The Portable Chekhov

TROFIMOV: What a blessing . . .

Varya: A student ought to be intelligent. Softly, with tears in her voice. How homely you've grown, Petya! How old you look! To Mme. RANEVSKAYA, with dry eyes. But I can't live without work, mamma dear; I must keep busy every minute.

Enter YASHA.

YASHA, hardly restraining his laughter: Yepihodov has broken a billiard cue! Exits.

Varya: Why is Yepihodov here? Who allowed him to play billiards? I don't understand these people! Exits.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Don't tease her, Petya. She's un- happy enough without that.

TROFIMOV: She bustles so—and meddles in other people's business. All summer long she's given Anya and me no peace. She's afraid of a love-affair between us. What business is it of hers? Besides, I've given no grounds for it, and I'm far from such vulgarity. We are above love.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: And I suppose I'm beneath love? Anxiously. What can be keeping Leonid? If I only knew whether the estate has been sold or not. Such a cal^ity seems so incredible to me that I don't know what to think—I feel lost. ... I could scream. ... I could do something stupid. . . . Save me, Petya, tell me some- thing, talk to me!

Trofimov: Whether the estate is sold today or not, isn't it all one? That's all done with long ago—there's no turning back, the path is overgrown. Calm yourself, my dear. You mustn't deceive yourself. For once in your life you must face the truth.

Mme. Ranevskaya: What truth? You can see the truth, you can tell it from falsehood, but I seem to have lost my eyesight, I see nothing. You settle every great problem so boldly, but tell me, my dear boy, isn't it because you're young, because you don't yet know what one of your problems means in terms of suffering? You look ahead fearlessly, but isn't it because you don't see and don't expect anything dreadful, because life is still hidden from your young eyes? You're bolder, more honest, more profound than we are, but think hard, show just a bit of magnanimity, spare me. After all, I was born here, my father and mother lived here, and my grandfather; I love this house. Without the cherry orchard, my life has no meaning for me, and if it really must be sold, then sell me with the orchard. Embraces Trofimov, kisses him on the forehead. My son was drowned here. Weeps. Pity me, you good, kind fel- low!

TnoFIMov: You know, I feel for you with all my heart.

Mme. RANEvsKAYA: But that should have been said differently, so differently! Takes mit her handkerchief— a telegram falls on the floor. My heart is so heavy today —you can't imagine! The noise here upsets me—my inmost being trembles at every sound—I'm shaking all over. But I can't go into my own room; I'm afraid to be alone. Don't condemn me, Petya. ... I love you as though you were one of us, I would gladly let you marry Anya—I swear I would—only, my dear boy, you must study—you must take your degree—you do noth- ing, you let yourself be tossed by Fate from place to place—it's so strange. It's true, isn't it? And you should do something about your beard, to make it grow some- how! Laughs. You're so funny!

Trofimov, picks up the telegram: I've no wish to be a dandy.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: That's a telegram from Paris. I get one every day. One yesterday and one today. That savage is ill again—he's in trouble again. He begs for- giveness, implores me to go to him, and really I ought to go to Paris to be near him. Your face is stern, Petya; but what is there to do, my dear boy? What am I to do? He's ill, he's alone and unhappy, and who is to look after him, who is to keep him from doing the wrong thing, who is to give him his medicine on time? And why hide it or keep still about it—I love him! That's clear. I love him, love him! He's a millstone round my neck, he'll drag me to the bottom, but I love that stone, I can't live without it. Presses TROFIMov's hand. Don't think badly of me, Petya, and don't say anything, don't say . . .

Trofimov, through tears: Forgive me my frankness in heaven's name; but, you know, he robbed you(

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: No, no, no, you mustn't say such things! Covers her ears.

Trofimov: But he's a scoundrel! You're the only one who doesn't know it. He's a petty scoundrel—a nonen- tity!

Mme. R^revskaya, controlling her anger: You are twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, but you're still a s^oolboy.

Trofimov: That may be.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: You should be a man at your age. You should understand people who love—and ought to be in love yourself. You ought to fall in love! Angrily. Yes, yes! And it's not purity in you, it's prudish- ness, you're simply a queer fish, a comical freak!

TROFIMOV, horrified: What is she saying?

M^. Ranevskaya: "I am above love!'' You're not above love, but simply, as our Firs says, you're an addle- head. At your age not to have a mistress!

Trofimov, horrified: This is frightful! What is she saying! Goes rapidly into the baUroom, clutching his head. It's frightful—I can't stand it, I won't stay! Exits, but returns at once. All is over between us! Exits into anteroom.

Mme. Ranevskaya, shouts after him: Petya! Wait! You absurd fellow, I was joking. Petya!

Sound of somebody running quickly downstairs and suddenly falling down with a crash. Anya and Varya scream. Sound of laughter a moment later.

Mme. R^^vskaya: What's happened?

Anya runs in.

laughing: Petya's fallen downstairs! Runs out.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: What a queer bird that Petya isl

STATIONMASTER, standing in the middle of the ball- room, recites Alexey Tolstoy's "Magdalene," to which aU listen, but after a few lines, the sound of a waltz is heard from the anteroom and the reading breaks off. AU dance. Trofimov, Anya, Varya, and Mme. Ra- nevskaya enter from the anteroom.

M^. Ranevskaya: Petya, you pure soul, please forgive me. . . . Let's dance.

Dances with PETYA. and Varya dance. Fms

enters, puts his stick down by the «de door. YASHA enters from the drawing-room and watches the dancers.

YASHA: Well, grandfather?

Firs: I'm not feeling well. In the old days it was generals, barons, and admirals that were dancing at our balls, and now we have to send for the Post Office clerk and the Stationmaster, and even they aren't too glad to come. I feel kind of shaky. The old master that's gone, their grandfather, dosed everyone with sealing-wax, whatever ailed 'em. I've been taking sealing-wax every day for twenty years or more. Perhaps that's what's kept me alive.

YASHA: I'm fed up with you, grandpop. Yawns. It's time you croaked.

Firs: Oh, you addlehead! Mumbles.

Trofimov and Mme. dance from the

ballroom into the drawing-room.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Merci. I'll sit do^ a while. Sits down. I'm tired.

Enter Anya.

Anya, excitedly: There was a man in the kitchen just now who said the cherry orchard was sold today.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Sold to whom?

Anya: He didn't say. He's gone. Dances off with

TROFIMOV.

Yasha: It was some old man gabbing, a stranger.

Firs: And Leonid Andreyevich isn't back yet, he hasn't come. And he's wearing his lightweight between- season overcoat; like enough, he'll catch cold. Ah, when they're young they're green.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: This is killing me. Go, Yasha, find out to whom it has been sold.

YASHA: But the old man left long ago. Laughs.

Mme. R^^vsKAYA: What are you laughing at? What are you pleased about?

YASHA: That Yepihodov is such a one. A. funny

fellow, Two-and-Twenty Troubles!

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Firs, if the estate is sold, where will you go?

Fms: I'll go where you tell me.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Why do you look like that? Aie you ill? You ought to go to bed.

Firs: Yes! With a snigger. Me go to bed, and who's to hand things round? Who's to see to things? I'm the only one in the whole house.

YASHA, to Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Lubov Andreyevna, allow me to ask a favor of you, be so kind! If you go back to Paris, take me with you, I beg you. It's posi- tively impossible for me to stay here. Looking around; sotto voce. What's the use of talking? You see for yourself, it's an uncivilized country, the people have no morals, and then the boredom! The food in the kitchen's levolting, and besides there's this Firs wanders about mumbling all sorts of inappropriate words. Take me with you, be so kind!

Enter Pishchik.

PiSHCHIK: May I have the pleasure of a waltz with you, charming lady? Mme. RANEVSKAYA accepts. All the same, enchanting lady, you must let me have 180 ru- bles. . . . You must let me have (dancing) just one hundied and eighty rubles. They pass into the ballroom.

YASHA, hums softly: "Oh, wilt thou understand the tumult in my soul?"

In the ballroom a -figure in a gray top hat and checked trousers is jumping about and waving its arms; shouts: "Bravo, Charlotta Ivanovnal"

Dunyasha, stopping to powder her face; to Fms: The young miss has ordered me to dance. There are so many gentlemen and not enough ladies. But dancing makes me dizzy, my heart begins to beat fast, Firs Nikolaye- vich. The Post Office clerk said something to me just now that quite took my breath away. Music stops.

Fms: What did he say?

D^^ASHA: "You're like a flower," he said.

Yasha, yawns: What ignorance. Exits.

DuNYASHA: "Like a flower!" I'm such a delicate girl. I simply adore pretty speeches.

FiRS: You'll come to a bad end.

Enter Yepihodov.

YEPmODOv, to D^^ASHA: You have no wish to see me, Avdotya Fyodorovna . . . as though I was some sort of insect. Sighs. Ah, life!

Dunyasha: What is it you want?

Yepihodov: Indubitably you may be right. Sighs. But of course, if one looks at it from the point of view, if I may be allowed to say so, and apologizing for my frank- ness, you have completely reduced me to a state of mind. I know my fate. Every day some calamity befalls me, and I grew used to it long ago, so that I look upon my fate with a smile. You gave me your word, and though I—

DuNYASHA: Let's talk about it later, please. But just now leave me alone, I am daydreaming. Plays with a fan.

Yepihodov: A misfortune befalls me every day; and if I may be allowed to say so, I merely smile, l even laugh.

Enter Varya.

Varya, to Yepihodov: Are you still here? What an impertinent fellow you are really! Run along, Dunyasha. To Yepihodov. Either you're playing billiards and breaking a cue, or you're wandering about the drawing- room as though you were a guest.

Yepihodov: You cannot, permit me to remark, penal- ize me.

VARYA: I'm not penalizing you; I'm just telling you. You merely wander from place to place, and don't do your work. We keep you as a clerk, but Heaven knows

what for.

YEPiHOOOv, afended: Whether I work or whether I walk, whether I eat or whether I play billiards, is a matter to be discussed only by persons of understanding and of mature years.

Varya, enraged: You dare say that to me—you dare? You mean to say I've no understanding? Get out of here at once! This minute!

YEPiHOOOv, scared: I beg you to express yourself delicately.

Varya, beside herself: Clear out this minute! Out with you!

YEPiHOOOv goes towards the door, Varya following.

Varya: Two-and-Twenty Troubles! Get out—don't let me set eyes on you!

Exit YEPiHOoov. His voice is heard behind the door: "I shaU lodge a complaint against you!"

Varya: Oh, you're coming back? She seizes the stick left near door by FIRs. Well, come then . . . come • . . I'll show you . . . Ah, you're coming? You're coming? . . . Come . . . Swings the stick just as Lo- enters.

Lopahin: Thank you kindly.

VARYA, angrily and mockingly: I'm sorry.

Lopahin: It's nothing. Thank you kindly for your ^arming reception.

VARYA: Don't mention it. Walks away, looks back and asks softly. I didn't hurt you, did I?

Lop^^: Oh, no, not at all. I shall have a large bump, though.

Voices from the ballroom: "Lopahin is here! Lopa- hin!"

Enter PlsHC^.

PxsHCI-nx: My eyes do see, my ears do hear! Kisses LOPAJDN.

LopAHIN: You smeU of cognac, my dear friends. And we've been celebrating here, too.

Enter Mme. RANEVSKAYA.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Is that you, Yermolay Alexeye- vich? What kept you so long? Where's Leonid?

Lop^^n: Leonid Andreyevich arrived with me. He's coming.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Well, what happened? Did the sale take place? Speak!

Lop^^N, embarrassed, fearful of revealing his foy: The sale was over at four o'clock. We missed the train— had to wait till half past nine. Sighing heavily. Ugh. I'm a little dizzy.

Enter GAYEV. In his right hand he holds parcel$, with his left he is wiping away his tears.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Well, Leonid? What news? Im- patiently, through tears. Be quick, for God's sake!

Gayev, not answering, simply waves his hand. Weep- ing, to Fis: Here, take these; anchovies, Kerch her- rings ... I haven't eaten all day. What I've been through! The click of billiard balls comes through the open door of the billiard room and Yasha's voice is heard: "Seven and eighteen!" Gayev's expression changes, he no longer weeps. I'm terribly tired. Firs, help me change. Exits, followed by Fms.

PxsHCHIK: How about the sale? Tell us what hap- pened.

Mme. R^revskaya: Is the cherry orchard sold?

Lopahin: Sold.

Mme. Ranevskaya: Who bought it?

Lopa^^: I bought it.

Pause. Mme. RANEvsKAYA is overcome. She would 580 the portable chekhov

fall to the floor, were it not for the chair and table near which she stands. VARYA takes the keys from her belt, flings them on the floor in the middle of the drawing- room and goes out.

LopAHiN: I bought it. Wait a bit, ladies and gentle- men, please, my head is swimming, I can't talk. Laughs. We got to the auction and Deriganov was there already. Leonid Andreyevich had only 15,000 and straight off Deriganov bid 30,000 over and above the mortgage. I saw how the land lay, got into the fight, bid 40,000. He bid 45,000. I bid fifty-five. He kept adding five thousands, I ten. WeU . . . it came to an end. I bid ninety above the mortgage and the estate was knocked downwn to me. Now the cherry orchard's mine! Mine! Laughs uproariously. Lord! God in Heaven! The cherry orchard's mine! Tell me that I'm drunk—out of my mind—that it's all a dream. Stamps hi.s feet. Don't laugh at me! If my father and my grandfather could rise from their graves and see all that has happened—how their Yermolay, who used to be flogged, their half-literate Yermolay, who used to run about barefoot in winter, how that very Yermolay has bought the most magnifi- cent estate in the world. I bought the estate where my father and grandfather were slaves, where they weren't even allowed to enter the kitchen. I'm asleep—it's only a dream—I only imagine it. . . . It's the fruit of your imagination, wrapped in the darkness of the unknown! Picks up the keys, smiling genially. She threw down the keys, wants to show she's no longer mistress here. Jingles keys. Well, no matter. The band is heard tuning up. Hey, musicians! Strike up! I want to hear you! Corne, everybody, and see how Yerrnolay Lopahin will lay the ax to the cherry orchard and how the trees will faU to the ground. We will build summer cottages there, and our grandsons and great-grandsons will see a new life here. Music! Strike up!

The band rtarts to play. Mme. Ranevskaya has sunk into a chair and is weeping bitterly.

Lopahin, reproachfully: Why, why didn't you listen to me? My dear friend, my poor friend, you can't bring it back now. Tearfully. Oh, if only this were over quickly! Oh, if only our wretched, disordered life were changed!

Pishchik, takes him by the arm; sotto voce: She's crying. Let's go into the ballroom. Let her be alone. Come. Takes his arm and leads him into the ballroom.

Lopahin: What's the matter? Musicians, play so I can hear you! Let me have things the way I want them. Ironically. Here comes the new master, the owner of the cherry orchard. Accidentally he trips over a little table, almost upsetting the candelabra. I can pay for everything. Exits with Pishciiik. Mme. Ranevskaya, alone, sits huddled up, weeping bitterly. Music plays softly. Enter Anya and Trofimov quickly. Anya goes to her mother and falls on her knees before her. Trofi- mov stands in the doorway.

Anya: Mamma, mamma, you're crying! Dear, kind, good mamma, my precious, I love you, I bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, it's gone, that's true, quite true. But don't cry, mamma, life is still before you, you still have your kind, pure heart. Let us go, let us go away from here, darling. We will plant a new orchard, even more luxuriant than this one. You will see it, you will understand, and like the sun at evening, joy—deep, tranquil joy—will sink into your soul, and you will smile, mamma. Come, darling, let us go.

Act IV

_S

CENE as in Act I. No window curtains or pictures, only a little furniture, piled up in a corner, as if for sale. A sense of emptiness. Near the outer door and at the back, suitcases, bundles, etc., are piled up. A door open on the left and the voices of Varya and Anya are heard. Lopamn stands waiting. Yasha holds a tray with glasses full of champagne. Yepihodov in the anteroom is tying up a box. Behind the scene a hum of voices: peasants have come to say good-by. Voice of Gayev: "Thanks, brothers, thank you

Yasha: The country folk have come to say good-by. In my opinion, Yermolay Alexeyevich, they are kindly souls, but there's nothing in their heads. The hum dies away. Enter Mme. RANEVSKAYA and Gayev. She is not crying, but is pale, her face twitches and she cannot speak.

Gayev: You gave them your purse, Luba. That won't do! That won't dol

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: I couldn't help it! I couldn'tl They go out.

Lopahin, calls after them: Please, I beg you, have a glass at parting. I didn't think of bringing any cham- pagne from town and at the station I could find only one bottle. Please, won't you? Pause. What's the matter, ladies and gentlemen, don't you want any? Moves away from the door. If I'd known, I wouldn't have bought it. Well, then I won't drink any, either. Yasha carefully sets the tray down on a chair. At least you have a glass, Yasha.

Yasha: Here's to the travelers! And good luck to those that stay! Drinks. This champagne isn't the real stuff, I can assure you.

LOPAHIN: Eight rubles a bottle. Pause. It's devilishly cold here.

YASHA: They didn't light the stoves today—it wasn't worth it, since we're leaving. Laughs.

Lopahin: Why are you laughing?

Yasha: It's just that I'm pleased.

Lop^mn: It's October, yet it's as still and sunny as though it were summer. Good weather for building. Looks at his watch, and speaks off. Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, the train goes in forty-seven minutes, so you ought to start for the station in twenty minutes. Better hurry up^!

Enter Trofimov wearing an overcoat.

TROFIMOV: I think it's time to start. The carriages are at the door. The devil only knows what's become of my rubbers; they've disappeared. Calling off. Anyal My rubbers are gone. I can't find them.

LopAjnN: I've got to go to Kharkov. I'll take the same train you do. I'll spend the winter in Kharkov. I've been hanging round here with you, till I'm worn out with loafing. I can't live without work—I don't know what to do with my hands, they dangle as if they didn't belong to me.

TROFIMOV: Well, we'll soon be gone, then you can go on with your useful labors again.

LopAinN: Have a glass.

Trofimov: No, I won't

LOPAIDN: So you're going to Moscow now?

THOFIMOV: Yes. I'll see them into to^, and tomor- row I'll go on to Moscow.

Lopahin: Well, I'll wager the professors aren't giv- ing any lectures, they're waiting for you to come.

TROFIMOV: That's none of your business.

Lopahin: Just how many years have you been at the university?

TROFIMOV: Can't you think of something new? Your joke's stale and flat. Looking for his rubbers. Well probably never see each other again, so allow me to give you a piece of advice at parting: don't wave your hands about! Get out of the habit. And another thing: building bungalows, figuring that summer residents will eventually become small farmers, figuring like that is just another form of waving your hands about. . . . Never mind, I love you anyway; you have fine, delicate fingers, like an artist; you have a fine, delicate soul.

Lopahin, embracing him: Good-by, my dear fellow. Thank you for everything. Let me give you some money for the journey, if you need it.

Trofimov: What for? I don't need it.

Lopahin: But you haven't any.

Trofimov: Yes, I have, thank you. I got some money for a translation—here it is in my pocket. Amiously. But where are my rubbers?

Varya, from the next room: Herel Take the nasty things. Flings a pair of rubbers onto the stage.

Trofimov: What are you so cross about, Varya? Hm . . . and these are not my rubbers.

Lopahin: I sowed three thousand acres of poppies in the spring, and now I've made 40,000 on them, clear profit; and when my poppies were in bloom, what a picture it was! So, as I say, I made 40,000; and I am offering you a loan because I can aford it. Why turn up your nose at it? I'm a peasant—I speak bluntly.

Trofimov: Your father was a peasant, mine was a druggist—that proves absolutely nothing whatever. Lopahin takes out his wallet. Don't, put that away! If you were to offer me two hundred thousand I wouldn't take it. I'm a free man. And everything that all of you, rich and poor alike, value so highly and hold so dear, hasn't the slightest power over me. It's like so much fluff floating in the air. I can get on without you, I can pass you by, I'm strong and proud. Mankind is moving towards the highest truth, towards the highest happi- ness possible on earth, and I am in the front ranks.

Lopahin: Will you get there?

TROFIMOV: I will. Pause. I wiU get there, or I wiU show others the way to get there.

The sound of axes chopping do^ trees is heard in the distance.

Lopaiiin: Well, good-by, my dear fellow. It's time to leave. We turn up our noses at one another, but life goes on just the same. When I'm working hard, without resting, my mind is easier, and it seems to me that I too know why I exist. But how many people are there in Russia, brother, who exist nobody knows why? Well, it doesn't matter. That's not what makes the wheels go round. They say Leonid Andreyevich has taken a posi- tion in the bank, 6,000 rubles a year. Only, of course, he won't stick to it, he's too lazy. . . .

Anya, in the doorway: Mamma begs you not to start cutting down the cherry-trees until she's gone.

Trofimov: Really, you should have more tact! Exits.

LopAHIN: Right away—right away! Those men . . . Exits.

^^a: Has Firs been taken to the hospital?

Yasha: I told them this morning. They must have taken him.

Anya, to Yepihodov who crosses the room: Yepi- hodov, please find out if Firs has been taken to the hospital.

YASHA, offended: I told Yegor this morning. Why ask a dozen times?

YEPIHODOv: The aged Firs, in my definitive opinion, is beyond mending. It's time he was gathered to his fathers. And I can only envy him. Puts a suitcase do^ on a hat-box and crushes it. There now, of course. I knew it! Exits.

YASHA, mockingly: Two-and-Twenty Troubles!

Varya, through the door: Has Firs been taken to the hospital?

ANYA: Yes.

Varya: Then why wasn't the note for the doctor taken too?

Anya: Oh! Then someone must take it to him. Exits.

Varya, from, adpining room: Where's Yasha? Tell him his mother's come and wants to say good-by.

YASHA, waves his hand: She tries my patience.

DuNYASHA has been occupied with the luggage. See- ing YASHA alone, she goes up to him.

Dunyasha: You might just give me one little look, Yasha. You're going away. . . • You're leaving me . . . Weeps and throws herself on his neck.

YASHA: What's there to cry about? Drinks cham- pagne. In six days I shall be in Paris again. Tomorrow we get into an express train and off we go, that's the last you'll see of us. . • . I can scarcely believe it. Vive la France! It don't suit me here, I just can't live here. That's all there is to it. I'm fed up with the ignorance here, I've had enough of it. Drinks champagne. What's there to cry about? Behave yourself properly, and you'll have no cause to cry.

DuNYASHA, powders her face, looking in pocket mir- ror: Do send me a letter from Paris. You know I loved you, Yasha, how I loved you! I'm a delicate creature, Yasha.

YASHA: Somebody's coming! Busies himself with the luggage; hums softly.

Enter M^. RANEVSKAYA, GAYEV, Anya, and C^^-

LOTTA.

GAYEv: We ought to be leaving. We haven't much time. Looks at Yasha. Who smells of herring?

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: In about ten minutes we should be getting into the carriages. Looks around the room. Good-by, dear old home, good-by, grandfather. Winter will pass, spring will come, you will no longer be here, they will have torn you down. How much these walls have seen! Kisses Anya warmly. My treasure, how radi- ant you look! Your eyes are sparkling like diamonds. Are you glad? Very?

Anya, gaily: Very glad. A new life is beginning, mamma.

Gayev: Well, really, everything is all right now. Be- fore the cherry orchard was sold, we all fretted and suffered; but afterwards, when the question was settled finally and irrevocably, we all calmed down, and even felt quite cheerful. I'm a bank employee now, a finan- cier. The yellow ball in the side pocket! And anyhow, you are looking better Luba, there's no doubt of that.

Mme. Ranevskaya: Yes, my nerves are better, that's true. She is handed her hat and coat. I sleep well. Carry out my things, Yasha. It's time. To Anya. We shall soon see each other again, my little girl. I'm going to Paris, I'll live there on the money your great-aunt sent us to buy the estate with—long live Auntie! But that money won't last long.

Anya: You'll come back soon, soon, mamma, won't you? Meanwhile I'll study, I'll pass my high school ex- amination, and then I'll go to work and help you. We'll read all kinds of books together, mamma, won't we? Kisses her mothers hands. We'll read in the autumn evenings, we'll read lots of books, and a new wonderful world wiU open up before us. FaUs into a revery.

Mamma, do come back.

Mme. R.ANEVSKAYA: I will come back, my precious. Embraces her daughter. Enter Lop^un and C^^- LOTI'A who is humming softly.

GAYEv: Charlotta's happy: she's singing.

CHARLOTI'A, picks up a bundle and holds it like a baby in swadding-clothes: Bye, baby, bye. A baby is heard crying "Wah! Wah!" Hush, hush, my pet, my little one. "Wah! Wah!" I'm so sorry for you! Throws the bundle down. You wil! find me a position, won't you? I can't go on like this.

Lopamn: We'll find one for you, Charlotta Iva- novna, don't worry.

Gayev: Everyone's leaving us. Varya's going away. We've suddenly become of no use.

CHARLOTI'A: There's no place for me to live in town, I must go away. Hums.

Enter Pishchik.

LoPAHIN: There's nature's masterpiece!

PiSHCHIK, gasping: Oh . . • let me get my breath . . . I'm in agony. . . . Esteemed friends . . . Give me a drink of water. . . .

GAYEv: Wants some money, I suppose. No, thank you . . . I'll keep out of harm's way. Exits.

PiSHCHIK: It's a long while since I've been to see you, most charming lady. To LoPAHiN. So you are here . . . glad to see you, you intellectual giant . . . There . . . Gives Lopa^k money. Here's 400 rubles, and I still owe you 840.

Lopahin, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment: I must be dreaming . . . Where did you get it? .

Pishchik: Wait a minute . . . It's hot . . . A most extraordinary event! Some Englishmen came to my place and found some sort of white clay on my land . . .

To M^. RANEVSKAYA. And 400 for you . . . most lovely . . . most wonderful . . . Ilands her the money. The rest later. Drinks water. A young man in the train was telling me just now that a great philosopher recom- mends jumping off roofs. "Jump!" says he; "that's the long and the short of it!" In amazement. Just imagine! Some more water!

LoPAiIIN: What Englishmen?

PiSHCHIK: I leased them the tract with the clay on it for twenty-four years. . . . And now, forgive me, I can't stay. ... I must be dashing on. . . . I'm going over to Znoikov . • . to Kardamanov ... I owe them all money . . . Drinks water. Good-by, everybody . . • I'll look in on Thursday . . .

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: \Ve're just moving into town; and tomorrow I go abroad.

PiSHCHIK, upset: What? Why into town? That's why the furniture is like that . . . and the suitcases . . . Well, never mind! Through tears. Never mind . . . Men of colossal intellect, these Englishmen . . . Never mind . . . Be happy. God will come to your help . . . Never mind . . . Everything in this world comes to an end. Kisses Mme. Ranevskaya's hand. If the rumor reaches you that it's all up with me, remember this old . . . horse, and say: Once there lived a certain . . . Simeonov-Pishchik . . . the kingdom of Heaven be his . . . Glorious weather! . . . Yes . . . Exits, in great confusion, but at once returns and says in the doorway: My daughter Dashenka sends her regards. Exit.

Mme. Ranevskaya: Now we can go. I leave with two cares weighing on me. The first is poor old Firs. Glancing at her watch. We still have about five minutes.

Anya: Mamma, Firs has already been taken to the hospital. Yasha sent ^rn there this morning.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: My other worry is Varya. She's used to getting up early and working; and now, with no work to do, she is like a fish out of water. She has grownwn thin and pale, and keeps crying, poor soul. Pause. You know this very well, Yermolay Alexeyevich; I dreamed of seeing her married to you, and it looked as though that's how it would be. Whispers to .ANYA, who nods to CHARLOTTA and both go out. She loves you. You find her attiactive. I don't know, I don't know why it is you seem to avoid each other; I can't understand it.

LopAHiN: To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself. It's all a puzzle. If there's still time, I'm ready now, at once. Let's settle it straight off, and have done with it! Without you, I feel I'll never be able to propose.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: That's splendid. After all, it will only take a minute. I'll call her at once. . . .

Lop^hn: And luckily, here's champagne too. Looks at the glasses. Empty! Somebody's drunk it all. YASHA coughs. That's what you might call guzzling . . .

Mme. Ranevskaya, animatedly: Excellent! We'll go and leave you alone. Yasha, allez! I'll call her. At the door. Varya, leave everything and come here. Come! Exits with YAsHA.

Lop^^, looking at his watch: Yes . . . Pause be- hind the door, smothered laughter and whispering; at lart, enter Varya.

VARYA, looking over the luggage in leisurely fashion: Strange, I can't find it ...

LoPAJUN: What are you looking for?

Varya: Packed it myself, and I don't remember . . . Pause.

LoPAIUN: Where are you going now, Varya?

VARYA: I? To the Ragulins'. I've arranged to take ^arge there—as housekeeper, if you like.

Lop^mn: At Yashnevo? About fifty miles from here. Pame. Well, life in this house is ended!

Varya, examining luggage: Where is it? Perhaps I put it in the chest. Yes, life in this house is ended • . • There will be no more of it.

LoPAHIN: And I'm just off to Kharkov—by this next train. I've a lot to do there. I'm leaving Yepihodov here . • . I've taken him on.

VARYA: Oh!

LoPAHIN: Last year at this time it was snowing, if you remember, but now it's sunny and there's no wind. It's cold, though . . . It must be three below.

Varya: I didn't look. Pause. And besides, our ther- mometer's broken. Pame. Voice from the yard: "Yermo- lay Alexeyevichl"

Lopahin, as if he had been waiting for the call: This minute! Exit quickly. Varya sits on the floor and sobs quietly, her head on a bundle of clothes. Enter M^. ^^evskaya cautiously.

^^re. Ranevskaya: Well? Pame. We must be going.

Varya, wiping her eyes: Yes, it's time, mamma dear. I'U be able to get to the Ragulins' today, if only we don't miss the train.

Mme. Ranevskaya, at the door: Anya, put your things on. Enter Anya, Gayev, Charlocta. Gayev wears a heavy overcoat with a hood. Enter servants and coachmen. YEPiHOI>Ov bustles about the luggage.

Mme. ^^EVSKAYA: Now we can start on our jo^roey.

ANYA, foyfully: On our journey!

GAYEv: My friends, my dear, cherished friends, leav- ing this house forever, can I be silent? Can I at leave- taking refrain from giving utterance to those emotions that now fill my being?

Anya, imploringly: Uncle!

Varya: Uncle, uncle dear, don't.

Gayev, forlornly: I'll bank the yellow in the side pocket . . . I'll be silent . . .

Enter Trofimov, then Lopahin.

TROFIMOV: Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to leave.

Lopahin: Yepihodov, my coat.

Mme. RANEVSKA.YA: I'll sit down just a minute. It seems as though I'd never before seen what the walls of this house were like, the ceilings, and now I look at them hungrily, with such tender affection.

Gayev: I remember when I was six years old sitting on that window sill on Whitsunday, watching my father going to church.

Mme. RANEVSKA.YA: Has everything been taken?

Lopahin: I think so. Putting on his overcoat. Yepi- hodov, see that everything's in order.

YEPIHODOV, in a husky voice: You needn't worry, Yer- molay Alexeyevich.

LOPAHIN: What's the matter with your voice?

YEPIHoDov: I just had a drink of water. I must have swallowed something.

YASHA, contemptuously: \Vhat ignorance!

M^. RANEVSKA.YA: When we're gone, not a soul wiU be left here.

Lop^^ : Until the spring.

Varya pulls an umbrella out of a bundle, as though about to hit someone with it. LoPAHIN pretends to be frightened.

Varya: Come, come, I had no such ideal

TROFIMOV: Ladies and gentlemen, let's get into the carriages—it's time. The train will be in directly.

Varya: Petya, there they are, your rubbers, by that trunk. Tearfully: And what dirty old things they are!

TnoFiMOv, puts on rubbers: Let's go, ladies and gentlemen.

GAYEV, greatly upset, afraid of breaking down: The train . . . the station . . . Three cushions in the side pocket, I'll bank this one in the corner . . .

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Let's go.

LOPAHIN: Are we all here? No one in there? Locks the side door on the left. There are some things stored here, better lock up. Let us go!

Anya: Good-by, old house! Good-by, old life!

TnoFiMOv: Hail to you, new life!

Exit with Anya. Varya looks round the room and goes out slowly. YASHA and Charlotta with her dog go vut.

Lopamn: And so, until the spring. Go along, friends . . . 'Bye-'bye! Exits.

Mme. RANEVSKAYA and GAYEV remain alone. As though they had been waiting for this, they throw them- selves on each other's necks, and break into subdued, restrained sobs, afraid of being overheard.

Gayev, in despair: My sister! My sister!

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: Oh, my orchard—my dear, sweet, beautiful orchard! }.ly life, my youth, my happi- ness—good-by! Good-by! Voice of Anya, gay and sum- moning: "Mamma!" Voice of Trofimov, gay and ex- cited: "Halloo!"

Mme. RANEVSKAYA: One last look at the walls, at the windows . . . Our poor mother loved to walk about this room . • .

Gayev: My sister, my sister! Voice of Anya: "Mam- ma!" Voice of Trofimov: "Halloo^"

Mme. Ranevskaya: We're coming.

They go out. The stage is empty. The sound of doors being locked, of carriages driving away. Then silence.

In the stillness is heard the muffled sound of the

striking a tree, a mournful, lonely sound.

Footsteps are heard. Fis appears in the doorway on the right. He is dressed as usual in a jacket and white waistcoat and wears slippers. He is ill.

fim, goes to the door, tries the handle: Locked! They've gone • . . Sits down on the sofa. They've for- gotten me . . . Never mind . . . I'll sit here a bit . . . I'll wager Leonid Andreyevich hasn't put his fur coat on, he's gone off in his light overcoat . . • Sighs anxiously. I didn't keep an eye on him . . . Ah, when they're young, they're green . . . Mumbles something indistinguishable. Life has gone by as if I had never lived. Lies down. I'll lie do^ a while . . . There's no strength left in you, old fellow; nothing is left, nothing. Ah, you addlehead! Lies motionless. A distant sound is heard coming from the sky as it were, the sound of a snapping string mournfully dying away. All is still again, and nothing is heard but the strokes of the ax against a tree far away in the orchard.

LETTERS

Letters

to dmitry v. cmcorovich

(The elderly novelist to whom this letter is addressed won his reputation in the middle of the century and was thus a s^^ivor of the Golden Age of Russian literature. He had written to young Chekhov, with whom he was not ac- quainted, hailing him as the outstanding writer of his gen- eration and urging him to undertake a serious piece of work that would demand time and thought, even if it meant going hungry.)

Moscow, March 28, j886

Your letter, my kind, ardently beloved bringer of good tidings, struck me like a thunderbolt. I nearly cried, I got all excited, and now I feel that your message has left a deep mark on my soul. As you have been kind to my youth, so may God succor your old age. For my part, I can find neither words nor deeds with which to thank you. You know with what eyes ordinary people regard the elect such as you, and so you can imagine how your letter has affected my self-esteem. It is better than any diploma, and for a fledgeling writer it is bounty now and in time to come. I am almost in a daze. It is not within my power to judge whether I merit this high reward. I can only repeat that it has overwhelmed me.

If I have a gift that should be respected, I confess be- fore the purity of your heart that hitherto I have not re- spected it. I felt that I did have talent, but I had got 596

used to thinking it insignificant. Purely external causes are enough to make one unjust to oneself, suspicious, and diffident. And, as I think of it now, there have been plenty of such causes in my case. All those who are near to me have always treated my writing with condescen- sion and have never stopped advising me in a friendly manner not to give up real work for scribbling. I have hundreds of acquaintances in Moscow, among them a score or so of people who write, and I cannot recall a single one who would read me or regard me as an artist. In Moscow there is a Literary Circle, so-called: gifted writers and mediocrities of all ages and complexions meet once a week in a restaurant and give their tongues free rein. If I were to go there and read them even a fragment of your letter, they would laugh in my face. In the five years that I have been knocking about news- paper offices I have come to accept this general view of my literary insignificance; before long I got used to tak- ing an indulgent view of my labors, and so the fat was in the fire. That's the first cause. The second is that I ^ a physician and am up to my ears in medical work, so that the saw about chasing two hares[9] has robbed no one of more sleep than me.

I am writing all this for the sole purpose of exonerat- ing myself to at least some degree in your eyes. Up till now my attitude towards my literary work has been ex- tremely frivolous, casual, thoughtless. I cannot think of a single story at which I worked for more than a day, and "The Huntsman," which you liked, I wrote in a bath- ing-cabin. I wrote my stories the way reporters write notices of fires: mechanically, half-consciously, without caring a pin either about the reader or myself . . . I wrote and tried my best not to use up on a story the

images and scenes which are dear to me and which,

God knows why, I treasured and carefully concealed.

What first impelled me to self-criticism was a very friendly and, I believe, sincere letter from Suvorin.[10]I began to plan writing something decent, but I still lacked faith in my ability to produce anything worth while.

And then like a bolt from the blue came your letter. Excuse the comparison, but it had the effect on me of a Governor's order to leave townwn within twenty-four hours: I suddenly felt the urgent need to hurry and get out of the hole in which I was stuck , . .

I will stop—but not soon—doing work that has to be delivered on schedule. It is impossible to get out of the rut I am in all at once. I don't object to going hungry, as I went hungry in the past, but it is not a question of myself . . . To writing I give my leisure: two or three hours during the day and a fraction of the night, that is, an amount of time that is good only for short pieces. In the summer when I have more spare time and fewer ex- penses I shall undertake some serious piece of work . . •

All my hope is pinned to the future. I am only twenty- six. Perhaps I shall succeed in achieving something, though time flies fast.

Forgive this long letter and do not hold it against a man who for the first time in his life has made bold to indulge in the pleasure of writing to Grigorovich.

If possible, send me your photograph. I am so over- come by your kindness that I feel like writing you not a sheet, but a whole ream. May God grant you happi- ness and health, and believe the sincerity of your deeply respectful and grateful

A. CHEKHOV

TO HIS br^^er nikolay

( Nikolay was something of a painter; he designed the cover of Anton's first vol^e of short stories. The shiftless feUow was to die of cons^ption two years after this letter was written. )

Aloscow, March, 1886

You have often complained to me that people didn't "understand" you! Goethe and Newton didn't complain of that . . . Christ alone did, but He was speaking not of His ego, but of His teaching. You are perfectly well understood. And if you don't understand yourself, it is not the fault of others.

I assure you that as a brother and a friend I under- stand you and sympathize with you heartily. I know all your good qualities as I know my five fingers; I value and deeply respect them. I can enumerate those qual- ities if you like, to prove that I understand you. I think you are kind to the point of spinelessness, sincere, mag- nanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last copper; you are free from envy and hatred; you are simple- hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are trustful, not spiteful, and do not remember evil. You have a gift from Heaven such as others do not possess: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of people, for only one out of two million on earth is an artist. Your talent sets you apart: even if you were a toad or a tarantula, you would be respected, for to talent everything is for- given.

You have only one fault. Your false position, your un- happiness, your intestinal catarrh are all due to it. It is your utter lack of culture. Please forgive me, but veritas magis amicitiae . . . You see, life sets its terms. To feel at ease among cultivated people, to be at home and comfortable with them, one must have a certain amount of culture. Talent has brought you into that circle, you belong to it, but—you are drawn away from it, and you waver between cultured people and the tenants op- posite.

Cultured people must, in my opinion, meet the fol- lowing conditions:

They respect human personality, and for this rea- son they are always affable, gentle, civil, and ready to give in to others. They do not raise a rumpus over a hammer or a lost eraser; when they live with you they do not make you feel that they are doing you a favor, and on leaving they do not say: "Impossible to live with you!" They overlook noise, cold, overdone meat, jokes, the presence of strangers in their rooms.

They are sorry not only for beggars and cats. Their hearts ache over what the naked eye does not see . . .

They sit up nights in order to help P , to keep their

brothers at the university, and to buy clothes for their mother.

They respect the property of others and therefore pay their debts.

They are candid, and dread lying as they dread fire. They do not lie even about trifles. A lie insults the listener and debases him in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose; they behave in the street as they do at home; they do not show off before their inferiors. They do not chatter and do not force uninvited con- fidences on others. Out of respect for the ears of other people they often keep silent.

They do not belittle themselves to arouse com- passion in others. They do not play on other people's heart-strings so as to elicit sighs and be fussed over. They do not say: "People don't understand me" or "I have frittered away my talent," because all that is sbiv- ing after cheap effect; it is vulgar, stale, false.

They are not vain. They do not care for such paste diamonds as familiarity with celebrities, the handclasp

of the drunken P , the raptures of a stray spectator

in a picture gallery, popularity in beer-halls . . . When they have done a kopeck's worth of work they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred rubles' worth, and they do not brag of having the entree where others are not admitted. The truly talented always keep in the shade, among the crowd, far from the show. Even Krylov said that an empty barrel is noisier than a full one.

If they possess talent they respect it. They sacri- fice peace, women, wine, vanity to it. They are proud of their talent; they are aware that their calling is not just to live with people but to have an educative influence on them. Besides they are fastidious.

They develop their esthetic sense. They cannot fall asleep in their clothes, see the cracks in the wall full of insects, breathe foul air, walk on a spittle-covered floor, eat from a pot off a kerosene stove. They seek as far as possible to tame and ennoble the sexual instinct. What they want from a woman is not a bed-fellow, not equine sweat, not a cleverness that shows itself in the

ability to and to lie incessantly. What they need,

especially if they are artists, is freshness, elegance, hu-

manity, the capacity for being not a but a mother.

They do not swill vodka at all hours. They do not sniff about cupboards, for they are not pigs. They drink only when they are free, on occasion. For they want mens sana in corpore sana. . . .

And so on. That is what cultivated people are like. In order to educate yourself and not be below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read Pick- wick Papers and memorized a monologue from Faust. It is not enough to come to Yakimanka [where the fam- ily lived], only to leave a week later.

What is needed is continuous work, day and night, constant reading, study, wiU-power . . • Every hour counts.

Trips to Yakimanka and back will not help. You must make a clean break. Come to us; smash the vodka bottle; lie down and read—Turgenev, if you like, whom you have not read. Give up your conceit, you are not a child. You will soon be thirty. It is time!

I am waiting . . . We are all waiting . . .

Yours,

A. CHEKHOV

TO ids sister maria

(This, Chekhov's only sister, a schoolteacher, was the member of his family closest to him. Mter his death she edited a six-volume collection of his letters and as recently as 1934 was in charge of the Chekhov Museum at Yalta. In the spring of 1887 Chekhov revisited his birthplace, Taganrog, and a few neighboring to^s. This letter is written from one of them.)

[Novocherkassk,] April 25, [1887]

I am now on my way from Novocherkassk to Zverevo. There was a wedding yesterday that had been going on since the day before, a real Cossack wedding, with music, women caterwauling, and a loathsome drinking bout. I got so many discordant impressions that it is im- possible to set them down on paper, and I must put it off till I return to Moscow. The bride is sixteen. The wedding took place in the local cathedral. I acted as best man, in a borrowed frock-coat, wide pantaloons and without a single stud—in Moscow such a best man would get it in the neck, but here I was the greatest swell.

I saw a lot of wealthy marriageable girls. There was an enormous selection, but I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles. Apparently, thanks to my drunken condition, the local maidens decided that I was witty and wag." The girls here are a flock of sheep: if one gets up and leaves the ballroom, all the others file after her. One of them, the smartest and the most daring, wishing to show that she knew something about fine manners and diplomacy, kept striking me on the hand with her fan and saying, "Oh, you naughty man!" But all the time her face wore an expression of fear. I taught her to say to her swains, "How naive you are!"

Apparently in obedience to a local custom, the newly- weds kissed every minute, kissed so vehemently that every time their lips made an explosive noise, and I had a taste of oversweet raisins in my mouth, and got a spasm in my left calf. Their kisses did the varicose vein in my left leg no good.

I can't tell you how much fresh caviar I ate and how much local red wine I drank. It's a wonder I didn't burst! * * *

At Zverevo I'll have to wait for the train from nine in the evening till five in the morning. Last time I had to sleep in a second-class car on a spur. At night I went out of the car to relieve myself and it was miraculous out there: the moon, the boundless steppe—a desert with ancient grave-mounds—the silence of the tomb, and the cars and rails standing out boldly against the dim sky— a dead world, It was an unforgettable picture. It is a pity Mishka [his brother Mikhail] couldn't come with

me. He would have gone mad with all these impres-

sions. * * *

Good-by. I hope everybody is well.

A. CHEKHOV

(In the course of his trip to Taganrog Chekhov visited a monastery on the Donetz river.)

Taganrog, May 11, [1887]

The monks, very pleasant people, gave me a very un- pleasant room with a mattress like a pancake. I spent two nights at the monastery and got no end of impres- sions. On aocount of St. Nicholas's Feast, 15,000 pilgrims flocked to the place, 8/9 of them old women. I didn't know that there were so many old women in the world, or I should have shot myself a long time ago . . . The services are endless: at midnight they ring the bells for matins, at 5 a.m. for early Mass, at 9 for late Mass, at 3 for nones, at 5 for vespers, at 6 for compline. Before each service you hear the weeping sound of a bell in the corridors, and a monk runs along crying in the voice of a creditor who implores his debtor to pay at least five kopecks on the ruble, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us! Pray come to matins!"

It is awkward to remain in your room, so you get up and go . . . I found a nice spot for myself on the bank of the Donetz and stayed there all the time that the services were going on.

I've bought an icon for Aunt F. Y.

All of the 15,000 pilgrims get monastic grub free: shchi[11] with dried gudgeon and gruel. Both are delicious and so is the rye bread.

The bell-ringing is remarkable. The singers are poor. I took part in a church procession carried by rowboats.

TO ALEXEY N. PLESHCHEYEV

(The recipient of this letter, an elderly poet whom Chek- hov called his literary godfather, was fiction editor of the monthly which was the first to publish his work. Osip Noto- vich and Grigory Gradovsky wcre liberal journalists.)

Moscow, October 4, 1888

I am afraid of those who look for a tendency between the lines and who insist on seeing me as necessarily either a liberal or a conservative. I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not a gradualist, not a monk, not an in- differentist. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more, and I regret that God has not given me the power to be one. I hate lying and violence, whatever form they take, and I am equally repelled by secretaries of con- sistories and by Notovich and Gradovsky. Pharisaism, stupidity, and tyranny reign not in shopkeepers' homes and in lock-ups alone; I see them in science, in literature, in the younger generation . . . That is why I have no partiality either for gendarmes, or butchers, or scholars, or writers, or young people. I regard trade-marks and labels as a kind of prejudice. My holy of holies is the hu- man body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom—freedom from violence and false- hood, no matter how the last two manifest themselves. This is the program I would follow if I were a great artist.

TO ALEXEY S. SUVORlN

(The addressee was a playwright as well as an influential conservative journalist and editor, who achieved wealth as a publisher and bookseller. He was Chekhov's close friend and his chief correspondent, the recipient of some 300 letters from him. The letter below and five subsequent ones have to do with Chekhov's trip to the penal colony on the island of Sakhalin, where he spent a little over three months, be- ginning July 11, 1890. At the invitation of the Russian gov- ernment, Alexander von Humboldt, the naturalist, explored Asiatic Russia in 1829; in the 1880's George Kennan made a thorough study of the Siberian penal system.)

Moscow, March 9 [1890]

(The feast of Forty Mar-

tyrs and of io,ooo Larks)

Both of us are mistaken about Sakhalin, but you prob- ably more than I. I am going there fully convinced that my trip will not result in any valuable contribution either to literature or science: I lack the knowledge, the time, and the ambition for that. My plans are not those of a Humboldt or a Kennan. I want to write 100 to 200 pages and thereby pay off some of my debt to medicine, towards which, as you know, I have behaved like a pig. Possibly I shall not be able to write anything, neverthe- less the journey does not lose its charm for me: by read- ing, looking around and listening, I shall get to know and to learn a great deal. I haven't left yet, but thanks to the books that I have been obliged to read, I have learned much of what everyone should know under penalty of forty lashes, and of which I was formerly ignorant. Besides, I believe that the trip will mean six months of incessant work, physical and mental, and this I need, for I am a Ukrainian[12] and have already begun to be lazy. One must keep in training. My trip may be a trifle, the result of obstinacy, a whim, but consider and teU me what I lose by going. Time? Money? Comfort? My time is worth nothing, money I never have anyway, as for privations, I shall travel by carriage not more than 25 to 30 days—and all the rest of the time I shall be sitting on the deck of a steamer or in a room and con- stantly bombard you with letters.

Suppose the trip gives me absolutely nothing, still won't the whole journey yield at least two or three days that I shall remember all my life, with rapture or with bitterness? And so on, and so on. That's how it is, sir. All this is unconvincing, but neither do your arguments convince me. You say, for instance, that Sakhalin is of no use and no interest to anybody. But is that so? Sak- halin could be of no use or interest only to a country that did not exile thousands of people there and did not spend millions on it. After Australia in the past and Cayenne, Sakhalin is the only place where you can study colonization by convicts. All Europe is interested in it, and it is of no use to us? No longer ago than 25 or 30 years, our own compatriots in exploring Sakhalin per- formed amazing feats that make man worthy of deifica- tion, and yet that's of no use to us, we know nothing about those men, we sit within four walls and complain that God made a botch of man. Sakhalin is a place of unbearable sufferings, such as only human beings, free or bond, can endure. The men directly or indirectly connected with it solved terrible, grave problems and are still solving them. If I were sentimental—I am sorry I am not—1 would say that to places like Sakhalin we should make pilgrimages, like the Turks who travel to Mecca, and navy men and criminologists in particular should regard Sakhalin as military men do Sevastopol. From the books I have been reading it is clear that we have let millions of people rot in prison, destroying them carelessly, thoughtlessly, barbarously; we drove people in chains through the cold across thousands of miles, infected them with syphilis, depraved them, multiplied criminals, and placed the blame for all this on red-nosed prison wardens. All civilized Europe knows now that it is not the wardens who are to blame, but all of us, yet this is no concern of ours, we are not interested. The vaunted Sixties did nothing for the sick and the pris- oners, thus violating the basic commandment of Chris- tian civilization. In our time something is being done for the sick, but for prisoners nothing; prison problems don't interest our jurists at all. No, I assure you, we need Sak- halin and it is important to us, and the only thing to be regretted is that I am the one to go there and not some- one else who is better equipped for the task and is more capable of arousing public interest * * *

Your A. CHEKHOV

TO ids sister maria

(The Tunguses are natives of eastern Siberia; the reference may have been a family joke. The Pechenegs were a nomad tribe that roamed the steppes in ancient times. Chekhov liked to use the name as a synonym for a benighted savage.)

April 29, 1890

My Tungus friends!

The Kama is a very tedious river. To appreciate its beauties one must be a Pecheneg, sit motionless on a barge near a barrel of petroleum or a sack of dried Cas- pian roach, continually swilling rotgut. The banks are bare, the trees are bare, the ground is barren, with strips of snow, and the devil himself couldn't raise a sharper and more disgusting wind. When a cold wind blows and ruffles the water, which after the floods is the color of coffee slops, one is chilled and bored and wretched. The strains of accordions coming from the banks sound dis- mal, and the figures in ragged sheepskin coats standing stock-stili on the barges that we pass seem petrified by some endless sorrow. The towns on the Kama arc gray; the only occupation of their inhabitants, it seems, is the manufacture of clouds, boredom, wet fences, and mud in the streets. The landing-places are crowded with the intelligentsia, for whom the arrival of a steamer is an event . . . Everything about these gentry suggests "the second fiddle"; apparently not one of them earns more than 35 rubles and they are probably all dosing them- selves for some ailment or other * * *

I was two and a half years sailing to Perm—or so it seemed to me. We landed there at 2 a.m. The train was scheduled to leave at 6 p.m. It was raining. Rain, cold, mud—brrrl * * *

Waking up yesterday morning on board a train and looking out of the window, I felt disgusted with Nature: the ground was white, the trees were covered with hoar- frost and a regular blizzard was chasing the train. Now isn't that revolting? The sons of bitches ... I have no rubbers, I pulled on my big boots and walking to the buffet for coffee I perfumed the whole Ural province with their tarry smell . . . When we got to Yekaterin- burg [now Sverdlovsk], there was rain, sleet, snow * * * In Russia all the towns are alike. Yekaterinburg is ex- actly like Perm or Tula, or like Sumy and Gadyach. The ringing of the bells is magnificent, velvety. I stopped at the American Hotel (not at all bad) and immediately wrote to A. M. S. [a relative] to say that I meant to stay in my hotel room two days and take Hunyadi [a laxa- tive] which, let me say not without pride, I drink with signal success.

The people here inspire the new arrival with a feeling akin to horror. They have prominent cheekbones, big brows, broad shoulders, tiny eyes, and huge fists. They are born in the local cast-iron foundries and are brought into the world not by an accoucheur, but by a machinist. A fellow like that comes into your room with a samovar or a decanter and you expect him to murder you. I move aside. This morning just such an individual came in— high-cheekboned, big-browed, sullen, towering to the ceiling, several feet across the shoulders, and wearing a fur coat besides. Well, I thought, this one is sure to mur- der me. It turned out that it was A. M. S. We talked. He is a member of the Zemstvo Board, manages his cousin's mill where they have electric light, edits The Yekaterin- burg Week which is censored by the Chief of Police, Baron Taube, is married, has two children, is growing rich, gaining weight, getting old, and lives "substan- tially." He says he has no time to be bored. Advised me to visit the museum, the plants, the mines; I thanked him for the advice. He invited me to tea, I invited him to have dinner with me. He did not invite me to dinner, and generally did not insist on my coming to see him. From this mamma may conclude that the relatives' heart has not softened, and that S. and I are not essen- tial to one another . . . Relatives are a tribe I am in- different to * * *

Your Homo Sachaliensis,

A. CHEKHOV

TO mme. maria v. kiseleva

(The addressee, a cultivated woman who wrote stories, was the daughter of the Director of the Imperial Theatres in Moscow and the wife of a lando^er, from whom the Chekhovs had rented a summer cottage for several seasons.)

On the shores of the Jrtysh, May 7, 1890 Greetings, truly esteemed Maria Vladimirovna!

I wanted to write you a farewell letter from Moscow, but had not time and had to put it off indefinitely. I am writing you now in a hut on the bank of the Irtysh. It is night.

This is how I came to be here. I drove across Siberia in my own carriage. I have already covered some 475 miles. I have become a martyr from head to foot. Since morning a sharp cold wind has been blowing and a most disgusting rain has been coming down. Observe that spring hasn't reached Siberia yet: the earth is brown, the trees bare, and wherever you look you see white strips of snow. I wear my fur coat and felt boots day and night. Well, so it began blowing this morning. Heavy leaden clouds, brown earth, mud, rain, wind • • • brrrl I diive and drive ... I drive on endlessly, and the weather gets no better. Towards evening they teU me at the station that there is no going any farther, as the roads are flooded and the bridges washed away. Knowing how fond these private drivers are of scaring one with the elements so as to keep the traveler over- night (it is profitable), I did not believe them and ordered a team of three horses hitched up. Well? Woe is me, I had hardly driven more than three miles when I discovered that great lakes covered the bank of the Irtysh; the ioad was under water and the bridges indeed either were washed away or had broken down. What prevented me from turning back was partly stubborn- ness, partly the desire to leave these dreary parts as quickly as possible.

We began making our way across the lakes. Heavens, I never went through anything like that in my life! Bit- ing wind, cold, disgusting rain, and with it all, climb out of the coach (an open one) if you please, and hold the horses: over each little bridge one could only lead the horses one at a time. Where had I landed? Where was I? Wastes and desolation all around; the shores of the Irtysh are bare and sullen.

We drive into the largest lake. Now I would gladly tum back, but that's difficult. We drive over a long, nar- row tongue of land. It comes to an abrupt end and we go plop! Then there is another strip of land and again— plop! My hands grow numb with cold, and the wild ducks seem to mock us and hover overhead in huge flocks. It grows dark. The driver is silent—he has lost his head. But at last we reach the final tongue of land which separates the lake from the Irtysh. The river's sloping bank rises no more than two feet above the level of the water; it is clayey, bare, gullied, and looks slip- pery. The water is muddy. White waves beat against the clay, but the river itself does not roar or boom, but emits a queer sound as though someone were knocking on coffins under water . . . The opposite bank is an un- broken, desolate plain. . • .

But here is the ferry. We must cross to the other side. A peasant emerges from a hut and, shrinking from the rain, says that the ferry cannot make the trip as it is too windy (the ferries hereabouts are worked by oars). He advises us to wait for calm weather.

So here I am at night in a hut standing in the middle of a lake on the very shore of the lrtysh. The penetrating humidity is in my bones and loneliness is in my soul; I listen to my Irtysh knocking on the coffins and to the wind howling and I ask myself: "Where am I? What am I here for?"

In the next room the ferrymen and my driver are asleep. They are decent men. If they were bad, they could very well rob me and then drown me in the Irtysh. The hut stands solo on the shore, there are no witnesses.

The road to Tomsk is absolutely safe as far as brig- andage is concerned. It is bad form to so much as talk of robberies. They don't even steal from travelers. When you go into a hut, you can leave your belongings in the yard and everything will be safe.

Just the same, I did almost get killed. Imagine the hour before dawn. I am driving along in my carriage and thinking, thinking . . . Suddenly I see a troika head- ing for us at full speed; my driver turns right in the very nick of time and the troika dashes past us . . . It is fol- lowed by another coach also going at full speed. We turn to the right, it turns to the left. "We'll collide)" flashes through my mind. Another instant, and there is a crash, the horses tangle in a black mass, my carriage rears up and I am on the ground with all my bags and bundles on top of me. I jump up and see: a third troika bearing down on us!

My mother must have prayed for me the night before. If I had been asleep or if the third carriage had followed hard upon the second, I should have been killed or crip- pled. It appears that the first driver had whipped up his horses and the drivers in the second and third troikas were asleep and didn't see us. After the crash there was complete stupefaction on both sides, followed by fero- cious cursing. The harness was torn, the shafts broken, the yokes lay about on the road. And how drivers swear! At night, in the midst of the cursing, frenzied horde I was overcome by a sense of utter loneliness such as I have never known before.

But my paper is giving out . . . The rain is pelting the windows. May all the saints bless you! I'll write again. My address is: Aleksandrovsk, Island of Sakhalin.

Yours, A. CHEKHOV

TO IDS SISTER MARIA

Tomsk, May 16, 1890

In the morning they would not ferry me across: it was too windy. We had to take a rowboat. As I cross the river the rain lashes, the wind blows, the baggage gets soaked, the felt boots, which had been drying overnight on the stove, are again turning into jelly. Oh, my be- loved leather coat! If I didn't catch cold, I owe that to it alone. When I come back, rub it down with lard or castor oil, as a reward. I sat on the bank for a whole hour on a suitcase, waiting for horses to arrive from the village. I remember how slippery it was climbing up that bank. In the village I warmed up and had tea. De- portees came begging for alms. Every family bakes a pood [36 pounds] of white bread for them every day. A sort of tax, this.

The deportees take the bread and trade it for drink at some pothouse. One of the deportees, a raggedy, clean- shaven old man, whose eyes had been knocked out for him by his fellow convicts in a tavern, having heard that a chance traveler was in the house and taking me for a merchant, began reciting prayers and chanting. He chanted a prayer for health and another for the repose of the dead, and Easter canticles . . . What didn't he sing! Then he began telling lies about his having come of a merchant family of Moscow. I noticed the contempt in which this boozer held the peasants on whom he sponged!

On the llth I hired a post chaise and started off. Out of boredom I took to reading the complaint books at the stations. I made a discovery which astonished me and which, in raw or rainy weather, is invaluable: these sta- tions have privies in their entries. Oh, you can't ap- preciate this!

On the 12th of May they would not let me have any horses, saying that travel was out of the question, since the Ob had overflowed its banks and inundated all the meadowlands. "You turn off the post road and go as far as Krasnyi Yar; from there you will go about eight miles by boat to Dubrovino, and at Dubrovino they'll let you have post horses." I started for Kr. Yar with horses hired from a private person. Arrived there in the morning. I was told that they did have a boat, but that I'd have to wait awhile, since grandfather had sent a workman off to row the assessor's clerk to Dubrovino. Very well, we'll wait. One hour passes, then another, and a third. Noon comes, then evening. Allah kerim (Allah is generous), all the tea I drank, all the bread I ate, all the thoughts I thought! And how I slept! Night came, and still no boat. Morning came. Finally, at nine o'clock the work- man was back. Thank heavens, we're off! And how smoothly we row! The air is calm, the boatmen are skilled, the islands are beautiful • . • The flood had caught men and cattle off guard, and I see peasant women going out in boats to the islands to milk the cows. These cows are lean, despondent; because of the cold there is no feed at all to be had.

We covered eight miles. At the Dubrovino posthouse I had tea and with it I was served—just imagine!— waffies. The woman who runs the place must be a de- portee or the wife of one. At the next station the clerk, an old Pole, to whom I gave antipyrin to relieve his headache, complained of his poverty and told me that Count Sapieha, Chamberlain of the Court of Austria and a Pole, who helped Poles, had recently passed through Siberia. "He stopped near this station," the clerk told me, "but I never knew it! Holy Mother of God! He would have helped me. I wrote to him in Vienna, but got no reply—" and so on. Why am I not Sapieha? I would send this poor fellow back to his na- tive land.

On the 14th of May I was again refused horses. The Tom was in flood. What a nuisance! Not a nuisance, but a calamity! Tomsk thirty-five miles away, and then this, so unexpectedly. In my place a woman would have burst into sobs. Some kind folks found a way out for me: "You go as far as the Tom, your Honor—it's only four miles from here; there they'll row you across to Yar, and from there Ilya Markovich will take you by horse to Tomsk." I hire a private coach and go to the Tom, to the spot where the boat ought to be. I drive up: no boat. It has just gone off with the mail and isn't likely to come back soon, since there's a gale blowing. I begin my wait. The ground is covered with snow, the rain is sleety, and then there's the wind . . . An hour passes, then another, no boat. Fate is mocking me! I go back to the station. Here three troikas and a postman are getting ready to set out in the direction of the Tom. I tell them there is no boat. They remain. Fate rewards me: the clerk, in an- swer to my hesitant query as to the chances of getting a bite of something, tells me that the proprietress has cabbage soup. Oh, rapture! Oh, most radiant day! And the proprietress' daughter actually brings me excellent cabbage soup, with wonderful meat, roast potatoes, and cucumbers. . . . After the potatoes I let myself go completely and make me some coffee. A spree!

At dusk, the postman, an elderly man who had been through a great deal and who did not dare sit down in my presence, started getting ready for the trip to the Tom. So did I. We started off. As soon as we reached the river, a boat appeared, a longer boat than I had ever dreamed of. While the mail was being loaded onto the boat I witnessed a strange phenomenon: there was a peal of thunder, and that with snow on the ground and a cold wind blowing. The boat took on its load and cast off. Forgive me, Misha [his brother Mikhail], but I was glad I had not taken you along. How clever I had been in not taking anybody along on this trip! At first our boat floated over a flooded meadow, close to a clump of willow shrubs . . . As usually happens before a storm, a strong wind suddenly swept over the water, raising waves. The boatman seated at the helm was of the opin- ion that we should weather the storm among the willow shrubs. The others countered that if the weather wors- ened we might have to stay among the willows until nightfall, and be drowned anyway. We put the matter to a vote, and it was decided to go on. My bad luck, how it mocks me! Why all those pranks? We rowed on silently, concentrating on the task before us . . . I re- member the figure of the postman who had been through the mill. I remember a little soldier, who sud- denly turned as crimson as cherry juice. Should the boat capsize, I thought, I would throw off my furlined jacket and my leather coat, then the felt boots, then, and so on. But now the bank was coming nearer and nearer . . . Lighter, lighter grew my soul, my heart contracted with joy; for some reason I sighed deeply, as though I were suddenly at rest, and then jumped onto the wet, slippery bank . • • Thank God!

At Ilya Markovich's, the convert's, we are told that we can't start out at night—the going is bad, we'll have to stay overnight. Well and good; I stay over. Mter din- ner I sit down to write you this letter, which is inter- rupted by the arrival of the assessor. This assessor is a thick mixture of Nozdryov [the bully in Gogol's Dead Souls], Hlestakov [the braggart in Gogol's Inspector

General], and plain dog. A drunkard, a lecher, a liar, a singer, a raconteur, and, with all that, a kindhearted man. He has brought with him a large chest full of official papers, a bed and mattress, a gun, and a clerk. The clerk is a splendid, cultivated fellow, an outspoken liberal who had studied in Petersburg. Though a free man, he finds himself for some reason in Siberia, is in- fected to the marrow of his bones with every disease, and is drinking himself to death thanks to his superior, who calls him familiarly Kolya. The representative of the law sends for some cordial. "Doctor," he vociferates, "drink one more glass, and I'll bow down to your very feet!" I drink, of course. The representative of the law drinks mightily, lies like a trooper, and swears foully. We go to bed. In the morning cordial is again sent for. They swill it until ten, and at last start out. Ilya Marko- vich, the convert, whom the peasants hereabouts wor- ship, I was told, gives me horses to take me as far as Tomsk.

to nikolay a. leikin

(This correspondent was the editor of a Petersburg comic weekly for which Chekhov wrote in his youth.)

Irkutsk, June 5, 1890

Greetings, my most kind Nikolay Alexandrovich! I send you the warmest regards from Irkutsk, from the depths of Siberia. I arrived in Irkutsk last night, and ^ very glad I did, since the journey knocked me out completely, and I was missing my relatives and friends, to whom I have not written for a long time. And now, what is there of interest to write you about? I'll begin by saying that the trip is unusually long. I have covered some two thousand miles by carriage from Tyumen to Irkutsk. From Tyumen to Irkutsk I waged war against cold and rivers in flood; the frosts were terrible; on the Feast of Ascension there was a frost and a snowfall, so that I didn't get a chance to take off my sheepskin coat and felt boots until I got to the hotel at Tomsk. As for the rivers in flood, they are a plague of Egypt. The rivers overflowed their banks and inundated the meadowlands for miles around, and the roads with them; it was con- stantly necessary to exchange my carriage for a boat— and as for boats, they weren't to be had for nothing; for a good boat one had to pay with one's heart's blood, since it was necessary to sit for days and nights on end in the rain and the cold wind, and wait and wait . • • From Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk there was a desperate war against insuperable mud. My God, it's fearful even to recaU itl How many times I had to have my carriage re^ paired, to trudge beside it, to curse, to crawl out of it and climb back into it again, and so on. There were times when the ride from one station to the next took six to ten hours, and from ten to sixteen hours were needed to repair the vehicle. The heat and dust during the trip from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk were dreadful. Add to this hunger, dust in your nose, eyes glued together for want of sleep, eternal fear that something may break in the carriage (which was my own), and boredom . . . But just the same I am content and thank God for having given me the strength and opportunity to make this journey. I have seen and lived through a great deal, and everything is exceedingly interesting and new to me, not as a man of letters but simply as a human being. The Yenisey river, the taiga [forest], the stations, the drivers, untamed Nature, the wild life, the physical agonies caused by the hardships of travel, the delights of resting —altogether everything is so wonderful that I can't even describe it. For one thing, during more than a month I have been out in the fresh air day and night,

which is interesting and wholesome; for a whole month

I have seen the sunrise from beginning to end.

From here I am going to Baikal, then to Chita, and on to Sretensk, where I exchange my horses for a steamer and sail down the Amur to my journey's end. I am in no hurry, since I have no wish to be in Sakhalin before the first of July.

Your Homo Sachaliensis

A. CHEKHOV

TO ALEXEY s. suvorin

Moscow, December 9, 1890 Greetings, my precious friend! Hurrah! There, I am at home at last sitting at my desk, praying to my moult- ing penates and writing to you. I have a pleasant feel- ing, as if I had never left home. I'm well, and serene to the marrow of my bones. Here is a report, of the briefest sort, for you. It wasn't two months I spent on Sakhalin, as you have it in your paper, but three, plus two days. My work was intensive; I took a full and detailed census of the entire population of the island and saw eoery- thing, except an execution. When we meet, I will show you a whole trunkful of odds and ends about the con- victs, raw material that cost me plenty. I know a great deal now, but I came back with a wretched feeling. As long as I was staying in Sakhalin, I only felt a certain bitterness in my innards, as if from rancid butter; but now, in retrospect, the island seems to me a perfect helL For two months I worked hard, without sparing myself in any way, while during the third month I began to feel the strain of the bitterness I spoke of, the tedium, and the thought that cholera was heading from Vladivos- tok to Sakhalin and that I was running the risk of hav- ing to winter in the penal colony. But, thank Heaven, the cholera let up, and on October 13th the steamer bore me away from Sakhalin.

I stopped at Vladivostok. About our Maritime Region and our east coast, with its fleet, its problems, its dreams of the Pacific I shall say but one thing: it's all appalling poverty! Poverty, ignorance, and paltriness, such as can drive one to despair. One honest man to ninety-nine thieves, who desecrate the name of Russia . . . We by- passed Japan, since there was cholera there. For that reason I did not buy any Japanese articles for you, and the 500 rubles you gave me for such purchases I spent upon my own needs, which, according to law, gives you the right to have me deported to Siberia. The first for- eign port we touched was Hong Kong. The bay is won- derful; the sea traffic is such as I haven't seen the like of even in pictures; there are splendid roads, horse-drawn streetcars, a railway going up the mountain, museums, botanical gardens; no matter where you look you see the Englishmen's tender solicitude for the men in their service; there is even a club for sailors. I rode in jinrick- shas, which is to say, in a vehicle drawn by a man; bought all sorts of rubbish from the Chinese, and waxed indignant as I listened to my Russian fellow-travelers upbraiding the English for their exploitation of the na- tives. Yes, thought I, the Englishman exploits Chinese, sepoys, Hindus, but then he gives them roads, aque- ducts, museums, Christianity; you too exploit, but what do you give?

When we left Hong Kong the steamer began to roll. It had no cargo and it swung through an angle of 38 degrees, so that we were afraid it would capsize. I am not subject to seasickness; this discovery was a pleasant surprise. On the way to Singapore we threw two corpses into the ocean. When you see a dead man, wrapped in canvas, go flving head over heels into the water, and when you recall that there are several miles to the bot- tom, a fear comes over you, and for some reason you imagine that you yourself will die and be cast into the sea. The horned cattle we were carrying sickened. Dr. Shcherbak and your humble servant having passed sen- tence upon them, they were slaughtered and thrown into the ocean.

Singapore I remember poorly because while I was touring it I felt sad for some reason and all but wept. Ceylon came next—the site of Paradise. Here I covered some 70 miles by rail and had my fill of palm groves and bronze-skinned women. When I have children, I'll say to them, not without pride: "You sons of bitches, in my time I had dalliance with a dark-eyed Hindu—and where? In a coconut grove, on a moonlit night!" From Ceylon we sailed for thirteen days and nights without a single stop and grew dazed with boredom. I can stand heat well. The Red Sea is dismal. As I gazed on Mount Sinai I was deeply moved.

God's world is good. Only one thing isn't good: our- selves. How little there is in us of justice and humility, how poor is our conception of patriotism! The drunken, bedraggled, good-for-nothing of a husband loves his wife and child, but what's the good of that love? We, so the newspapers say, love our great country, but how is that love expressed? Instead of knowledge—inordinate brazenness and conceit, instead of hard work—laziness and swinishness; there is no justice; the concept of honor does not go beyond "the honor of the uniform," the uni- form which is the everyday adornment of the prisoners' dock. What is needed is work; everything else can go to the devil. The main thing is to be just—the rest will be added unto us. * * *

May Heaven protect you.

Your A. CHEKHOV

TO MME. MARIA V. KISELEVA

Rome, April 1, [1891] The Pope has charged me to offer you birthday greet- ings and wish you as much money as he has room. And he has 11,000 rooms! Wandering through the Vatican, I wilted with exhaustion, and when I returned home, my feet felt as if they were made of cotton.

I eat at the table d'hote. Fancy, opposite me sit two Dutch girls, one resembles Pushkin's Tatyana, the other, her sister Olga. I look at both all through dinner and picture to myself a spotless little white cottage with a turret, excellent butter, superb Dutch cheese, Dutch herring, a venerable-looking pastor, a sedate schoolmas- ter—and I want to marry a Dutch girl and be painted with her beside the spotless little cottage on a tray.

I have seen everything, trotted everywhere, sniffed at everything I was told to. But so far I feel simply fatigue and a desire for cabbage soup with buckwheat porridge. Venice fascinated me and turned my head, but since I bade it good-by, it has been just Baedecker and bad weather * * *

Ties are wonderfully cheap here. So cheap that maybe I'll try eating them. Two for a franc.

Tomorrow I go to Naples. Pray that I meet a beautiful Russian lady there, preferably a widow or a divorcee. The guidebooks say that a love affair is indispensable to an Italian tour. Well, devil take it, if a love affair, then a love affair! Don't forget your sinful but respectful and sincerely devoted,

A. Chekhov

Greetings to Messieurs the starlings.

TO alexey s. suvorin

Melihovo, April 8, 1892 Levitan, the artist, is staying with me. Last evening we were out shooting. He shot at a snipe, and the bird, hit in the wing, fell into a puddle. I picked it up: a long beak, big black eyes, and beautiful plumage. It looked astonished. What were we to do with it? Levitan frowned, shut his eyes, and begged me with a tremor in his voice, "My dear fellow, hit his head against the gun- stock." I said, "I can't." He went on nervously shrugging his shoulders, twitching his head, and begging me; and the snipe went on looking at us in astonishment. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. One more beautiful enam- ored creature gone, while two fools went home and sat down to supper.

(The writer begins this letter by pointing out that the artists of his generation, whether writers or painters, have produced nothing but "lemonade," nothing capable of going to a man's head.)

Melihovo, Nov. 25, 1892 Science and technology are passing through a great period now, but for our writing fraternity it is a fl.abby, sour, dull time; we ourselves are sour and dull, and can only beget rubber boys, and the only one who does not see it is Stasov [an art critic] whom Nature has endowed with the rare ability to get drunk even on slops. The cause of this is not our stupidity, or our lack of talent, or our insolence * * * but a disease which for an artist is worse than syphilis and impotence. We lack "something" —that is true, and it means that if you lift the skirt of our Muse, you will find the spot level. Remember that the writers whom we call eternal or simply good and who in- toxicate us have one very important characteristic in com- mon: they move in a certain direction and they summon you there too, and you feel, not with your mind alone, but with your whole being, that they have a goal, like the ghost of Hamlet's father who docs not come and trouble the imagination for nothing. Some, depending on their caliber, have immediate objects: abolition of serfdom, liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or, like Denis Davydov [author of drinking songs], simply vodka; others have remote objectives: God, immortality, the happiness of mankind, and so forth. The best of them are realistic, and paint life as it is, but because every line is permeated, as with sap, by the consciousness of a purpose, you are aware not only of life as it is, but of life as it ought to be, and that captivates you. And we? We! We paint life as it is, and beyond that neither whoa! nor giddap! Whip us and we cannot go a step farther. We have neither im- mediate nor distant aims and our souls are a yawning void. We have no politics, we don't believe in revolution, we have no God, we are not afraid of ghosts, and I per- sonally am not afraid even of death and blindness. One who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing cannot be an artist. Whether it is a disease or not—that is a question of name and doesn't matter, but it must be admitted that our situation is unenviable . . .

(Here Chekhov resumes the discussion of purposiveness in art begun in the previous letter.)

Melihovo, Dec. 3, 1892 That the writers and artists of the latest generation lack an aim in their work is a curious phenomenon that

is entirely legitimate and logical, and if Mme. S ,

for no reason at all, got scared by a bogey, that doesn't mean that my letter was wily and disingenuous. You yourself discovered it to be insincere only after she had written you, or you would not have sent her my letter in the first place. In my letters to you I am often unjust and naive, but I never write about what I don't have at heart.

If you are looking for insincerity, you will find tons of it in her letter. "The greatest miracle is man himself and we shall never tire of studying him." Or: "The aim of life is life itself." Or: "I believe in life, in its bright moments, for the sake of which one can, indeed one must, live; I believe in man, in that part of his soul which is good . . ." Can all this be sincere, and does it mean anything? This isn't an outlook, it's caramels. She underscores "can" and "must" because she is afraid to speak of what is and what has to be reckoned with. Let her first say what is, and only then I will listen to what one can and must do. She believes in "life," and that means that if she is intelligent, she believes in nothing, and if she is a country wife, she believes in a peasant God and crosses herself in the dark.

Under the influence of her letter you write me about "life for life's sake." Thank you very much. You've got to admit that her letter with its paean to life is a thou- sand times more funereal than mine. I write that we are without aims, and you realize that I consider aims nec- essary and would gladly go looking for them, but Mme.

S writes that one must not delude man with all

manner of good things that he will never get: "prize that which is," and in her opinion all our trouble comes from the fact that we keep pursuing lofty and distant aims. If this isn't a country wife's logic, it's the phi- losophy of despair. He who sincerely believes that man needs lofty and distant aims as little as a cow does, that "all our trouble" comes from pursuing these aims—has nothing left him but to eat, drink, sleep, or if he is fed up with that, he can take a running start and dash his head against the corner of a chest.

I'm not scolding the lady, I'm only saying that she is far from being a very jolly person. She is apparently nice enough, but all the same you shouldn't have shown her my letter. She is a stranger to me and I feel awk- ward about it now.

Hereabouts people are already riding tandem [on narrow winter roads] and cooking cabbage soup with smelts. We have already had two snowstorms that ruined the roads, but now the weather is cahn and it smells of Christmas.

( Chekhov begins by expressing strong doubt of Dreyfus's guilt and speaking in glowing terms of Zola, who was then being tried for libel because he had denounced the French General Staff as having falsely convicted the Jewish officer.)

Nice, Feb. 6, 1898

I acquainted myself with the case by reading the stenographic reports, which are quite different from what you find in the papers, and Zola's stand is clear to me. The main thing is that he is sincere, i.e., he bases his judgments only on what he sees, and not, like others, on phantoms. Of course, sincere people too may be mis- taken, but such mistakes are less harmful than reasoned insincerity, prejudice, or political considerations. Sup- pose Dreyfus is guilty—still Zola is right, for the writer's duty is not to accuse, not to persecute, but to intercede on behalf even of the guilty, once they are condemned and bear punishment. It will be asked: "But what about politics? And the interests of the State?" But big writers and artists must occupy themselves with politics only insofar as it is necessary to put up a defense against politics. There are enough accusers, prosecutors, and gendarmes even without them, and in any event, the role of Paul suits them better than the role of Saul. Whatever the verdict may be, after the trial Zola will nevertheless know a living joy, he will have a splendid old age, and he will die with his conscience at peace, or, to say the least, at ease.

to olga l. ^otpper

(This was written from Yalta shortly before Chekhov's marriage to his correspondent, an actress connected with the Moscow Art Theatre. The two ladies mentioned were both writers. Pchelnikov had been appointed dramatic censor.)

March 16 [1901]

Greetings, my little dear! I am certainly coming to Moscow, but I don't know whether I'll go to Sweden this year. I am fed up with gadding about, and besides it seems as if I were getting to be quite an old man as far as health is concerned, so that, by the way, you will acquire in my person not a husband but a grandfather. I dig in my garden now for whole days together, the weather is warm, exquisite, everything's in flower, the birds are singing, there are no visitors, it is simply not life but peaches and cream. I have quite given up litera- ture, and when I marry you, I'll order you to give up the stage and we'll live together like planters. You don't want to? Very well then, go on acting another five years and then we shall see.

Today, out of the blue, I received The Russian Vet- eran, a special army newspaper, and in it I found a notice of Three Sisters. It is No. 56, March 11th. It's all right, it's laudatory, and finds no fault with the military side.

Write to me, my good darling, your letters give me joy. You are unfaithful to me because, as you write, you are a human being and a woman; oh, very well, be unfaithful, only be the good, splendid person that you are. I am an old geezer, it is impossible to keep from being unfaithful to me, I understand that very well, and if I happen to be unfaithful to you, you will excuse it, because you realize that though the beard turns gray, the devil's at play. Isn't that so?

Do you see Madam Avilova? Have you made friends \vith Madam Chyumina? I suspect you've already be- gun writing stories and novels in secret. If I catch you, then good-by, I'll divorce you.

I read about Pchelnikov's appointment in the papers, and I was astonished, astonished that Pchelnikov was not above accepting such a queer position. But they'll hardly take Dr. Stockman off your repertory, it's a con- servative play, you know.

Though I have given up literature, still I write some- thing now and then, out of habit. Just now I am writing a story called "The Bishop," on a subject that has been in my head for fifteen years.

I embrace you, traitress, a hundred times, I kiss you hard. Write, write, my joy, or else when we are married, I'll beat you.

Your Elder Ant—

(The Nemirovich mentioned here is Vladimir Nemirovich- Danchenko, co-founder with Stanislavsky of the Moscow Art Theatre. Kuprin is the late novelist. Gorky and Vladimir Posse, a radical journalist, were implicated in the public demonstrations and student riots then current.)

Thursday [YaJta, ApriJ 19, 1901]

Dog Olka! I shall come early in May. As soon as you get my telegram, go immediately to the Dresden Hotel

and inquire if Room 45 is free, in other words, reserve

a cheap room.

I often see Nemirovich, he is very nice ... I am coming to Moscow chiefly to gallivant and gorge myself. We'll go to Petrovskoe-Razumovskoe [a suburb of Mos- cow] and to Zvenigorod [a near-by town], we'll go everywhere, if the weather is good. If you consent to go down the Volga with me, we'll eat sturgeon.

Kuprin is apparently in love—under an enchantment. He feU in love with a huge, husky woman whom you know and whom you advised me to marry.

If you give me the word that not a soul in Moscow will know about our wedding until it has taken place, I am ready to marry you on the very day of my arrival. For some reason I am terribly afraid of the wedding ceremony and congratulations and the champagne that you must hold in your hand while you smile vaguely. I wish we could go straight from church to Zvenigorod. Or perhaps we could get married at Zvenigorod. Think, think, darling! You are clever, they say.

The weather at Yalta is pretty rotten. A fierce wind. The roses are blooming, but not fully; they will, though. The irises are magnificent.

Everything is all right with me, except for one trifle: my health.

Gorky has not been deported, but arrested; he is held in Nizhny. Posse too has been arrested.

I embrace you, Olka.

Your Antoine.

( Chekhov's wedding took place in all privacy on May 25 in the presence of four witnesses, none of them members of his family. After the ceremony the couple called on the bride's mother and then took a train to Nizhny-Novgorod [now Gorky], where they boarded a Volga steamer. ^

Yalta, Jan. 1 3, 1903

My dear Olya,

On the morning of the 11th, after Masha [his sister] had left to^, I didn't feel quite right; I had a pain in my chest, I felt sick to my stomach, a temperature of 100°, and yesterday it was the same thing. I slept weU, though I was disturbed by pain. Altschuler [his physi- cian] looked in. I had to put on a compress again (it is an immense one) . This morning my temperature was almost normal, I feel weak, and shall put on a plaster directly, but still I had a right to wire you today that all is well. Now everything is all right. I am getting better, tomorrow I shall be quite well again. I hide nothing from you, do understand that, and don't upset yourself telegraphing. If anything serious, or even resembling anything serious, should happen, you would be the first I should tell.

You are out of sorts? Chuck it, darling. It will all come out in the wash.

Today the earth is covered with snow, it is foggy, cheerless. It saddens me to think that so much time has passed without my doing any work, and that apparently I am no longer a worker. To sit in an armchair with a compress on and mope is not very jolly. Will you stop loving me, darling? In your letter of yesterday you wrote that you had lost your looks. As though it mattered! If you were to grow a nose like a crane's, even then I should love you.

I embrace my own, my good dachshund. I kiss and embrace you again. Write!!

Your A.

Works about Chekhov

Both the author's private history and his contribut;:m to fiction and drama are dealt with from contrasting stand- points by Ronald Hingley in Chekhov, a Biographiccl and Critical Study (London, 1957) and by Vladimir V. Emiilov ( Yermilov) in Anton Chekhov, originally published in Mos- cow and translated from the Russian by Ivy Litvinov (Lon- don, 1957). Hinglev and Yermilov hold to the diverse views of literature prevailing respectively in the West and in the Communist world.

The biographical aspect is stressed in The Life and Letters of Anton Tchekhov, translated and edited by S. S. Ko- teliansky and Philip Tomlinson (London, New York, 1925); Irene Nemirovsky, Life of Chekhov, translated by Eric de Mauny (London, l950); David Magarshack, Cheĥhov, a Life (London, 1953); !\ina Toumanova. Anton Chckhov, the Voice of Twilight Russia (I\ew York, 1960); Ernest J. Simmons, Chekhov, a Biographij (Boston, 1962). There are, too, Walter H. Bruford, Chekhov and His fl»m?r/, a Socio- logical Study (London, 1948) and his Anton Chekhov ( l'\ew Haven, 1957).

Reminiscences of Chekhov set do^ by his contemporaries are, of course, an important biographical source. The.se are: Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov by Maxim Gorky, Alex- ander Kuprin, and I. A. Bunin, translated by S. S. Kotclian- sky and Leonard Woolf (New York, 1921); S. S. Koteiian- sky, editor, Anton Chekhov: Literary and Theatrical Remi- niscences (London, 1927); Korney I. Chukovsky, Chekhov the Man, translated from the Russian by Pauline Rose (Lon- don, New York, 1945); 1\laxim Gorky, Reminiscences, which contains the Corky-Chckhov corrcspondence and "Chekhov in Corky's Diary" (New York, 1946); Lydia A. Avilova, Chekhov in My Life, a Love Story, translated by David

Magarshack (London, 1950). "50th Annivcrsary of Chek- hov's Death" (Voks buUeUn, Moscow, 110. t)(). May-Junc, 1954) includes rcininisccnces by Chekhov's widow and a number of papcr.s on Chckhov's influcncc abroad, including one 011 Chckhov in Iran. Entirc tcxt in English.

Of the studies devotcd largely to the story, the following may be singled out: Edward Garnett, Fridaij Nights: Liter- ary Crilicism.s and Apprcciations, first senc I :\cw York, 1922) [contains "Chckhov and Ilis Art"]; William A. Ger- hardi, Anton Chekhov, a Critical Study (Ncw York, 1923); Dorothy Brewster and Angus Burrell, Dcad Reckonings in Fiction (Toronto, 192-1 ); Janko Lavrin, Studies in Eiiro- pean Literature (London, 1926) [contains "Chekhov and Maupassant"]; Oliver Elton, Chekhov (Oxford, 1929), re- printed in his Essays aiid Addresses (London, 1939); Ed- mund Wilson, "Seeing Chekhov Plain" (The New Yorker, Xov. 22, 1952); Ilya Ehrcnlmrg, Chekhoc, Slcndlid and Other Essays (New York, 1963); Thomas G. Winner, Chek- ltov and His Prose ( i'\ew York, 1966); Lev Shestov, Chek- hov and Other Essai/s, with a new introduction by Sidney Monas (Ann Arbor, 1966)—this work by the highly original Russian thinker is a reprint of a volume issucd under a Dublin and London imprint in 1916.

The plays are one of the subjects discussed in the pub- lications notcd below: Ashley Dukes, Modem Dramatists (London, 1911 ); Oliver M. Sayler, The Russian Theatre (New York, 1922); Ronald Peacock, The Poet in the Theatre (New York, 1946); Eric Bentley, The Playu;right as Thinker, a Study of Drama in Modem Times (Ncw York, 1946) and his "Chekhov as Playwright" (Kcnyon Review, 1949, vol. ll); David .Magarshack, Chckhoc thc Dramatist (New York, 1952); Frank L. Lucas, Thc Drama of Chckhov, Synge, Yeats and Pirandello (London, 1963); Maurice Valency, The Breaking String, the Plays of Anton Chekhov (New York, 1966). English and American Criticism of Chekhov (Chicago, 19-18), a Univcrsity of Chicago thesis by Charles \V. Meister, contains, intcr alia, lists of the plays (with reviews). At this point it is appropriatc to notc tic autobiographies of two eminent theatrical figures with whom Chekhov was associated: Konstantin S. Stanislavsky, My Life in Art, translated from the Russian by J. J. Robbin:. (Boston, 1924), and Vladimir I. Nemorovich-Danchenko,

My Life in the Russian Theatre, translated by John Comnos (Boston. 1936).

A catalogue of Chekhov literature in English is available in the form of a bibliography of 480 entries produced by the !\ew York Public Library. It consists of lists of works by and abo'Jt the author, compiled by Anna Heifetz and pub- lished in 1949, and a supplement assembled by Hissa Yach- nin and issned in l!:l60 on the occasion of the centennial of Chekhov's birth. Ilere are references to tninslations of his writings, to studies, memoirs, essays, articles, iio matter how brief, in periodicals, incluJing a note on Russian literary trends in the London Atheneum, July 6, 1889, which has the distinction of containing what seems to be the earliest men- tion of CheUiov in the English press. The author of the piece was Paul Miliukov, who after the Czar's abdication became Minister of Foreign Affairs and died in exile.

¹ An English equivalent of the name would be Squelch.

[1] The name may be rendered as Daft or Whacky.

• The name su^ests the grunting of a pig.

[2] A verst is two thirds of a mile.

[3] A meat or fish soup; shchi is a vegetable soup of which cabbage is the main ingredient.

[4] From an old Russian song comparable to a Negro Spiritual.

[5] Pood is a unit of weight, a little over 36 pounds.

[6] The son of a privatc, rcgistcrcd at birth in the army and trained in a military school.

[7] The emancipation of the serfs, proclaimed in 1861.

[8] The emancipation of the serfs, proclaimed in 1861.

[9] The allusion is to the Russian proverb: chase two hares, and you catch neither.

[10] The editor—see letters to him.

[11] A vegetable soup of which cabbage is often the main ingredient.

[12] Having becn born at Taganrog, which lies on the border of Ukrainian territory, Chekhov sometimes dcscribed himself as a hohol (Ukrainian) to account for his laziness, allegedly a character- istic of the Southerners. As a matter of fact, both his parcnts were of Great Russian stock.