The Undiscovered Chekhov

O

WOMEN

WOMEN!

SERGEI KUZMITCH Pochitayev, editor-in-chief of the provincial newspaper Flypaper, came home from the office tired and worn out, and slumped down on the sofa.

“Thank God I’m finally home! Here I can rest my soul... by our warm hearth, with my wife, my darling, the only person in this world who understands me, who can truly sympathize with me!”

“Why are you so pale today?” his wife, Marya Denisovna, asked.

“My soul was in torment, but now—the moment I’m with you, I’m hilly relaxed!”

“What happened?”

“So many problems, especially today! Petrov is no longer willing to extend credit to the paper. The secretary has taken to drink... I can somehow deal with all these things, but here’s the real problem, Marya. There I am, sitting in my office going over something one of my reporters wrote, when suddenly the door opens and my dear old friend Prince Prochukhantsev comes in. You know, the one who always plays the beau in amateur theatricals—he’s the one who gave his white horse to that actress, Zryakina, for a single kiss. The moment I saw him I thought: what the hell brings him here, he must want something! But I reckoned he’d probably come to promote Zryakina. So we start chatting about this and that. Finally it turns out that he hadn’t come to push Zryakina—he brought some poems for me to print! ‘I felt,’ he tells me, a fiery flame and... a flaming fire! I wanted to taste the sweetness of authorship!’

“So he takes a perfumed pink piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to me.

‘“In my verse,’ he continues, ‘I am, in actual fact, somewhat subjective, but anyway... after all, our national poet Nekrassov was deeply subjective, too.’

“I picked up these subjective poems and read them through. It was the most impossible drivel I have ever seen! Reading these poems, you feel your eyes beginning to pop and your stomach about to burst, as if you’d swallowed a millstone! And he dedicated the poems to Zryakina! I would drag him to court if he dared dedicate such drivel to me! In one poem he uses the word ‘headlong’ five times! And the rhythm! ‘Lilee- white’ instead of‘lily-white!’ He rhymes ‘horse’ with ‘of course!’

‘“I’m sorry!’ I tell him, ‘You are a very dear friend, but there is no way I can print your poems!’

“‘And why, may I ask?’

“‘Because... well, for reasons beyond the control of the editorial office, these poems do not fit into the scheme of the newspaper.’

“I went completely red. I started rubbing my eyes, and claimed I had a pounding headache. How could I tell him that his poems were utterly worthless! He saw my embarrassment, and puffed up like a turkey.

“‘You,’ he tells me, ‘are angry with Zryakina, and that’s why you’re refusing to print my poems! I understand! I fully understand, my dear sir!’

“He accused me of prejudice, called me a Philistine, an ecclesiastical bigot, and God knows what else. He went at me for a full two hours. In the end he swore he would get even with me. Then he left without saying another word. That’s the long and short of it, darling! And today’s the fourth of December, no less—Saint Barbaras day—Zryakina’s name day! He wanted those poems printed, come wind, come rain! As far as printing them goes, that’s impossible! My paper would become a laughingstock throughout Russia. But not to print them is impossible too: Prochukhantsev will start plotting against me—and that’ll be that! I have to figure out now how to get myself out of this impossible mess!”

“What kind of poems are they? What are they about?” Marya Denisovna asked.

“They’re useless, pure twaddle! Do you want to hear one? It starts like this:

Through dreamily wafting cigar smoke,

You came scampering into my dreams,

Your love hitting me with one sharp stroke,

Your sweet lips smiling with fiery beams.

“And then straightaway:

Forgive me, O angel pure as a summer song!

Eternal friend, O ideal so very bright!

Forgetting love, I threw myself headlong

Into the jaws of death—O woe, O fright!

“And on and on. Pure twaddle!”

“What do you mean? These poems are really sweet!” Marya Denisovna exclaimed, clasping her hands together.

“They are extremely sweet! You’re just being churlish, Sergei!... ‘Through dreamily wafting cigar smoke... sweet lips smiling with fiery beams,’ you simply don’t understand, do you? You don’t!”

“It is you who don’t understand, not I!”

“No, I’m sorry! I may be at sea when it comes to prose, but when it comes to poetry, I’m in my element! You just hate him, and that’s why you don’t want to print his poems!”

The editor sighed and banged his hand first on the table, and then against his forehead.

“Experts!” he muttered, smiling scornfully.

Snatching up his top hat, he shook his head bitterly and went out.

“I will go look for a corner of this world where a shunned man can find some sympathy! O women, women! They are all the same!” he thought, as he marched over to the London Restaurant. He intended to get himself drunk.