Chekhov mentions the forthcoming story in a letter to his sister (14 November 1899): ‘I’m writing a big story. I’ll finish it soon and begin another.’ On 19 November 1899 he had written to Posset: ‘I’m writing the story for Life and it will soon be ready, probably by the second half of December. There’s only three sheets in all, but masses of characters, a real crush. It’s very cramped and I’ll have to take great care so that the crush doesn’t become too apparent. Whatever, it’ll be ready around 10 December and can be typeset. But the trouble is – I’m afraid the censors might start plucking it. Please return my story if you feel that certain places won’t pass the censorship…’ (After ‘Peasants’, Chekhov was understandably apprehensive about the reception this new story might have at the hands of the censors.) On 6 December Chekhov wrote to V. I. Nemirovich Danchenko8 about his work on the story. However, it was not sent to Life until 20 December, with Chekhov repeatedly apologizing to Posset for the delay.
On 26 December he wrote to M. O. Menshikov (editor of the magazine The Week): ‘I’ve written a lot recently. I’ve sent my story to Life. In this story I depict factory life, I discuss how sad it is…’ On 2 January 1900 he wrote amusingly to Olga Knipper about ‘In the Ravine’: ‘My story will appear in the February issue of Life – it’s very strange. Many characters – and a landscape too. There’s a crescent moon, a bird called a bittern, which makes a booming noise far off somewhere, like a cow locked in a shed. There’s everything.’ And in a letter to G. I. Rossolimo (Professor of Neuropathology at Moscow University and once a medical student with Chekhov) he called the story ‘my last from the life of the common people’.
On 11 January Chekhov complained bitterly to Posset (on receipt of the page proofs) that lines had been left out, with chaotic punctuation. For all that, the story appeared in Life with numerous misprints. The exasperated Chekhov concluded the letter with the words: ‘Such an abundance of misprints is something I’ve never encountered before and it strikes me as a veritable orgy of typographical slovenliness. Please forgive my irritation.’
From the memoirs of Chekhov’s brother Mikhail (A. P. Chekhov and His Subjects, Moscow, 1923, p. 146) we learn that an incident from Sakhalin is incorporated in the story and that the scene is set near Melikhovo. S. N. Shchukin, a Yalta teacher and man of letters, who has left interesting memoirs of Chekhov, records his saying of ‘In the Ravine’: ‘I’m describing life as it is encountered in the provinces of Middle Russia. I know them best. And the Khrymin merchants really do exist. Only, in actual fact they are worse. From the age of eight their children start drinking vodka, and from childhood they lead dissipated lives. They have infected the whole area with syphilis. I don’t mention this in the story, because I don’t consider that kind of thing very artistic. Lipa’s baby being scalded to death with boiling water is nothing out of the ordinary. Local doctors often meet with such cases.’ The writer Ivan Bunin (1870–1938) stated that he told Chekhov of an incident involving a parish priest consuming two pounds of caviare at his father’s name-day party, altered by Chekhov and used at the beginning of ‘In the Ravine’.
1. Yepifan: Large village about 140 miles south-east of Moscow.
2. ‘inspection’: Old Russian peasant ceremony when the prospective bride was ‘viewed’.
3. Yegoryevsk: Small town about seventy miles south-east of Moscow.
4. kvass: Fermented drink made from malt, rye or different kinds of fruit, in this case pears.
5. Amur: Siberian river, 800 miles of which form the boundary between Russia and China. It flows into the Tatar Strait.
6. Altay: Mountainous region in southern Siberia.
7. I was on a ferry once: This is reminiscent of an incident recorded by Chekhov in his Out of Siberia (prologue to The Island of Sakhalin) where he describes meeting a freezing peasant when crossing the Kama River on his way to Sakhalin.
8. Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858–1943), co-founder, with Konstantin Stanislavsky, of the Moscow Art Theatre. He was one of the first to recognize the merits of The Seagull, with which he launched the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Olga Knipper, who played Arkadina in the play, was one of his prize pupils.
Disturbing the Balance
The text of this unfinished story is based on a manuscript, in Chekhov’s writing, in the Lenin State Library in St Petersburg. Probably written in 1902–3, it was published in 1905, after Chekhov’s death, in Everybody’s Magazine, a popular St Petersburg monthly. On the manuscript there are signs of editing by V. S. Mirolyubov, editor of the magazine.
1. Monte Pincio: Hill in the north of Rome, linked to the park of the Villa Borghese, with a superb view, especially at dusk.
The Bishop
First published in Everybody’s Magazine, 1902. In the autumn of 1899 Chekhov promised to send a new story to Everybody’s Magazine, at the persistent request of V. S. Mirolyubov, its editor, who required the story for the January 1900 issue: he had to wait two years for it. There are many mentions of a story in his letters on this subject that point to a much earlier conception of the main idea. In a letter of 16 March 1901 to Olga Knipper he refers to the subject as ‘already being in my head for fifteen years’. However, work on the story was exceedingly spasmodic, protracted, constantly interrupted by ill health. No story cost Chekhov so much effort.
In November 1899, when he was working on ‘In the Ravine’, Chekhov told his sister: ‘I’m writing a big story. I’ll finish it soon and begin another’ (letter of 14 November 1899). There is no doubt that the second story referred to here is ‘The Bishop’. Although work on the story was interrupted by ill health, Chekhov returned to it after completion of Three Sisters. But work was slow, interrupted by idle visitors, creative self-doubts, as well as by bad health. In January 1901 he wrote to Olga Knipper: ‘I’m writing of course, but without any desire at all. It seems Three Sisters has worn me out – or, simply, that I’m bored with writing, grown old. I don’t know. I should stop writing for five years, travel for five years and then return and sit down to work.’
Mirolyubov, who was in Yalta in February and March 1901, again urged Chekhov to finish the story for his journal. But for reasons of health Chekhov could only return to work at the end of August; despite this he still went to Moscow in the autumn, from where he wrote to the frantic Mirolyubov: ‘Forgive me, dear chap, for not sending the story before. It’s because I broke off work and I’ve always found it difficult to take up interrupted work again. But the moment I’m home I’ll start from the beginning and send it. Don’t worry!’ (19 October 1901).
Replying to Olga Knipper’s request to send V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko a new story to be read at a charity concert, Chekhov wrote: ‘I’d send a story to Nemirovich-Danchenko with the greatest pleasure, but really, what I’m writing now would hardly pass the censors – that is, it’s hardly permissible for a public reading.’ The very mention of censors shows almost without doubt that the story in question here is ‘The Bishop’. At the time the censors were increasingly wary of works where representatives of the clergy were depicted. In early December Chekhov was again forced to break off work owing to a worsening of his illness and on the 17th of that month he wrote to Mirolyubov: ‘… I’m ill – or not quite healthy… and I can’t write. I’ve coughed blood, now I feel weakness and malice, I sit with a hot compress on my side, take creosote and all kinds of rubbish. Whatever, I shan’t cheat you with “The Bishop”, I’ll send it sooner or later.’ Only two weeks later was he able to resume work on the story and on 20 February 1902 wrote to Mirolyubov: ‘Forgive me for dragging it out for so long. I finished the story some time ago, but it was difficult copying it out. I’m ill the whole time… send me the page proofs without fail. I’ll add a short phrase or two at the end. But I shan’t change one word for the censors, please take that into consideration. If the censors throw out only one word, then send the story back and I’ll send you another in May.’