That ‘Man in a Case’, ‘Gooseberries’ and ‘About Love’, all published in Russian Thought, 1898, were to be considered a cycle, or trilogy, was stressed by Chekhov in a letter to a female translator of his stories into English, O. R. Vasilyeva, who for some reason decided to translate only the second two stories: ‘Do as you please, but if you leave out “Man in a Case” it will be unclear who’s talking and why’ (5 January 1899). Chekhov had intended continuing the trilogy – this is clear from a letter to the publisher A. F. Marks: ‘The stories “Man in a Case”, “Gooseberries” and “About Love” are a part of a series which is far from finished…’ (28 September 1899). But this projected series was never written, possibly because of mental exhaustion at the time. After the trilogy was completed he wrote to Lidiya Avilova: ‘Writing revolts me and I don’t know what to do’ (23–27 July 1898). This mood soon passed, but with the coming of autumn Chekhov was forced to go south for health reasons. From Yalta he wrote to P. F. Iordanov (a Taganrog doctor): ‘I’m unsettled and hardly working. This enforced idleness and wandering around resorts is worse than any bacilli’ (21 September 1898). Eventually he started writing again – but independent stories such as ‘A Case History’ and ‘On Official Duty’.
These three stories are the only case of interconnectedness in Chekhov’s work. The ideas for the stories had long been fermenting in his mind: this is clear from notes made in Paris and Nice and from his First Notebook. On 2 July he wrote to N. A. Leykin6: ‘As you know, I spent the winter in the South of France, where I was bored without snow and couldn’t work. In the spring I was in Paris, where I spent about four weeks. Now I’m at home and writing. I’ve sent my story to [The] Cornfield and another to Russian Thought.’ This second story was ‘Man in a Case’. Separate publishing histories and notes for each of the three stories in the trilogy now follow in the order in which they appear in this volume.
In early June 1898 ‘Man in a Case’ was prepared for the press and on the 12th of that month Chekhov wrote to Suvorin: ‘I’m fussing about and doing a little bit of work. I’ve already written a long and a short story.’ These were ‘Ionych’ and ‘Man in a Case’.
Chekhov’s brother Mikhail states that the prototype for the main character, Belikov, was a certain Dyakanov, an inspector at the Taganrog Gymnasium where Anton had studied (this attribution is now disputed), adding that his brother also drew on events at the school – the annual spring outing, for example (A. P. Chekhov and His Subjects, Moscow, 1923). It is also possible that the prototype could have been the journalist M. O. Menshikov, editor of the journal The Week, as Chekhov refers to him in his diary for 1896: ‘Menshikov goes around with galoshes in dry weather, carrying an umbrella so as not to perish from sunstroke and is scared of washing in cold water…’ In addition, Professor Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya never ventures out without umbrella and galoshes. Clearly, Chekhov was fascinated by this type of encapsulated, cocooned individual and ‘Man in a Case’ is his fullest portrayal of this strange manifestation of extreme eccentricity. However, it is likely that Belikov is an amalgam of various characters Chekhov had known.
The second story in the trilogy, ‘Gooseberries’, links the first and last and contemporary critics were quick to see the similarity of the thematic material running through the three stories: lack of will, moral cowardice, pettiness and bigotry generated by a complacent society. Chekhov thought that all these defects could be pinned on his own generation.
The story was written at Melikhovo in July 1898 and published the following month in Russian Thought. On 20 July Chekhov wrote in mock-serious tone to Goltsev, editor of Russian Thought: ‘Nine tenths of the story for the August issue are ready and if nothing prevents the happy conclusion of the aforementioned story you will receive it from my own hands on 1 August.’
According to Mikhail Chekhov, several features of the estate of Bakumovka, owned by S. I. Smagin, are incorporated in the story – for example, swimming in the river. Chekhov’s brother interestingly relates the origin of the extraordinary surname Chimsha-Gimalaysky: ‘When Anton Pavlovich travelled right across Siberia to Sakhalin, somewhere, on the very edge of the world, a local gentleman came forth and wanted to make his acquaintance. He gave him his card on which was written: “Rymsha-Pilsudsky”. Anton Pavlovich took this card away and for a long time laughed at a name you couldn’t invent even if you were drunk, and decided to use it when the opportunity arose’ (A. P. Chekhov and His Subjects, Moscow, 1923).
The third story in the trilogy, ‘About Love’ was first published in Russian Thought in 1898. The plot for the story is outlined in Chekhov’s First Notebook. Like the other two stories in the trilogy, ‘About Love’ was written at Melikhovo in the summer of 1898 and was prepared for the August issue of Russian Thought. The first version of the story ended with a matter-of-fact dialogue about Ivan Ivanych’s departure, but in the Collected Edition of 1903 it ends on a lyrical note, with poetic descriptions of Nature and sad reflections about those who had heard Alyokhin’s story.
In her memoirs, A. P. Chekhov in My Life: A Love Story (London, 1950), Lidiya Avilova wrote: ‘“About Love” concerned me, I had no doubt about it…’ According to her, her relations with Chekhov are reflected in the story and she refers to a ten-year relationship. After reading the story she sent Chekhov a hostile letter in which she ‘thanked him for the honour of figuring as a heroine, even if only in a little story’. However, Avilova’s memoirs are now considered highly suspect and mainly based on delusion.
Man in a Case
1. Shchedrin: M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826–89), Russia’s greatest satirical novelist.
2. Henry Buckles: Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–62), English social historian whose History of Civilisation (1858, 1861) was extremely popular in Russia.
3. ‘Breezes of the South…’: From a popular Ukrainian folksong.
4. Gadyach: Small Ukrainian town, in Poltava province.
5. Mr Creepy-Crawly: (Ukrainian) Lit. The Bloodsucker or Spider, a four-act drama by M. L. Kropivnitsky, written for the actress M. K. Zankovetsky, whom Chekhov had first met at the Suvorins in 1892.
6. Nikolay Aleksandrovich Leykin (1841–1906), journalist, novelist and writer of satirical short stories. He was publisher and editor of the highly popular comic magazine Oskolki (Fragments), to which Chekhov contributed more than 200 short stories between 1882 and 1887.
Gooseberries
1. only six feet of earth: A possible allusion to Tolstoy’s famous story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’.
2. ‘Uplifting illusion…’: Inaccurate quotation from the poem The Hero (1830). The original reads: ‘Uplifting illusion is dearer to me than a host of vile truths.’
About Love
1. European Herald: Liberal monthly journal that published works by leading writers (Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Goncharov). It was published from 1866 to 1918.