"Bad," he said, almost sternly, in his low, deep voice. "One must work
... without sparing oneself ... all one's life."
And, after a pause, without any visible connection, he added:
"When one has written a story I believe that one ought to strike out
both the beginning and the end. That is where we novelists are most
inclined to lie. And one must write shortly--as shortly as possible."
Then we spoke of poetry, and he suddenly became excited. "Tell me, do
you care for Alexey Tolstoy's poems? To me he is an actor. When he was a
boy he put on evening dress and he has never taken it off."
After these stray meetings in which we touched upon some of Chekhov's
favorite topics--as that one must work "without sparing oneself" and
must write simply and without the shadow of falsehood--we did not meet
till the spring of '99. I came to Yalta for a few days, and one evening
I met Chekhov on the quay.
"Why don't you come to see me?" were his first words. "Be sure to come
to-morrow."
"At what time?" I asked.
"In the morning about eight."
And seeing perhaps that I looked surprised he added:
"We get up early. Don't you?"
"Yes I do too," I said.
"Well then, come when you get up. We will give you coffee. You take
coffee?"
"Sometimes."
"You ought to always. It's a wonderful drink. When I am working, I drink
nothing but coffee and chicken broth until the evening. Coffee in the
morning and chicken broth at midday. If I don't, my work suffers."
I thanked him for asking me, and we crossed the quay in silence and sat
down on a bench.
"Do you love the sea?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "But it is too lonely."
"That's what I like about it," I replied.
"I wonder," he mused, looking through his spectacles away into the
distance and thinking his own thoughts. "It must be nice to be a
soldier, or a young undergraduate ... to sit in a crowd and listen to
the band...."
And then, as was usual with him, after a pause and without apparent
connection, he added:
"It is very difficult to describe the sea. Do you know the description
that a school-boy gave in an exercise? 'The sea is vast.' Only that.
Wonderful, I think."
Some people might think him affected in saying this. But
Chekhov--affected!
"I grant," said one who knew Chekhov well, "that I have met men as
sincere as Chekhov. But any one so simple, and so free from pose and
affectation I have never known!"
And that is true. He loved all that was sincere, vital, and gay, so long
as it was neither coarse nor dull, and could not endure pedants, or
book-worms who have got so much into the habit of making phrases that
they can talk in no other way. In his writings he scarcely ever spoke of
himself or of his views, and this led people to think him a man without
principles or sense of duty to his kind. In life, too, he was no
egotist, and seldom spoke of his likings and dislikings. But both were
very strong and lasting, and simplicity was one of the things he liked
best. "The sea is vast." ... To him, with his passion for simplicity and
his loathing of the strained and affected, that was "wonderful." His
words about the officer and the music showed another characteristic of
his: his reserve. The transition from the sea to the officer was no
doubt inspired by his secret craving for youth and health. The sea is
lonely.... And Chekhov loved life and joy. During his last years his
desire for happiness, even of the simplest kind, would constantly show
itself in his conversation. It would be hinted at, not expressed.
In Moscow, in the year 1895, I saw a middle-aged man (Chekhov was then
35) wearing pince-nez, quietly dressed, rather tall, and light and
graceful in his movements. He welcomed me, but so quietly that I, then a
boy, took his quietness for coldness.... In Yalta, in the year 1899, I
found him already much changed; he had grown thin; his face was sadder;
his distinction was as great as ever but it was the distinction of an
elderly man, who has gone through much, and been ennobled by his
suffering. His voice was gentler.... In other respects he was much as he
had been in Moscow; cordial, speaking with animation, but even more
simply and shortly, and, while he talked, he went on with his own
thoughts. He let me grasp the connections between his thoughts as well
as I could, while he looked through his glasses at the sea, his face
slightly raised. Next morning after meeting him on the quay I went to
his house. I well remember the bright sunny morning that I spent with
Chekhov in his garden. He was very lively, and laughed and read me the
only poem, so he said, that he had ever written, "Horses, Hares and
Chinamen, a fable for children." (Chekhov wrote it for the children of a
friend. See Letters.)
Once walked over a bridge
Fat Chinamen,
In front of them, with their tails up,
Hares ran quickly.
Suddenly the Chinamen shouted:
"Stop! Whoa! Ho! Ho!"
The hares raised their tails still higher
And hid in the bushes.
The moral of this fable is clear:
He who wants to eat hares
Every day getting out of bed
Must obey his father.
After that visit I went to him more and more frequently. Chekhov's
attitude towards me therefore changed. He became more friendly and
cordial.... But he was still reserved, yet, as he was reserved not only
with me but with those who were most intimate with him, it rose, I
believed, not from coldness, but from something much more important.
The charming white stone house, bright in the sun; the little orchard,
planted and tended by Chekhov himself who loved all flowers, trees, and
animals; his study, with its few pictures, and the large window which
looked out onto the valley of the river Utchan-Spo, and the blue
triangle of the sea; the hours, days, and even months which I spent
there, and my friendship with the man who fascinated me not only by his
genius but also by his stern voice and his child-like smile--all this
will always remain one of the happiest memories of my life. He was
friendly to me and at times almost tender. But the reserve which I have
spoken of never disappeared even when we were most intimate. He was
reserved about everything.
He was very humorous and loved laughter, but he only laughed his
charming infectious laugh when somebody else had made a joke: he himself
would say the most amusing things without the slightest smile. He
delighted in jokes, in absurd nicknames, and in mystifying people....
Even towards the end when he felt a little better his humor was
irrepressible. And with what subtle humor he would make one laugh! He
would drop a couple of words and wink his eye above his glasses.... His
letters too, though their form is perfect, are full of delightful humor.
But Chekhov's reserve was shown in a great many other ways which proved
the strength of his character. No one ever heard him complain, though no
one had more reason to complain. He was one of a large family, which
lived in a state of actual want. He had to work for money under
conditions which would have extinguished the most fiery inspiration. He
lived in a tiny flat, writing at the edge of a table, in the midst of
talk and noise with the whole family and often several visitors sitting
round him. For many years he was very poor.... Yet he scarcely ever
grumbled at his lot. It was not that he asked little of life: on the
contrary, he hated what was mean and meager though he was nobly Spartan
in the way he lived. For fifteen years he suffered from an exhausting
illness which finally killed him, but his readers never knew it. The
same could not be said of most writers. Indeed, the manliness with which
he bore his sufferings and met his death was admirable. Even at his
worst he almost succeeded in hiding his pain.
"You are not feeling well, Antosha?" his mother or sister would say,
seeing him sitting all day with his eyes shut.
"I?" he would answer, quietly, opening the eyes which looked so clear
and mild without his glasses. "Oh, it's nothing. I have a little
headache."
He loved literature passionately, and to talk of writers and to praise
Maupassant, Flaubert, or Tolstoy was a great joy to him. He spoke with
particular enthusiasm of those just mentioned and also of Lermontov's
"Taman."
"I cannot understand," he would say, "how a mere boy could have written
Taman! Ah, if one had written that and a good comedy--then one would be
content to die!"
But his talk about literature was very different from the usual shop
talked by writers, with its narrowness, and smallness, and petty
personal spite. He would only discuss books with people who loved
literature above all other arts and were disinterested and pure in their
love of it.
"You should not read your writing to other people before it is
published," he often said. "And it is most important never to take any
one's advice. If you have made a mess of it, let the blood be on your
own head. Maupassant by his greatness has so raised the standard of
writing that it is very hard to write; but we have to write, especially
we Russians, and in writing one must be courageous. There are big dogs
and little dogs, but the little dogs should not be disheartened by the
existence of the big dogs. All must bark--and bark with the voice God
gave them."
All that went on in the world of letters interested him keenly, and he
was indignant with the stupidity, falsehood, affectation and charlatanry
which batten upon literature. But though he was angry he was never
irritable and there was nothing personal in his anger. It is usual to
say of dead writers that they rejoiced in the success of others, and
were not jealous of them. If, therefore, I suspected Chekhov of the
least jealousy I should be content to say nothing about it. But the fact
is that he rejoiced in the existence of talent, spontaneously. The word
"talentless" was, I think, the most damaging expression he could use.
His own failures and successes he took as he alone knew how to take
them.
He was writing for twenty-five years and during that time his writing
was constantly attacked. Being one of the greatest and most subtle of
Russian writers, he never used his art to preach. That being so, Russian
critics could neither understand him nor approve of him. Did they not
insist that Levitan should "light up" his landscapes--that is paint in a
cow, a goose, or the figure of a woman? Such criticism hurt Chekhov a
good deal, and embittered him even more than he was already embittered
by Russian life itself. His bitterness would show itself
momentarily--only momentarily.
"We shall soon be celebrating your jubilee, Anton Pavlovitch!"
"I know your jubilees. For twenty-five years they do nothing but abuse
and ridicule a man, and then you give him a pen made of aluminum and
slobber over him for a whole day, and cry, and kiss him, and gush!"
To talk of his fame and his popularity he would answer in the same
way--with two or three words or a jest.
"Have you read it, Anton Pavlovitch?" one would ask, having read an
article about him.
He would look slyly over his spectacles, ludicrously lengthen his face,
and say in his deep voice:
"Oh, a thousand thanks! There is a whole column, and at the bottom of
it, 'There is also a writer called Chekhov: a discontented man, a
grumbler.'"
Sometimes he would add seriously:
"When you find yourself criticized, remember us sinners. The critics
boxed our ears for trifles just as if we were school-boys. One of them
foretold that I should die in a ditch. He supposed that I had been
expelled from school for drunkenness."
I never saw Chekhov lose his temper. Very seldom was he irritated, and
if it did happen he controlled himself astonishingly. I remember, for
instance, that he was once annoyed by reading in a book that he was
"indifferent" to questions of morality and society, and that he was a
pessimist. Yet his annoyance showed itself only in two words:
"Utter idiot!"
Nor did I find him cold. He said that he was cold when he wrote, and
that he only wrote when the thoughts and images that he was about to
express were perfectly clear to him, and then he wrote on, steadily,
without interruptions, until he had brought it to an end.
"One ought only to write when one feels completely calm," he said once.
But this calm was of a very peculiar nature. No other Russian writer had
his sensibility and his complexity.
Indeed, it would take a very versatile mind to throw any light upon this
profound and complex spirit--this "incomparable artist" as Tolstoy
called him. I can only bear witness that he was a man of rare spiritual
nobleness, distinguished and cultivated in the best sense, who combined
tenderness and delicacy with complete sincerity, kindness and
sensitiveness with complete candour.
To be truthful and natural and yet retain great charm implies a nature
of rare beauty, integrity, and power. I speak so frequently of Chekhov's
composure because his composure seems to me a proof of the strength of
his character. It was always his, I think, even when he was young and in
the highest spirits, and it was that, perhaps, that made him so
independent, and able to begin his work unpretentiously and
courageously, without paltering with his conscience.