ANTON CHEKHOV 1860-1904, Russian Anton Pavlovich Chekhow, the Russian writer who decisively shaped the modern shor story was born in Taganrog, a small port on the Sea of Azov in southern Rusia. His father, Pevel had been born a serf, but Chekhov grandfather had saved enough ‘money eveniually to buy his femiljs freedom. (Serf- dom was not abolithed in Russia until 1861.) A poor man obsessed with elfimprovemens, Pavel an a small, dirty general store and lived with his wife and six children in a tiny attached tin-roofed house. (There was no plumbing. The family had to walk two- thirds of mile 0 use a communal latrine) Young Anton worked in the shop pour- ing vodka to raucous customers and trying to seudy bis schoolbooks under the strict ‘9¢ of bis facher who believed religiousy in education and corporal punishment. As Chto later remarked, “There was na childhood in my childbood.” In 1876 Pavel went bankrupt, losing both his busines: and home. He fled to Moscow with the family to void debtors prizom but left his ixten-year-old son be- ‘ind to finish school. Anson slept in the corner ofa room and supported himself by sutoring children —never complaining 0 his mather or brothers, Three years later he rejoined his impoverished family in ther single basement rom in a Moscow slum and began medical studies at the university. He loved the huge city but was sppalled a his fer’ decline ino religious zealoery and drunken idlenesi, The inezeen-year-old Anton appointed himself bead of the destitute family—a respon- sibility be bore unfalteringly for the rest of bis life—and decided to earn grocery ‘money by writing comic sketches forthe newspapers. In 1880 he published bis fr sce and broughs home a cake bought with the proceeds. By 1884 he had pub- ished chree hundred stories, sketches, jokes, and articles while also completing med- ical school. This constant hackwork would have destroyed the talent of mast young soriters, bus for Chebhon, it became the literary apprenticeship that prepared him fr bis lazer work. In 1884 Chekhov began a medical practice. “Medicine is my laufid wife,” he sorote « rendly editor, “and literature is my mistress.” He was, however, deeply un- happy with his earliest writing despite its popularity “Oh, with what trash 1 began!” he later remarked. He now wrote with increased dedication and seriousness He privately printed his frst book of shor stories, The Tales of Melpomene, but it swent unnoticed becaute is was mistakenly shelved in the children’ section. Motley is (1886) secured his reputation as a majar Russian writer, and his collections Innocent Words (1887) and Twilight (1887) le to his winning the Pushkin Prize. In 1886 Chekho first experienced lung trouble, an early sign ofthe tubercu- tha: would evensually bill bi, He continued to practice medicine until 1898 133134 _ANToN Cuniov although he could now support bis family and himself on bis writing. While Chekhoo was apolitical conservative with litle sympathy for the radical for menting in Russia, be was ako seflesy charitable. He treated the poor for fee and volunteered in public clinics during epidemics and famines. The last nventy years of Chekhov if are a chronicle of artiste triumph, Al- sways interested in the theater, he began writing plays again. (He had writen sev- eral unproduced plays earlier, anov was produced in Moscow in 1887 and then in a revised version in St. Petersburg in 1889, His later playt—Thee Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904) —quickly becarne the central classic of Rusian theater. These plays were all staged atthe Moscow Art Theatre (and directed by the infuential Kenssansin Sanislaasky) where the author met the actress Olga Knipper, whorn be married in 1901. Ghekbou steadily published fiction despite interruptions from illness. ln 1899 a ten-volume edition of bis Collected Works (1899-1901) was published. As bis health deteriontted, Chekhov spent much of ks sme recuperating in health resorts. In 1904 he died at the age of forty four in Badenweiler, a German spa, and twas buried a week later in Moscow. Anton Chekhov's late stories mark a pivotal moment in European fiction—the point where ninctcensb-century realist conventions ofthe short story begin their ‘transformation into the modern farm. The Russian master, cherefore eraddles neo traditions, On one side isthe anti-Romantic realism of Maupassant with is sharp ‘observation of external socal detail and human behavior conveyed within a tightly drawn plot. On the other side it he modern psychological realism of early Joyce in which the action is mostly internal and expresed in an asvociasive narrative built on epiphanic moment. Taking elements from both sides, Chekhov forged a power- ‘fed individual style shat prfigures Modernism withou lasing most ofthe sradi- tional srappings ofthe form. If Maupassant excelled at creating credible narrative surprise, Chekhou had a genius for conveying the astonishing posibiliies of human nature. His psychological insight was profound and dynamic, Joyce may have more exactly captured the tecture of human consciousness, but no short-story writer has better expressed is often invisible completes. Isis an instructive irony thas contemporary shor fiction owes more to Chekhov shan io Jaye or any other High-Modernist master. In 1987 when editor Daniel Halpern asked twenty-five noted short-story writers to name the most crucial influ- ences on sheir own work, Chekhov's name appeared more ofien than that of any oxber author. Ten writers—including Eudora Weley, Nadine Gordimer, and Ray- mond Carver—mentioned Chekhov. (James Jace and Henry James tied for a dis- sane second place with five votes each.) Chekhov’ preeminent postion is not acci- dental his work exercised immense influence on the development of the modern short sor, As the late Russian literature scholar Rusu: Mathewson once observed, Chekhov fully articulated the dominant form of tuentieth-century shor fiction: “the casual elling of a nuclear experience in an ordinary lif, rendered wish imme- diate and selling detail.” Chekbou was the fist author to consciously explore and perfect this literary method in his vast ousput of shore storie,‘The Lady with the Pet Dog 135 Chekbou does not eliminate—or even minimize—plossing from his stories. He is masterfl in creating narrative suspense. His plot, however, are usually highly compressed. Early in his career Chekhov had r0 write according to stick space Limits (only one hundred lines of neusprins), and be learned by constant practice to eliminate all unnecessary elements from a story. What Chekhov offered instead seus the luminous derail, a few significant particulars that summon up a character or scene, What seems most distinctive about Chekhov: masure stories is how the plot in- ‘vitably originates from she inner force of his characters. The sory line never seems ‘imposed for its own sake asi often doe, for example, in the shorter works of Balzac or Hoffiann, which revel in narrative twists and surprie endings. One sees paral- ‘els to Cheklon ins certain stores by Melville, Talitoy and Flaubert. Their main in- eres, however, lay in the novel, and shese authors had no inclination to explore so fully or adventureusly the potential of short sion. Chekhov, by contrast, was ob- sased with the form of te short story. Although he died young, and ad careers in both medicine and theater, he wrote more than eight hundred stories. The Lady with the Pet Dog 1899 ‘Translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky J go rash peared onic esplanade: a lady with a pet dog. Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov, who had spene a fortnight at Yalta? and had got used to the place, had also begun to take an interest in new arrivals. As he sat in Verner confectionery shop, he saw, walking on the esplanade, a fair-haired young woman of medium height, wearing a beret; a white Pomeranian was trotting behind her. And afterwards he met her in the public garden and in the square several times a day. She walked alone, always wearing the same beret and always with the white dog; no one knew who she was and everyone called her simply “the lady with the pet dog” “If she is here alone without husband or friends,” Gurov reflected, “it ‘wouldn't be a bad thing to make her acquaintance.” He was under forty, but he already had a daughter twelve years old, and ‘wo sons at school. They had found a wife for him when he was very young, a student in his second year, and by now she seemed half as old again as he. She eplanade: 2 walkway 0° promenade along the shore. Yale a porcity on the Black Sea, « popular seaside resot for wealthy Russians[Natural Description and “The Center of Grwvig” 151 + My son ought ro will cat hay... Yes, .. [have grown to0 old to drive. He ought to have be driving, not I... He was 2 real coachman. lived. ...” Tonais silent for a while, and then he goes on: “That's how itis, old girl... . Kuzma Tonitch is gone. . .. He said good- by to me... He went and died for no reason. . .. Now, suppose you had a tle colt, and you were mother to that liede colt... . And all at once that ssame litle colt went and died, ... You'd be sorry, wouldn't you? ...” The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands. Tona is carried away and tells her all about i. m AUTHOR’S PERSPECTIVE Anton Chekhov Natural Description and “The Center of Gravity” 1886 ‘Translated by Irina Prishvin ‘A ine description of nature, I think, has to be brief and to the point. Ba- nalities—‘the setting sun, drowning in the darkening waves of the sea,” and all that, of, “the swallows, skimming over the crest of the ocean, tweeted hap- pily’—such banalities have to be left our. When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging chem so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write thax 2 gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or soll pene You wil ing ict menue onlpsftos dnt i ocr, les that liken its activities to those of humankind. In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are ex sential. God save ts from vague generalizations! Be sure noe to discuss your hhero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions. Nor is it necessary to por- ‘ray many main characters. Let two people be the center of gravity in your story: he and she. Lette to his brother Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886