Many of the motifs, situations, and characters which Chekhov drew from the teeming life of the city were not unlike those in the miniature tales of other contributors to the humorous magazine. Indeed, many of these same features appear in an elaborated form in the longer stories which he wrote at the height of his artistic powers. In the best of the early tales, however, his method of handling this material was quite different from that of his rivals. For one thing he refused to accept the popular insensitivity to abuses of power by people of rank, parents, clergy, and government officials with their unwarranted pretensions to blind obedience. A social conscience, utterly alien to the tone of the humorous magazines, compelled him to mingle humor with the ugly sides of life. "A little story," he insisted in a letter to Leikin, "which contains a good plot and an effective protest, will be read with pleasure, so far as I am able to observe —that is, if it is not dull." (After April 17, 1883.) And one may plainly observe this artistic transition as Chekhov moved from the external humor of an anecdotal situation, in the very first tales, to an accusatory humor in certain of the stories written after the second half of 1883. Here, the humor is not jolly or farcical; it is- ironic or satiric. It is the dull laughter of the amusing situation in A Chameleon which exposes the slavish psychology of people who. debase'
their human worth before the pomp of rank and the power of constituted authority. Or it is the sad laughter of the wry situation in The Death of a Government Clerk, where the general fails to understand the compulsion to apologize of the sneezing subordinate who was born to be obsequious; or of the amusing meeting of old friends in Fat and Thin, where the equality born of hallowed childhood memories vanishes before the symbol of rank. In such tales we have a psychological treatment of humor, which, in more subtle forms, became a characteristic of Chekhov's later works. Another early example of an artistic device which Chekhov used so effectively later may be found in Autumn (1883). In this mandatory "seasonal" piece of the humorous magazine there is more than a suggestion of the lyrical landscape in which nature, never independent of man, is intimately identified with his psyche.
Any carcful study of Chekhov's total literary development dispels the common notion that the apparently striking contrast in tone and emphasis between his early and later tales can be explained only by a kind of creative dualism. For critics point out the difference between hundreds of humorous and often farcical tales of his early period, written in an optimistic spirit of fun, and the bulk of his mature stories depicting the cruelty, greed, hypocrisy and stupidity of a life sad without end. To be sure, there is a rollicking, laughing quality in most of Chekhov's early tales; the humorous magazines demanded it. Nor was his own happy, life-loving temperament inconsistent with this approach. Even as a youth, however, Chekhov gives every evidence of being an acute observer of life's serious moments and deeply responsive to its tragedies. And this quality is also apparent in some of his early tales in which he reveals the dismal lives of his fellow men wasted in the murk of commonplace vulgarity. In short, both approaches may be observed from the beginning. Like Gogol and Maupassant, humor and satire were his defense against the sadness of life and the "flabby, sour, and dull time" in which he lived.
When he finished his university studies, however, and began his career as a doctor, it never occurred to the modest twenty-four-year-old Chekhov to attribute any special significance to the considerable body of writing he had done. A few comments scattered through his letters suggest that an artistic conscience was alive — such as his expressions of regret at spoiling a fine theme because of the hurried conditions under which he worked; and that conscience dictated his eventual determination to write as he pleased rather than as his editors required. But apart from a little popularity he had won in the humorous magazines as Antosha Chekhonte, no single author or critic of distinction had as yet given him the kind of encouragement that would have sent his spirits soaring and might have prompted him to identify his future hopes with the high seriousness of art. If he had any hope after these five years of unremitting toil, it was the modest one that he might conduct his life ahead with talent — which for Chekhov meant to work, to search, and to suffer, but always so that the working and searching and suffering would lead to experiencing a great and real joy in life.
chapter vi
"All My Hopes Lie Entirely in the Future"
On his twenty-fifth birthday (January 17, 1885) Chekhov received a letter from Alexander, who commemorated the event in a jesting jingle:
But you in your talent stand before all, A dandy in dress coat, handsome and tall; You glow in your glory for all to see, While I stand in the rear unimportantly.
Chekhov did not allow the first shock of a handkerchief flecked with blood to get in the way of the customary birthday celebration. However, his own expert medical knowledge belied the pious explanation which he had used to assuage the fears of family and friends over his recent illness. Besides, the telltale racking cough periodically returned and he was also aware of the history of tuberculosis on his mother's side of the family. But ugly truth fades before youth's enchantment with life. He imagined himself an Arcadian prince, he wrote the worried wife of Saveliev, because so many sympathetic friends had called on him during his illness. This same imagination transformed the fear of premature death into a young man's mirage of limitless time in which to achieve the ends of destiny. Whatever delusions Chekhov indulged in, there is incontrovertible evidence, even this early, that he recognized the stubborn fact of the potential seriousness of his illness. Passing references in his letters, written 1885-1886, to his coughing again, or comments that if he failed to move from a cold and musty flat his "coughing and blood-spitting" would return, were now accompanied by no disarming rationalizations. And in a letter to Taganrog to Uncle Mitro- fan, at the beginning of 1885, he wrote frankly of his recent illness and of his notion of borrowing money to go abroad for a cure or to the Crimea or the Caucasus, well-recognized localities for the treatment of victims of tuberculosis.
In this same letter, however, Chekhov made a point of assuring his uncle Mitrofan of his present good health and well-being. His medical practice improved bit by bit, and every day he spent more than a rouble on cabbies in visiting the sick. "I have many acquaintances," he writes, "and quite a few of them fall ill. I treat half of them gratis and the other half pays me three to five roubles a visit." Gently he rejected his uncle's suggestion that he settle in Taganrog. Though it might be quieter, healthier, and jollier there, he was interested not only in the practice but also in the science of medicine, and for this, as well as for his writing, Moscow was the logical place to be. "I have not yet accumulated any capital and will hardly get rich quick," he admits. "But I live well enough and do not want for anything. If only I remain alive and in good health, the family's situation will be secure. I've bought new furniture, hired a fine piano, keep two servants, and give small musical evenings at which people sing and play. I'm not in debt and don't intend to get into it. Formerly we bought our provisions (meat and groceries) on credit. I've stopped that now and we pay cash for everything." (January 31, 1885.)
Chekhov exaggerated his record of success for Uncle Mitrofan's benefit, for it was a point of personal pride with him to assure this pious and well-doing relative, who often received begging letters from his brother Pavel Yegorovich, that the family responsibilities which his nephew had assumed were in capable hands. Indeed, the family had mounted another rung or two in its slow climb up the ladder since Chekhov began his medical practice. Ivan had left Voskresensk to take a more remunerative position in Moscow as head of an elementary school. Sister Masha had finished the Higher Course for Women and soon began to take instruction in painting and to teach history and geography in a private Moscow school for girls. And young Misha had just begun his studies in the School of Jurisprudence in the university. The unhappy artist Nikolai, whose bohemian ways and chronic drinking had become