Short Stories by Chekhov
herself be treated by the doctors, a trustfulness which was always
shining in her little face. She would sit somewhere out of the way, with
her face tied up, invariably watching something with attention; whether
she watched me writing or turning over the pages of a book, or watched
my wife bustling about, or the cook scrubbing a potato in the kitchen,
or the dog playing, her eyes invariably expressed the same thought--that
is, "Everything that is done in this world is nice and sensible." She
was curious, and very fond of talking to me. Sometimes she would sit at
the table opposite me, watching my movements and asking questions. It
interested her to know what I was reading, what I did at the University,
whether I was not afraid of the dead bodies, what I did with my salary.
"Do the students fight at the University?" she would ask.
"They do, dear."
"And do you make them go down on their knees?"
"Yes, I do."
And she thought it funny that the students fought and I made them go
down on their knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle, patient, good
child. It happened not infrequently that I saw something taken away from
her, saw her punished without reason, or her curiosity repressed; at
such times a look of sadness was mixed with the invariable expression of
trustfulness on her face--that was all. I did not know how to take her
part; only when I saw her sad I had an inclination to draw her to me and
to commiserate her like some old nurse: "My poor little orphan one!"
I remember, too, that she was fond of fine clothes and of sprinkling
herself with scent. In that respect she was like me. I, too, am fond of
pretty clothes and nice scent.
I regret that I had not time nor inclination to watch over the rise and
development of the passion which took complete possession of Katya when
she was fourteen or fifteen. I mean her passionate love for the theatre.
When she used to come from boarding-school and stay with us for the
summer holidays, she talked of nothing with such pleasure and such
warmth as of plays and actors. She bored us with her continual talk of
the theatre. My wife and children would not listen to her. I was the
only one who had not the courage to refuse to attend to her. When she
had a longing to share her transports, she used to come into my study
and say in an imploring tone:
"Nikolay Stepanovitch, do let me talk to you about the theatre!"
I pointed to the clock, and said:
"I'll give you half an hour--begin."
Later on she used to bring with her dozens of portraits of actors and
actresses which she worshipped; then she attempted several times to take
part in private theatricals, and the upshot of it all was that when she
left school she came to me and announced that she was born to be an
actress.
I had never shared Katya's inclinations for the theatre. To my mind, if
a play is good there is no need to trouble the actors in order that it
may make the right impression; it is enough to read it. If the play is
poor, no acting will make it good.
In my youth I often visited the theatre, and now my family takes a box
twice a year and carries me off for a little distraction. Of course,
that is not enough to give me the right to judge of the theatre. In my
opinion the theatre has become no better than it was thirty or forty
years ago. Just as in the past, I can never find a glass of clean water
in the corridors or foyers of the theatre. Just as in the past, the
attendants fine me twenty kopecks for my fur coat, though there is
nothing reprehensible in wearing a warm coat in winter. As in the past,
for no sort of reason, music is played in the intervals, which adds
something new and uncalled-for to the impression made by the play. As in
the past, men go in the intervals and drink spirits in the buffet. If no
progress can be seen in trifles, I should look for it in vain in what is
more important. When an actor wrapped from head to foot in stage
traditions and conventions tries to recite a simple ordinary speech, "To
be or not to be," not simply, but invariably with the accompaniment of
hissing and convulsive movements all over his body, or when he tries to
convince me at all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and
is so fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is
not a dull play, the stage gives me the same feeling of conventionality
which bored me so much forty years ago when I was regaled with the
classical howling and beating on the breast. And every time I come out
of the theatre more conservative than I go in.
The sentimental and confiding public may be persuaded that the stage,
even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is familiar with
a school in its true sense will not be caught with that bait. I cannot
say what will happen in fifty or a hundred years, but in its actual
condition the theatre can serve only as an entertainment. But this
entertainment is too costly to be frequently enjoyed. It robs the state
of thousands of healthy and talented young men and women, who, if they
had not devoted themselves to the theatre, might have been good doctors,
farmers, schoolmistresses, officers; it robs the public of the evening
hours--the best time for intellectual work and social intercourse. I say
nothing of the waste of money and the moral damage to the spectator when
he sees murder, fornication, or false witness unsuitably treated on the
stage.
Katya was of an entirely different opinion. She assured me that the
theatre, even in its present condition, was superior to the lecture-
hall, to books, or to anything in the world. The stage was a power that
united in itself all the arts, and actors were missionaries. No art nor
science was capable of producing so strong and so certain an effect on
the soul of man as the stage, and it was with good reason that an actor
of medium quality enjoys greater popularity than the greatest savant or
artist. And no sort of public service could provide such enjoyment and
gratification as the theatre.
And one fine day Katya joined a troupe of actors, and went off, I
believe to Ufa, taking away with her a good supply of money, a store of
rainbow hopes, and the most aristocratic views of her work.
Her first letters on the journey were marvellous. I read them, and was
simply amazed that those small sheets of paper could contain so much
youth, purity of spirit, holy innocence, and at the same time subtle and
apt judgments which would have done credit to a fine masculine
intellect. It was more like a rapturous paean of praise she sent me than
a mere description of the Volga, the country, the towns she visited, her
companions, her failures and successes; every sentence was fragrant with
that confiding trustfulness I was accustomed to read in her face--and at
the same time there were a great many grammatical mistakes, and there
was scarcely any punctuation at all.
Before six months had passed I received a highly poetical and
enthusiastic letter beginning with the words, "I have come to love..."
This letter was accompanied by a photograph representing a young man
with a shaven face, a wide-brimmed hat, and a plaid flung over his
shoulder. The letters that followed were as splendid as before, but now
commas and stops made their appearance in them, the grammatical mistakes
disappeared, and there was a distinctly masculine flavour about them.
Katya began writing to me how splendid it would be to build a great
theatre somewhere on the Volga, on a cooperative system, and to attract
to the enterprise the rich merchants and the steamer owners; there would
be a great deal of money in it; there would be vast audiences; the
actors would play on co-operative terms.... Possibly all this was really
excellent, but it seemed to me that such schemes could only originate
from a man's mind.
However that may have been, for a year and a half everything seemed to
go well: Katya was in love, believed in her work, and was happy; but
then I began to notice in her letters unmistakable signs of falling off.
It began with Katya's complaining of her companions--this was the first
and most ominous symptom; if a young scientific or literary man begins
his career with bitter complaints of scientific and literary men, it is
a sure sign that he is worn out and not fit for his work. Katya wrote to
me that her companions did not attend the rehearsals and never knew
their parts; that one could see in every one of them an utter disrespect
for the public in the production of absurd plays, and in their behaviour
on the stage; that for the benefit of the Actors' Fund, which they only
talked about, actresses of the serious drama demeaned themselves by
singing chansonettes, while tragic actors sang comic songs making fun of
deceived husbands and the pregnant condition of unfaithful wives, and so
on. In fact, it was amazing that all this had not yet ruined the
provincial stage, and that it could still maintain itself on such a
rotten and unsubstantial footing.
In answer I wrote Katya a long and, I must confess, a very boring
letter. Among other things, I wrote to her:
"I have more than once happened to converse with old actors, very worthy
men, who showed a friendly disposition towards me; from my conversations
with them I could understand that their work was controlled not so much
by their own intelligence and free choice as by fashion and the mood of
the public. The best of them had had to play in their day in tragedy, in
operetta, in Parisian farces, and in extravaganzas, and they always
seemed equally sure that they were on the right path and that they were
of use. So, as you see, the cause of the evil must be sought, not in the
actors, but, more deeply, in the art itself and in the attitude of the
whole of society to it."
This letter of mine only irritated Katya. She answered me:
"You and I are singing parts out of different operas. I wrote to you,
not of the worthy men who showed a friendly disposition to you, but of a
band of knaves who have nothing worthy about them. They are a horde of
savages who have got on the stage simply because no one would have taken
them elsewhere, and who call themselves artists simply because they are
impudent. There are numbers of dull-witted creatures, drunkards,
intriguing schemers and slanderers, but there is not one person of
talent among them. I cannot tell you how bitter it is to me that the art
I love has fallen into the hands of people I detest; how bitter it is
that the best men look on at evil from afar, not caring to come closer,
and, instead of intervening, write ponderous commonplaces and utterly
useless sermons...." And so on, all in the same style.
A little time passed, and I got this letter: "I have been brutally
deceived. I cannot go on living. Dispose of my money as you think best.
I loved you as my father and my only friend. Good-bye."
It turned out that he, too, belonged to the "horde of savages." Later
on, from certain hints, I gathered that there had been an attempt at
suicide. I believe Katya tried to poison herself. I imagine that she
must have been seriously ill afterwards, as the next letter I got was
from Yalta, where she had most probably been sent by the doctors. Her
last letter contained a request to send her a thousand roubles to Yalta
as quickly as possible, and ended with these words:
"Excuse the gloominess of this letter; yesterday I buried my child."
After spending about a year in the Crimea, she returned home.
She had been about four years on her travels, and during those four
years, I must confess, I had played a rather strange and unenviable part
in regard to her. When in earlier days she had told me she was going on
the stage, and then wrote to me of her love; when she was periodically