More deeply than ever before Chekhov perceived in life's ironic pattern the pervasive disharmony between people's hopes and the reality of things. The tearful effort of the dressmaker's daughter, in Polinka, to obtain sympathy and understanding from the young salesman who loves her is hopelessly frustrated in a conversation in which their mutual unhappincss is muted in the descriptions and prices of the dress goods which she must purchase for her mother. The Enemies is more than a story of human grief insulted by vulgarity — Dr. Kirilov had been called away from his wife's suffering at the deathbed of their son by Abogin, whose "sick" wife had taken advantage of his hunt for a physician to run off with her lover. It is also the tragedy of two men completely un- attuned to each other because of their desperate circumstances and social position.
Chekhov had also learned to distill from the intricacies of life a unique sense of mood which seemed to be compounded of an abiding but pleasant sorrow and a profound feeling among his characters that something of vital importance had been lost and would never be found again. It was a creative essence that more and more readers were beginning to identify with his finest tales. The mood is poetically fused with the whole substance of the story and often echoed by the carefully constructed background of nature. Verochka is essentially a story of mood poignantly struck by the young scholar's realization of love irretrievably lost. And in The Kiss, the haunting memory of the embrace of an unknown woman in a dark room fills the life of the pathetically comic and unattractive artillery officer with vague longings and hopes until he sadly comes to the conclusion that he has been indulging in daydreams, and the reader too shares his mood of vanished dreams. A mood is also created in On the Road, the brilliant tale which had sent Grigorovich and others into ecstasies. Here, however, the profound, almost Dostoev- skian, psychological analysis of the failure Likharov, the restless seeker after some rewarding faith, struck a deeper, more original and puq^ose- ful vein in Chekhov's developing art. Happiness, which Chekhov regarded as his finest effort up to this point, is a wonderful prose poem dedicated to the theme that there is happiness enough in the world if we only know how to find it. The conversation of the shepherds in the enchanted spaciousness of the steppe is a sad allegory of man's eternal search for meaning, for happiness, in a world of frustrating shadows. It
was also the allegory of Chekhov's own life.
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In 1887 several factors influenced Chekhov to attempt a large work — the advice in Grigorovich's letters of ardent encouragement, the expectation of enthusiastic admirers that something "big" would come from his pen, his own aroused ambitions, and no doubt the hope of greater financial gain which such a successful effort would assure him. Further, he realized that the short story did not provide scope for either the correct formulation of serious moral and social problems or the "new word" which some of his critics were demanding. The novel in Russia had been the traditional medium for ambitious authors who aspired to impressive artistic achievement and also believed they had something important to say. Apparently Chekhov thought he was ready to make the attempt. In October he wrote Alexander that he had a novel under way which involved "the head and the members of a military tribunal, that is, conservative people." However, he made only one other reference to it and then destroyed the manuscript. With an artistic technique formed through extensive practice of the short story and finely attuned to its single incident, few characters, and its quickly realized denouement, Chekhov obviously found it extremely difficult to master the long and complicated narrative form of the novel. Yet it remained the dream of his life to write one.
On the other hand, the dramatic emphasis in Chekhov's short-story technique and the quality of his dialogue lent themselves naturally to the form of drama. His adolescent attempts at playwriting no doubt grew out of an instinctive recognition of this special talent, nor had he lost his interest despite the rejections of "Platonov" and the censor's condemnation of a one-act play, On the Highway (1884) as "gloomy and sordid." This one-act play had been based on his short story In the Autumn. In fact, not a few of Chekhov's tales of incident, with their sharp dramatic dialogue, required little adaptation for the stage in the traditional one-act "vaudeville" form which he greatly admired in the theater. In addition to his love of fun and sense of the incongruous in farcical situations, he was able to endow the old-fashioned lifeless vaudeville with living characters. "In one hour and five minutes," he told Mariya Kiseleva on January 14, 1887, he wrote his first published vaudeville Kalkhas (later entitled Swan Song). "I began another but I didn't have time to finish it." This one-act play, a dramatization of his tale Kalkhas (1886), is an amusing study of the contemporary actor and the conditions of the Russian stage.
In the days of his youthful journalism for the humorous magazines, Chekhov had mercilessly criticized the condition of the Moscow theaters — the shoddy contributions of local playwrights, the abysmally low level of the productions, and the sloppy, untalented performances of uncultured and often drunken actors. This contempt, inspired really by his long love and keen understanding of the lofty possibilities of the theater as an art medium, is reflected in another letter to Mariya Kise- leva (September 13, 1887): "I was twice at the Korsh Theater" — two years before he had described it as bearing a striking resemblance to a mixed salad — "and on both occasions Korsh tried to persuade me to write a play for him. I answered: With pleasure. The actors assured me that I would write a good play because I'm able to play on people's nerves. I responded: Merci. And, of course, I will not write a play. . . . I don't want to have anything to do with theaters nor with the public. To hell with them!" Despite this tart rejoinder, three weeks later we find him informing his friend, the novelist N. M. Yezhov, "My play is ready." In the light of his present desire to do something large and striking, F. A. Korsh's request for a full-length, four-act play proved to be irresistible.
The play was Ivanov. "I went to bed, thought of a theme, and wrote it," Chekhov told Alexander in a letter dated October 10-12. It took him ten days, he declared, and though he could not judge of its worth, all liked it. "Korsh hasn't found a single mistake or fault in it so far as stage technique is concerned — evidence of how good and sensitive my judges are. . . . The plot is complicated but not stupid. I end each act like a short story: all the acts I contrive peacefully and quietly but at the end I give the spectator a punch in the nose. My entire energy is expended on a few really powerful and striking scenes; however, the bridges joining them are insignificant, limp, and trite. Nevertheless I'm pleased, for however bad the play may be, I've created a type of literary significance. . . ." By October 21 he knew that Korsh would produce the play. The terms had glittering prospects — 8 per cent of the gross receipts — a sure income of 600-1000 roubles, he calculated — and then who could tell how many times Ivanov might be performed? With perhaps more business zeal than authorial modesty, he asked his brother to have inserted in the "Theatrical Chronicle" of New Times the following note, which he drafted: "Ivanov, a comedy in four acts, has been written by A. P. Chekhov. After a reading in one of the Moscow literary circles (or something of that sort), it produced a most powerful impression. The subject is new, the characters are sharply etched, and so' forth." (Between October 6-8, 1887.)