The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 Read online

  Publishes more than 100 short stories. ‘The Requiem’ is the first story to appear under own name and his first in New Times (February 1886). First collection, Motley Tales

  1887 Five students hanged for attempted assassination of Tsar; one is Lenin’s brother

  Tolstoy’s drama Power of Darkness (first performed in Paris), for which he was called nihilist and blasphemer by Alexander III Chekhov elected member of Literary Fund. Makes trip to Taganrog and Don steppes

  Second book of collected short stories In the Twilight. Ivanov produced – a disaster

  1888 Chekhov meets Stanislavsky. Attends many performances at Maly and Korsh theatres and becomes widely acquainted with actors, stage managers, etc. Meets Tchaikovsky

  Completes ‘The Steppe’, which marks his ‘entry’ into serious literature. Wins Pushkin Prize for ‘the best literary production distinguished by high artistic value’ for In the Twilight, presented by literary division of Academy of Sciences. His one-act farces The Bear (highly praised by Tolstoy) and The Proposal extremely successful. Begins work on The Wood Demon (later Uncle Vanya). Radically revises Ivanov for St Petersburg performance

  1889 Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata (at first highly praised by Chekhov)

  Chekhov meets Lidiya Avilova, who later claims love affair with him. Tolstoy begins to take an interest in Chekhov, who is elected to Society of Lovers of Russian Literature

  ‘A Dreary Story’. The Wood Demon a resounding failure

  1890 World weary, Chekhov travels across Siberia by carriage and river boat to Sakhalin to investigate conditions at the penal colony (recorded in The Island of Sakhalin). After seven months returns to Moscow (via Hong Kong, Singapore and Ceylon (Sri Lanka))

  Collection Gloomy People (dedicated to Tchaikovsky). Only two stories published – ‘Gusev’ and ‘Thieves’. Immense amount of preparatory reading for The Island of Sakhalin

  1891 Severe famine in Volga basin (Chekhov organizes relief ) Chekhov undertakes six-week tour of Western Europe with Suvorin. Intense affair with Lika Mizinova

  Works on The Island of Sakhalin. ‘The Duel’ published serially.

  Works on ‘The Grasshopper’

  1892 Chekhov buys small estate at Melikhovo, near Moscow; parents and sister live there with him. Gives free medical aid to peasants. Re-reads Turgenev; regards him as inferior to Tolstoy and very critical of his heroines

  ‘Ward No. 6’ and ‘An Anonymous Story’

  1893 The Island of Sakhalin completed and published serially

  1894 Death of Alexander III; accession of Nicholas II; 1,000 trampled to death at Khodynka Field during coronation celebrations. Strikes in St Petersburg

  Chekhov makes another trip to Western Europe

  ‘The Student’, ‘Teacher of Literature’, ‘At a Country House’ and ‘The Black Monk’

  1895 ‘Three Years’. Writes ‘Ariadna’, ‘Murder’ and ‘Anna Round the Neck’. First draft of The Seagull

  1896 Chekhov agitates personally for projects in rural education and transport; helps in building of village school at Talezh; makes large donation of books to Taganrog Public Library

  ‘The House with the Mezzanine’. ‘My Life’ published in instalments. The Seagull meets with hostile reception at Aleksandrinsky Theatre

  1897 Chekhov works for national census; builds second rural school. Crisis in health with lung haemorrhage; convalesces in Nice ‘Peasants’ is strongly attacked by reactionary critics and mutilated by censors. Publishes Uncle Vanya, but refuses to allow performance (until 1899)

  1898 Formation of Social Democrat Party. Dreyfus affair Stanislavsky founds Moscow Art Theatre with Nemirovich-Danchenko

  Chekhov very indignant over Dreyfus affair and supports Zola; conflict with anti-Semitic Suvorin over this. His father dies. Travels to Yalta, where he buys land. Friendly with Gorky and Bunin (both of whom left interesting memoirs of Chekhov). Attracted to Olga Knipper at Moscow Art Theatre rehearsal of The Seagull, but leaves almost immediately for Yalta. Correspondence with Gorky

  ‘A Visit to Friends’. Trilogy ‘Man in a Case’, ‘Gooseberries’ and ‘About Love’. ‘Ionych’. The Seagull has first performance at Moscow Art Theatre and Chekhov is established as a playwright

  1899 Widespread student riots

  Tolstoy’s Resurrection serialized

  Chekhov has rift with Suvorin over student riots. Olga Knipper visits Melikhovo. He sells Melikhovo in June and moves with mother and sister to Yalta. Awarded Order of St Stanislav for educational work

  ‘Darling’, ‘New Country Villa’ and ‘On Official Duty’. Signs highly unfavourable contract with A. F. Marks for complete edition of his works. Taxing and time-consuming work of compiling first two volumes. Moderate success of Uncle Vanya at Moscow Art Theatre. Publishes one of finest stories, ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’. Completes ‘In the Ravine’. Begins serious work on Three Sisters; goes to Nice to revise last two acts

  1900 Chekhov settles in the house built by him in Yalta. Actors from the Moscow Art Theatre visit Sevastopol and Yalta at his request. Low opinion of Ibsen

  Sees Uncle Vanya for first time

  1901 Formation of Socialist Revolutionary Party. Tolstoy excommunicated by Russian Orthodox Church

  Chekhov marries Olga Knipper

  Première of Three Sisters at Moscow Art Theatre, with Olga Knipper as Masha. Works on ‘The Bishop’

  1902 Sipyagin, Minister of Interior, assassinated. Gorky excluded from Academy of Sciences by Nicholas II

  Gorky’s The Lower Depths produced at Moscow Art Theatre Chekhov resigns from Academy of Sciences together with Korolenko in protest at exclusion of Gorky. Awarded Griboyedov Prize by Society of Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers for Three Sisters

  Completes ‘The Bishop’. Begins ‘The Bride’, his last story.

  Begins The Cherry Orchard

  1903 Completion of Trans-Siberian Railway. Massacre of Jews at Kishinev pogrom

  Chekhov elected provisional president of Society of Lovers of Russian Literature

  Completes ‘The Bride’ and the first draft of The Cherry Orchard. Arrives in Moscow for Art Theatre rehearsal of The Cherry Orchard; strong disagreement with Stanislavsky over its interpretation

  1904 Assassination of Plehve, Minister of Interior, by Socialist revolutionaries. War with Japan

  Chekhov dies of TB on 15 July at Badenweiler in the Black Forest (Germany) Première of The Cherry Orchard at Moscow Art Theatre

  NOTE ON TEXT

  Chekhov’s stories (like most of the literature of the time) were not first published as separate books, but appeared in magazines or newspapers such as New Times, or in the thick journals, chiefly Russian Thought. Some of the stories were subsequently published in separate selections, such as Tales and Stories (1894).

  In 1899 Chekhov made over the copyright of all his work (with the exception of the plays) to the publisher A. F. Marks in return for 75,000 roubles. Although the terms seemed favourable at the time, many of Chekhov’s friends felt he had been highly imprudent in signing the contract (Gorky unsuccessfully tried to get him to break the contract) as they considered the terms grossly inadequate. In addition the need to collate all the stories that had so far appeared in magazines and newspapers, together with meticulous editing and improving the material, taxed Chekhov sorely and was very time-consuming. The Marks edition was published in 1899–1901, in ten volumes, and reprinted in 1903. However, the main drawback of this edition was that the stories were not printed chronologically. The first scholarly edition, with full notes and commentary, was published in Moscow, 1944–51.

  Between 1973 and 1983, the definitive thirty-volume edition, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniy i Pisem (Complete Collected Works and Letters) was published in Moscow, with extensive commentaries by leading Soviet Chekhov scholars. It is on this edition that these translations are based.

  PATRONYMICS

  Russian names consist of first name, patronymic and surname, the patronymic or middle
name being derived from the father’s first name. For example, Chekhov’s middle name, Pavlovich, derives from his father’s first name, Pavel. In formal speech first name and patronymic are usual: a servant addressing his master would use both first name and patronymic. But a master would use only a first name when talking to a servant.

  No specific reference is made to the use of patronymics in this volume but for a further note on the subject, and its relevance to that translation, readers should refer to Anton Chekhov, The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887–1891 (London: Penguin Books, 2001), p. xxxvi.

  The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories

  The House with the Mezzanine

  (AN ARTIST’S STORY)

  I

  About six or seven years ago I was staying in a district of T— province, on the estate of a young landowner by the name of Belokurov – a very early riser who sported a peasant jerkin, drank beer in the evenings and who was always complaining to me that no one, anywhere, really appreciated him. He had a cottage in the garden, while I lived in the old manor house, in a vast colonnaded ballroom which, apart from the wide sofa on which I slept and a table where I played patience, was devoid of furniture. Even in calm weather there was always a peculiar droning in the ancient Amos stoves1 and during thunderstorms the whole house shook as if it were splitting into small pieces. It was rather frightening, especially at night when the ten big windows were suddenly all aglow in the lightning.

  Doomed to perpetual idleness, I didn’t do a thing and would gaze for hours on end through the windows at the sky, birds, avenues; I would read everything that came with the post – and I slept. Sometimes I would go out and wander around until late evening.

  Once, as I was returning home, I happened to stray into the grounds of a manor house that was unfamiliar to me. The sun was already sinking and the evening shadows lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of closely planted, towering fir trees stood like solid, unbroken walls, forming a handsome, sombre avenue. I easily climbed the fence and walked down the avenue, slipping on pine needles that lay about two inches deep on the ground. It was quiet and dark – only high up in the tree tops a vivid golden light quivered here and there and transformed spiders’ webs into shimmering rainbows. The smell of resin from the firs was almost stifling. Then I turned into a long avenue of lime trees. And here too all was neglect and age. Last year’s leaves rustled sadly underfoot and in the dusk shadows lurked between the trees. In the old fruit orchard to the right an oriole sang feebly, reluctantly, most probably because he too was old. But then the limes ended. I went past a white house with a terrace and a kind of mezzanine or attic storey – and suddenly a vista opened up: a courtyard, a large pond with bathing place, a clump of green willows, and a village on the far bank, with a slender, tall bell-tower whose cross glittered in the setting sun. For one fleeting moment I felt the enchantment of something very close and familiar to me, as though I had once seen this landscape as a child,

  At the white stone gates that led from the courtyard into open country – sturdy, old-fashioned gates surmounted by lions – two young girls were standing. One of them – the elder, who was slim, pale and very pretty, with a mass of auburn hair and a small stubborn mouth – wore a stern expression and hardly looked at me. But the other girl, still very young – no more than seventeen or eighteen – similarly slim and pale, with large mouth and big eyes, looked at me in astonishment as I passed by. She said something in English and seemed embarrassed. And it seemed that I had long known these two charming faces. I returned home with the feeling that it had all been a lovely dream.

  Soon afterwards when I was strolling with Belokurov one day around noon by the house, a light sprung carriage suddenly drove into the yard, rustling over the grass: in it was one of the girls – the elder. She was collecting money for some villagers whose houses had burnt down. Without looking at us she gave a serious, detailed report about how many houses had burnt down in the village of Siyanov, how many women and children had been left homeless and what immediate measures the relief committee (to which she now belonged) was proposing to take. After getting us to sign the list she put it away and immediately started saying goodbye.

  ‘You’ve quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovich,’ she told Belokurov as she gave him her hand. ‘Please come and see us – and if Monsieur N— (she mentioned my name) would like to see some admirers of his work and fancies paying us a visit, Mama and I would be really delighted.’ I bowed.

  When she had driven off Pyotr Petrovich started telling me about her. He said that the girl was of good family and that her name was Lidiya Volchaninov. The estate on which she lived with her mother and sister – like the large village on the other side of the pond – was called Shelkovka. Her father had once held an important post in Moscow and was a high-ranking civil servant when he died. Although they were very well-off, the Volchaninovs never left their estate, summer or winter. Lidiya taught in their own rural school in Shelkovka, at a monthly salary of twenty-five roubles. She spent nothing else besides this money on herself and was proud of earning her own living.

  ‘An interesting family,’ said Belokurov. ‘We’ll go and visit them one day if you like. They’d be delighted to see you.’

  One day after dinner (it was some sort of holiday) we remembered the Volchaninovs and went over to see them at Shelkovka. The mother and her two daughters were at home. Yekaterina Pavlovna, the mother, obviously once very pretty but now plump for her age, sad, short-winded and absent-minded, tried to entertain me with talk about painting. Having learnt from her daughter that I might be coming to see them at Shelkovka she hurriedly mentioned two or three of my landscapes that she had seen at Moscow exhibitions, and now she asked me what I wanted to express in them. Lidiya – or Lida as she was called at home – talked more to Belokurov than to me. Serious and unsmiling, she asked him why he wasn’t on the local council and had so far never attended a single meeting.

  ‘It’s not right!’ she said reproachfully. ‘It’s not right. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘That’s true, perfectly true,’ her mother agreed. ‘It’s just not right!’

  ‘The whole district is under Balagin’s thumb,’ Lida continued, turning to me. ‘He himself is chairman of the council, he’s handed out all the jobs in the district to his nephews and sons-in-law, and he does just what he likes. We must take a stand. The young people must form a pressure group, but you can see for yourself what our young people are like. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Pyotr Petrovich!’

  While we were discussing the local council, Zhenya, the younger sister, said nothing. She never took part in serious conversations: in that family she wasn’t considered grown-up at all – just as if she were a little girl they called her Missy, the name she had given her governess as a child. The whole time she kept looking at me inquisitively and when I was examining the photographs in the album she explained: ‘That’s Uncle… that’s my godfather…’ and she ran her finger over the photographs, touching me with her shoulder like a child, so that I had a close view of her delicate, undeveloped bosom, her slender shoulders, her plait and her slim, tight-belted waist.

  We played croquet and tennis, strolled in the garden, drank tea, after which we had a leisurely supper. After that vast, empty colonnaded ballroom I somehow felt at home in that small, cosy house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the servants were spoken to politely. Thanks to Lida and Missy, everything seemed so pure and youthful: it was all so civilized. Over supper Lida again talked to Belokurov about the council, about Balagin and school libraries. She was a vivacious, sincere girl with strong views. And it was fascinating listening to her, although she said a lot, and in a loud voice – perhaps because that was how she was used to speaking in school. On the other hand my friend Pyotr Petrovich, who still retained the student habit of turning everything into an argument, spoke boringly, listlessly and longwindedly – he was obviously most anxious to appear advanced and clever. He waved his
arms about and upset a sauceboat with his sleeve, so that a large pool of gravy formed on the tablecloth. But I was the only one who seemed to notice it.

  It was quiet and dark when we returned.

  ‘Good breeding isn’t that you don’t upset gravy on tablecloths, but that you don’t notice when someone else does it,’ sighed Belokurov. ‘Yes, they’re a splendid, cultured family. I’m out of touch with refined people – ever so badly out of touch! Nothing but work, work, work!’

  He spoke of all the work involved in being a model farmer. But I thought to myself: what an unpleasant, lazy fellow! Whenever he spoke about anything serious he would laboriously drag out his words with a great deal of ‘er’s and ‘erring’. And he worked as he spoke – slowly, always late, always missing deadlines. I had little confidence in his efficiency, if only because he carried around for weeks on end in his pockets the letters I’d given him to post.

  ‘The hardest thing,’ he muttered as he walked beside me, ‘is not having your work appreciated by anyone! You get no thanks at all!’

  II

  I became a regular visitor at the Volchaninovs. Usually I would sit on the bottom step of the terrace, depressed by feelings of dissatisfaction with myself, regretting that my life was passing so quickly, so uninterestingly. I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest. Just then they were talking on the terrace and I could hear the rustle of dresses, the sound of someone turning over pages in a book. I soon became used to Lida receiving the sick and handing out books during the day. Often she would go off to the village with a parasol over her bare head, while in the evenings she would hold forth in a loud voice about councils and schools. Whenever the conversation turned to serious matters, that slim, pretty, invariably severe young lady with her small, finely modelled mouth, would coldly tell me: