“I filled the comedy with good, healthy people, half sympathetic, and a happy ending. The general tone is entirely lyrical,” Chekhov wrote to Pleshcheev, on September 30, 1889. This is a play of conversion, but without overt religious references or a confessional tone. The most important new element in his playwriting is the suppression of a prominent hero in favor of a closely interrelated group. The ties that bind the characters in this neighborhood are more intricate than those in Ivanov.
Khrushchov the Wood Goblin lends his name to the play, not because he is the pivotal figure, but because his epiphany in the last act is the summation of the play’s meaning. In Chekhov’s later plays, a monologue such as his about the need for heroes in Russia would be alloyed by some ironic flaw in the character. Here it is meant to be taken as read. The critic Aleksandr Chu-dakov notes that Khrushchov is perhaps the first hero in Russian drama “whose purpose in life is the preservation of nature,”2 but, unlike Astrov, his counterpart in Uncle Vanya, his concern with conservation is not, by itself, a redeeming trait. Merit is not achieved by saving forests or serving science or by any practical activity; pure morality in human relations is of higher value. The crucial turning point for Khrushchov is finding Voinitsky’s diary, which shows him how badly the Wood Goblin had misjudged his fellows. The device is clumsy, a relic of the well-made play, but Chekhov needed it to trigger Khrushchov’s about-face, his awakening when he casts off his suspicions of others.
Both Platonov and Ivanov had centered upon somewhat outstanding individuals corroded by their own cynicism and self-doubt. In The Wood Goblin, those qualities recur in Voinitsky, who, riddled with irony, finds the less complicated natures of Fyodor and Khrushchov appealing. Incapable of change, he has to commit suicide, to leave the stage clear for the reversals of the last act.
Despite the pleas of enthusiasts, Chekhov refused to have the play reprinted. “I hate that play and am trying to forget it,” he wrote to A. I. Urusov, on April 16, 1900. But the ideology, if too blatantly expressed, was to abide. Chekhov’s later plays continue to attribute greater importance to honesty in human relations than to any doctrinaire or programmatic prescriptions for society.
NOTES
1 M. P. Chekhov, Vokrug Chekhova (Moscow: Moskovsky rabochy, 1980), p. 152.
2 A. P. Chudakov, Chekhov’s Poetics, tr. F. J. Cruise and D. Dragt (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983), p. 210.
THE WOOD GOBLIN1
Лeший
A Comedy in Four Acts
CHARACTERS
ALEKSANDR VLADIMIROVICH SEREBRYAKOV, a retired professor
YELENA ANDREEVNA, his wife, 27
SOFYA ALEKSANDROVNA (SONYA), his daughter by his first wife, 20
MARIYA VASILYEVNA VOINITSKAYA, the widow of a senior civil servant, mother of the professor’s first wife
YEGOR PETROVICH VOINITSKY, her son
LEONID STEPANOVICH ZHELTUKHIN, a very rich man who studied technology at the university but never earned a degree
YULIYA STEPANOVNA (YULYA), his sister, 18
IVAN IVANOVICH ORLOVSKY, a landowner
FYODOR IVANOVICH, his son
MIKHAIL LVOVICH KHRUSHCHOV, landowner, who has a medical degree
ILYA ILYICH DYADIN
VASILY, Zheltukhin’s servant
SEMYON, a workman at the mill
ACT ONE
The garden on Zheltukhin’s estate. A house with a terrace; on the veranda in front of the house are two tables: a large one, set for lunch, and another smaller one with appetizers. A little after two o’clock.
I
ZHELTUKHIN and YULYA enter from the house.
YULYA. You’d better put on that nice gray suit. This one doesn’t suit you.
ZHELTUKHIN. It doesn’t matter. Trivia.
YULYA. Lyonechka, why are you so grumpy? How can you behave like this on your birthday? You’re being a naughty boy! . . . (Lays her head on his breast.)
ZHELTUKHIN. A little less affection, please!
YULYA (through tears). Lyonechka!
ZHELTUKHIN. Instead of these curdled kisses, all these loving glances and watch stands2 made out of little shoes, which are no damned use to me, you should do what I asked you to! How come you didn’t write to the Sere-bryakovs?
YULYA. Lyonechka, I did write!
ZHELTUKHIN. Which one did you write to?
YULYA. Sonechka. I asked her to be sure and come by today, to be sure to come at one. Cross my heart, I did write!
ZHELTUKHIN. But it’s already past two and they aren’t here . . . Oh well, if that’s the way they want it! I’ll have to give it up, nothing’ll come of it . . . Except humiliation, a sense of grievance and nothing more . . . She pays me no attention. I’m not good-looking, I’m uninteresting, there’s nothing romantic about me, and if she did marry me, it would only be out of self-interest . . . for the money! . . .
YULYA. Not good-looking . . . You have no idea what you look like.
ZHELTUKHIN. Oh sure, as if I were blind! My beard grows out of here, out of my neck, not like other people’s . . . A moustache, who the hell knows what kind . . . a nose . . .
YULYA. Why are you pressing down on your cheek?
ZHELTUKHIN. There’s that pain under my eye again.
YULYA. Yes, it is a little bit swollen. Let me kiss it and it’ll go away.
ZHELTUKHIN. Don’t be stupid!
Enter ORLOVSKY, and VOINITSKY.
II
The same, ORLOVSKY, and VOINITSKY.
ORLOVSKY. Lovey, when are we going to eat? It’s past two already!
YULYA. Godfather dear, the Serebryakovs aren’t here yet!
ORLOVSKY. How long are we supposed to wait for them? I want to eat, honey bunch. And so does Yegor Petrovich here.
ZHELTUKHIN (to Voinitsky). Are your folks going to show up?
VOINITSKY. When I left the house, Yelena Andreevna was getting dressed.
ZHELTUKHIN. In other words, they’re sure to show up?
VOINITSKY. Sure is impossible to say. Our V.I.P. may suddenly come down with gout3 or some other whim — and then they’ll stay home.
ZHELTUKHIN. In that case, let’s eat. What’s the point of waiting? (Shouts.) Ilya Ilyich! Sergey Nikodimych!
DYADIN and a few other GUESTS enter
III
The same, DYADIN, and GUESTS.