved in
every possible way so that he can send as much money as possible to
his brother-in-law, this professor, fondled and pampered by the
whole family, who see in him their glorification. But Serebriakof
soon gets tired of the country; besides, he thinks that the
doctor--a friend of the family who is taking care of him--does not
understand his sickness, and he begins to mistrust him. He wants to
go away, to travel, in order to recover his health, and, in order to
make money, he proposes to sell the estate, which legally belongs to
Sonya, the daughter of his first wife.
Up to this time Uncle Vanya and the other members of the family as
well, had sacrificed themselves entirely to this celebrated man. But
at this proposition Vanya realizes that their idol is nothing but an
abominable egoist, and he begins to despise his brother-in-law. What
is more, he secretly loves the young and beautiful wife of the
professor, while she suffers from the everlasting complaints and
caprices of her husband. However, a general reconciliation takes
place. The professor and his wife leave for the city, and all goes
on as before; Uncle Vanya and the family will sacrifice themselves
for the glory of Serebriakof, to whom all the revenues of the estate
are sent.
The "Three Sisters," that is to say the sisters of Prozorov, live
with their brother in a vulgar, tiresome town,--a town lacking in
men of superior minds, a town where one person is like the next.
The great desire of the three sisters is to go to Moscow, but their
apathy keeps them in the country, and they continue to vegetate
while philosophizing about everything that they see. However, at the
arrival of a regiment, they become animated, and have sentimental
intrigues with the officers till the very day of their departure.
"They are going to leave; we shall be alone; the monotonous life is
going to begin again," cries one of the sisters.
"We must work; work alone consoles," says the second.
And the youngest exclaims, embracing her two sisters, while the
military band plays the farewell march:
"Ah, my dear sisters, your life is not yet completed. We are going
to live. The music is so gay! Just a little bit more, and I feel
that we shall know why we live, why we suffer...."
This certainly is the dominant note of Tchekoff's philosophy: the
impotency of living mitigated by a vague hope of progress.
The last, and perhaps the most important play of Tchekoff, is "The
Cherry Garden."[4] Human beings, locked up in themselves, morally
bounded, impotent and isolated, wander about in the old seignioral
estate of the Cherry Garden. The house is several centuries old. In
former times a happy life was led there; feasts were given, and
generals and princes were the hosts. The Cherry Garden gave tone to
the neighborhood, but many years have passed!... Now other houses
have taken its place: the estate is mortgaged, the interest is not
paid, and the only guests now are the postman or a railway official
who lives close by. The occupants of the house do not think of doing
anything about this state of things. For them the past is gone. All
that is left is a dislike for work, carelessness, improvidence, and
ignorance of the necessities of the present. Like all that dies,
they evoke a certain pity, a certain fatality hangs over them. The
inhabitants of the Cherry Garden set forth their ideas about one
another; but in reality none of them see anything but themselves, in
their small and very limited moral world, and they analyze with
difficulty the embryos of thought that are left to them. Thus, they
cannot grasp in full the evil that is falling on the old home, and
they remain impassive when some one proposes to alleviate this evil
by energetic means. People speak to them of the downfall to which
they are doomed; a means of safety is proposed, but they turn a deaf
ear and continue in their narrow and fruitless dream. Finally, when
the estate is sold, they look upon this event as a fatal and
unexpected blow. They say good-bye to the cradle of their family,
weeping silently, and depart.
[4] For some reason, unknown to the translator, the author has
made no mention of Tchekoff's famous play, "The Sea-Gull." This
drama, which, when first produced, was a flat failure, scored a
tremendous success a short while afterwards. It is especially
interesting in that the author has made one of the characters,
Trigorin, largely autobiographical. To-day "The Sea-Gull" is one
of the most popular productions on the Russian stage.
They are now thrown out into the world. The old existence has gone,
as well as the seignioral estate. The Cherry Garden is to be torn
down; the blinds are all lowered, and in the half-darkened rooms,
the old servant, who is nearly a century old, wanders about among
the disordered furniture.
* * * * *
Tchekoff is a true product of Russian literature, an autochthon
plant, nourished by his natal sap. His humor is completely Russian;
we hear Tolstoyan notes in his democracy; the "failures" of his
stories are distantly related to the "superficial characters" of
Turgenev; finally, the theory of the redemption of the past by
suffering which he puts in the heart of the hero of the "Cherry
Garden" makes us think of Dostoyevsky. The qualities which call to
mind all these great names in Russian literature are found in the
works of Tchekoff along with characteristics which show a very
original talent. If one wishes to look for foreign influence, one
can relate Tchekoff to de Maupassant and Ibsen, of whom he reminds
one in snatches, although still in a very vague way. And that is
indeed fortunate, for, in general, Scandinavian symbolism hardly
goes hand in hand with the Russian spirit, which likes to make
_direct_ answers to "cursed questions," and whose ideal, elaborated
since 1840 in the realm of strict realism, is so definite that it
does not necessitate going back to the circumlocutions of metaphors
and allegories.
While Tchekoff lived his literary aspect was enigmatical. Some
judged him to be indifferent, because they did not find in his
writings that revolutionary spirit which is felt in almost all
modern writers. Others thought of him as a pessimist who saw nothing
good in Russian life, because he described principally resigned
suffering or useless striving for a better life. Since the death of
Tchekoff, which made it necessary for the critics to study his works
as a whole, and especially since the publication of his
correspondence, his character has come to the fore, as it really is:
he is a writer, who, by the very nature of his talent, was
irresistibly forced to study the inner life of man impartially, and
who, consequently, remains the enemy of all religious or
philosophical dogmas which may hinder the task of the observer.
The division of men into good and bad, according to the point of
view of this or that doctrine, angered him:
"I fear," he says in one of his letters, "those who look for hidden
meanings between the lines, and those who look upon me as a
liberator or as a guardian. I am neither a liberal nor a
conservative, neither a monk nor an indifferent person. I despise
lies and violence everywhere and under any form.... I only want to
be an artist, and that's all."
One realized that this unfettered artist, with his hatred of lies
and violence, although he belonged to no political party, could be
nothing but a liberal in the noblest and greatest sense of the word.
One also realized that he was not the pessimist that he was once
believed to be, but a writer who suffered for his ideal and who
awakened by his works a desire to emerge from the twilight of life
that he depicted.
To some he even appeared as an enchanted admirer of the future
progress of humanity. Did he not often say, while admiring his own
little garden: "Do you know that in three or four hundred years the
entire earth will be a flourishing garden? How wonderful it will be
to live then!" And did he not pronounce these proud words: "Man must
be conscious of being superior to the lions, tigers, stars, in
short, to all nature. We are already superior and great people, and,
when we come to know all the strength of human genius, we shall be
comparable to the gods."
These great hopes did not prevent him from painting with a vigorous
brush the nothingness of mankind, not only at a certain given moment
and under certain circumstances, but always and everywhere. Is this
a paradox? No. If he did not doubt progress, he would be most
pessimistic, if I may so express myself. He would suffer from that
earthly pessimism, in face of which reason is weak; the pessimism
which manifests itself by a hopeless sadness in face of the
stupidity of life and the idea of death.
"I, my friend, am afraid of life, and do not understand it," says
one of Tchekoff's heroes. "When, lying on the grass, I examine a
lady-bird, it seems to me that its life is nothing but a texture of
horrors, and I see myself in it.... Everything frightens me because
I understand neither the motive nor the end of things. I understand
neither persons nor things. If you understand I congratulate you.
"When one looks at the blue sky for a long time, one's thoughts and
one's soul unite mysteriously in a feeling of solitude.... For a
moment one feels the loneliness of the dead, and the enigma of
hopeless and terrible life."