Such circumstances, as well as the demands of his critics and readers, had begun to compel Chekhov to face the problems of the relation of art to society. He was aware that in the endless struggle between revolutionary-minded intellectuals and a reactionary government many had grown disgusted with questions of politics and social reform. Not a few of the intelligentsia, however, found spiritual consolation and moral direction in the new, electrifying doctrine of Leo Tolstoy — his search for truth, the urge to self-perfection, opposition to violence in any form, and man's duty to live by the moral law.
In the Chekhov home on Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya at this time much discussion went on about Tolstoyism. Lazarev-Gruzinsky recalls Chekhov's arguing on one such evening that "it is necessary to be thoroughly discriminating about the Tolstoyan theory of nonresistance to evil, although it is impossible to speak honestly either for or against it." And he clearly sought in the teachings of Tolstoy for elements of moral and social conviction which might serve to satisfy those who were presently puzzled over the absence of any core of belief in his tales. For a time Tolstoy powerfully influenced Chekhov's writing. Written during 1886-1887, such stories as Excellent People, A Misfortune, Sister, The Meeting, Cossack, The Beggar, and The Letter are pure Tolstoyan creations. Critics quickly recognized the influence and with some chagrin Chekhov admitted that one of his admirers, a Tolstoyan, had praised several of his tales in a review in the belief that he also was a Tolstoyan, whereas the critic had found fault with Korolenko because he was not an adherent. More annoying was an anonymous lampoon in Diversion, pointedly entitled "Tendentious Anton," in which he was ridiculed as a veterinary doctor who had neglected his profession in the interests of writing moralizing stories. He wryly dismissed it in a letter to Alexander in which he explained that he had been called a veterinary in a lampoon, "though I have never had the honor of treating its author." (October 21, 188 j.)
Though the position of the great Russian writers Dostoevsky, Tur- genev, and Tolstoy had been in the best sense of the word that of the teacher who influences the minds of people, Chekhov's artistic metabolism could not function properly in this manner. To obtrude personal views in literature ran counter to his rooted conviction that art must remain purely objective; yet the current demands for moral and social significance in literature did sway him. He was acutely sensitive to the paltriness, the moral obtuseness, and mediocrity of the society in which he lived. His natural artistic response was to write about these failings with profound pity, but without any crusading anger or disgust. However, in this period of painful change and spiritual perplexity, he earnestly sought to define his position toward the moving purpose and future direction of his art.
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Was earning a living as a writer compatible with an artistic conscience, with having a purpose and an aim in art? It pleased Chekhov to hear his praises sung by Petersburg friends and to have the celebrated composer Tschaikovsky write of his "joy in discovering such a fresh and original talent." And it flattered him to receive, at long last, invitations to contribute to the sophisticated monthly magazines, to be asked by the well-known Burenin for permission to base a comedy on one of his tales, and to achieve that final tribute to fame — the plagiarism of a story by a young writer. However, he and his family had to live. He might be willing to starve in fulfilling his duty to art, but he could not permit the members of his family to do so. With some misgivings he now began to restrict his output to fewer and more artistically significant stories, and the drop from 116 pieces in 1886 to 69 the following year was some measure of his success in this effort. To maintain his income he insisted that other publications meet the remuneration of twelve kopecks a line of New Times. It was offensive, he wrote Leikin, that Petersburg Gazette should continue to pay him only seven kopccks a line; and by the beginning of 1887 this newspaper equaled its rival's rate. But the stingy Leikin, though fearful of losing Chekhov, raised him from eight to only eleven kopecks. Chekhov pointed out to Alexander how much more others earned in the "fat" monthly magazines and that Suvorin could do worse than raise him to fifteen kopecks a line: "I rob myself in working for the newspaper." (Between October 10-12, 1887.)3
Suvorin, scenting an opportunity to monopolize Chekhov in this situation, offered him an assured income of 200 roubles a month and suggested he take up residence in Petersburg. Chekhov refused both propositions, for now he did not wish to be under the thumb of any editor or be a slave to the special requirements of a particular publication. In warning Leikin about a diminution of his contributions, he urged him to take on new young talent to write to the prescriptions of Fragments, for if he and older contributors continued for long in the same vein, they would become repugnant to themselves. If they were displaced by others, then we, he wrote, "would gain much; we would win the right to write as we wish, in a way that would be more suitable to literature than that of the present day-laborer, and we would be more satisfied with ourselves than now." (September 2, 1887.)
In this transition period Chekhov began to devote some thought to the artistic problems of the short story, but his critical criteria were be-
3 Tolstoy, who described the newspaper and magazine business in Russia as an intellectual brothel, was paid for Anna Karenina at a rate five times greater than Chekhov was receiving at this time.
deviled by the necessity to practice the form on several levels — the purely anecdotal miniatures for the humorous magazines such as Fragments and, at the other extreme, his best efforts for New Times, largely unrestricted in length or theme, and then the stories for Petersburg Gazette, which often included a mingling of the special qualities of those in the other two publications.
When Alexander informed him that he was planning a long descriptive piece, Chekhov at once set down the conditions that would determine its artistic success: no undue emphasis on political, social and economic factors; persistent objectivity; veracity in the description of active figures and objects; absolute brevity; boldness and originality; no triteness; sincerity. "In my opinion," he wrote, "a true description of nature must be very brief and possess the character of relevance. Commonplaces such as 'the sinking sun, bathing in the waves of the darkening sea, sheds a light of purple gold,' and so forth, or 'the swallows, flying over the surface of the water, twittered merrily' — such commonplaces must be excluded. In descriptions of nature one ought to seize upon the little particulars, grouping them in such a way that when you close your eyes after reading you see a picture. For example, you will get the effect of a moonlit night if you write that a glow like a light from a star flashed from a broken bottle on the milldam, and the round, black shadow of a dog or wolf appeared, etc.4 Nature becomes animated if you are not squeamish about employing comparisons of its phenomena with human activities, etc.
"Details are also the thing in the sphere of psychology. God preserve us from generalizations. Best of all, avoid depicting the hero's state of mind; you ought to try to make it clear from the hero's actions. It is not necessary to portray many active figures. The center of gravity should be two persons — he and she." (May 10, 1886.)