The old professor's lengthy analyses of himself and his social milieu reflect Chekhov's own state of mind, which to some extent was shared by those democratic intellectuals who eschewed organized political effort or revolution as answers to the "accursed questions" that confronted their backward country. And this lack of a "ruling idea" with which to approach broad social and political problems poisoned the wellsprings of inspiration in a personal life. As the professor puts it: his attempts to know himself, all his thoughts, sensations, and conceptions, had nothing in common with one another, nothing which might weave them into a single whole. Even contemporary Russian authors, he declares —in a passage that plainly echoes Chekhov's thinking — lack the chief element of artistic freedom, for "they have neither the independence nor the manliness to write as they like, and therefore there is no creativeness."
With the pride that he then took in his artistic objectivity, however, Chekhov protested the charge, and perhaps unjustifiably, that the professor's views were his. "In the whole story," he replied to Suvorin on this matter, "there is only one thought which I share and that one lodges in the head of the professor's son-in-law, the rogue Gnekker, and it is: 'The old fellow has gone crazy!'" But all the rest, he asserts, is imagined or contrived. "For me, as an author," he declared, "in their essence all these opinions have no value at all. Their substance is not the point; that is changeable and not new. The whole essence is in the nature of these opinions, in their dependence upon external influences, and so forth. They should be examined like things, like symptoms, entirely objectively, without attempting to agree or dispute with them. If I describe St. Vitus' dance, surely you would not regard it from the point of view of a choreographer? Would you? The same holds true of these opinions. I had no intention to stun you with my views on the theater, literature, and so forth. I merely wished to make use of my own knowledge to depict that vicious circle into which a good and wise man fell with all his desire to accept from God life as it is and to think about everybody in a Christian way, yet willy-nilly grumbling and muttering like a slave, and abusing people even in those moments when he is forcing himself to express a fine opinion of them." (October 17,1889.)
Tolstoy's moral influence may once again be observed in the emotional, intellectual, and artistic groping of Chekhov in A Dreary Story, which forces comparison with The Death of Ivan Ilyich. For the hero of Tolstoy's famous tale, like the old professor, suddenly finding himself face to face with death, looks back over his past life and perceives its tragic emptiness. But unlike the professor, who can discover no hope for himself at the end of life's "dreary story," Ivan Ilyich beholds the inner light of Faith, Renunciation, and Love. In a deeper. sense, the two works also suggest a comparison between the two authors: between the detached and skeptical Chekhov, and Tolstoy the believer; between the calm incredulity of a Chekhov endlessly searching for something not to be found on earth and fearing always to surrender himself completely to either joy or sorrow, and a Tolstoy passionately seeking faith and, after draining the cup of life with all its joys and sorrows, declaring that man must desire nothing if he is to find his own soul.
Perhaps not unexpectedly for Chekhov, many of the reviews of A Dreary Story were highly critical and several compared it unfavorably to The Death of Iran Ilyich. Of the few good reviews, Chekhov probably took least satisfaction in that of the eminent Mikhailovsky, who had previously been so begrudging in his praise. He asserted that the tale was "the best and most significant of all that Chekhov had written up to this time," and he concluded his article: "From time to time talent ought to feel with horror the anguish and dullness of 'reality,' it ought to erase such anguish by 'what is called a general idea or the god of a living man.' A Dreary Story is the begetter of such anguish. That is why this tale is so fine and lifelike, for the author has put into it his own pain." Mikhailovsky was right.
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The paucity of Chekhov's fictional output during 1889 also bears some relation to his preoccupation with writing plays. Despite his frequent and harsh criticism of the theater and dramatists, the Petersburg success of Ivanov and the widespread popularity of his "vaudevilles" or one-act plays drew him irresistibly to the stage. "I'm expecting the Order of Stanislav and appointment as a member of the State Council" he joked when he heard that Alexander III had complimented a brilliant performance of The Proposal at the summer palace. Svobodin, who played the lead, said the Tsar laughed loudest of all, and when the actors, at his request, told him what other plays Chekhov had written, His Majesty exclaimed: "Ah, yes, Ivanov, The Bear! I regret that I've not seen them!" If he were alone in the world, Chekhov remarked, he could live for two or three years solely on the income from his published collections of tales and performances of his plays. Besides, the theater was in his blood and its challenge lost nothing from the fact that he now considered writing for it as something of a sport.
With little effort Chekhov dashed off two more one-act plays in 1889. A Tragedian in Spite of Himself was based on his short story One of Many (1887), an account of a much harrassed husband who every morning is charged with the numerous errands of his wife and her friends when he leaves his summer cottagc for his office in town. The Wedding, a miniature light comedy with a large cast of characters, is one of Chekhov's most celebrated one-act plays. In this instance he drew upon several of his previous works — a humorous sketch The Marriage Season (1881) and two short stories, written in 1884, A
Marriage of Convenience and A Wedding with a General. To this material must be added his firsthand observations in 1885 of the garish weddings in the Moscow flat over his, which was hired out for such purposes. On these occasions the Chekhov family would sometimes hold mock weddings and match the noise above their heads with raucous toasts and frantic dancing to the music upstairs. The play is a hilarious satire on the vulgar shopkeepers' conception of a wedding which was never complete without a hired general, although in this case it is a naval officcr of lower rank whose voluntary attendance as an "invited" guest introduces a poignant note of outraged human dignity when the shabby deception is exposed.
However, Chekhov's major dramatic undertaking was the full- length Wood Demon, which he worked on intermittently over much of 1889. This was the play he had initially sketched at Feodosiya in collaboration with Suvorin When he returned to it at the beginning of 1889, Suvorin having already bowed out, it is likely that Chekhov conceived of it as a conventional comedy very much as Ivanov had been a conventional drama of action. By spring, however, when he had drafted two acts, his comments to Suvorin suggest that he was attempting to do something different. For one thing, he felt a much greater sense of power than when he wrote Ivanov. And he added, "The play is terribly queer and I'm surprised that such peculiar things can come from my pen." (May 4, 1889.) A week later he informed Suvorin that all the characters were positively new. "In general, I tried to avoid the superfluous and I think I've managed. In a word, there's no gainsaying that I'm a clever fellow." To Pleshcheev he described The Wood Demon as "a big comedy-novel," filled with nice healthy people, a happy ending, and a lyrical tone. Above all, he explained, it was "literary significance" that he wished to achieve in this play. (September 30, 1889.)