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.