My Kind
of Saint – Antonin Chekhov
|
What aristocratic writers
take from nature gratis, the less privileged must pay for with their
youth.
|
Antonin Chekhov
|
to
Dawn
Born
into a family of serfs, Antonin Chechov (1860 – 1904) was
one year old when Tsar Alexander II initiated sweeping reforms. Three
years
before a reluctant President Lincoln signed the emancipation act, the
Tsar had
already lifted some 52 million souls from the state of human chattel.
The legal
system received an overhaul and trial by jury replaced the Byzantine
practices
of withholding proceedings from the parties to the case. A network of
elective
committees was given considerable powers to establish schools and
hospitals, to
build roads and to provide veterinary and insurance services. Tsarist
Russia
was one of the first countries in the world to offer its citizens free
medical
care. Certain countries, I won’t say which, still wait for this to
happen.
The family moved to Moscow,
leaving behind the adolescent Chekhov to complete his education at the
grammar
school of Taganrog. There was no support, young Antonin had to fend for
himself, giving private tuition. In 1879, Chekhov began studying
medicine in
Moscow. People who knew him remembered a young giant with broad
shoulders and
an open face, smoking cigars, frequenting the nightclubs and having
affairs
with celebrated actresses. He not only knew when and where to send
roses,
neighbors from his hometown asked for his advice about the care and
treatment
of their garden plants. He loved animals. His dachshunds produced
puppies for
Nabokov’s parents.
Still an intern, Chekhov began
publishing in weekly magazines and newspapers. In 1890 he traveled on
his own
initiative to the Island of Sakhalin and wrote a report on the penal
colony and
the conditions of hard labor. In 1899 he had published more than 48,000
pages
of novellas and stories, not counting the plays. He was not a verbal
innovator.
Chekhov knew that "Genuine literature is as indifferent to a
rough-hewn
phrase as it is to a smooth sentence" (Borges). The poet of the revolution, Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893 – 1930), was the first to praise as an
achievement what most of Chekhov’s critics dismissed as a lack of
verbal sophistication: “Chekhov’s
language is as precise as “Hello!” and as simple as “Give me a glass of
tea.” In his method of expressing the idea of a compact little story,
the urgent cry of the future is felt: “Economy!” It is these new forms
of expressing an idea, this true approach to art’s real tasks that give
us the right to speak of Chekhov as a master of verbal art. Behind the
familiar Chekhovian image created by the philistines, that of a
grumbler displeased with everything, the defender of “ridiculous
people” against society, behind Chekhov the twilight bard we discern
the outlines of the other Chekhov: the joyous and powerful master of
the art of literature” (Vladimir Mayakovsky,
The
Two
Chekhovs). In
Chekhov’s own words: "Don’t
sacrifice beauty and power for something as
trivial as a highlight." By keeping his stories in the same
tinge of grey, "a tint somewhere between the color of an old fence
and
a low cloud" (Nabokov), he achieved musical flow and lyrical
precision. "Overstating something is
as
inept as not saying it at all," he said, and made it look
deceptively easy: "The neck of a
broken
bottle glistening on a river-dam and the black shadow under the
water-mill’s
wheel;’ – and ready is the moonlight" (Chekhov).
Many
of
his
critics
liked
to
denounce
him
as
a
provincial
dullard,
somehow
granted
a magnificent writing talent, but too shallow
ever to
write anything of lasting importance. Only after his death the great
Tolstoy (1828
– 1910) gave Chekhov the seal of approval: "With no false
modesty, Chekhov is technically far superior to me." Something the
author certainly would have loved to hear when he was still alive.
Instead
Tolstoy put his arm around his shoulders and said to him with brutal
gusto:
"Shakespeare’s plays are bad enough, but yours, my friend, are even
worse." Not a joke, Tolstoy really meant it. To a visitor Tolstoy
imparted that Chekhov would be an even better writer, “if he weren’t
a
doctor.” The count lifted his finger and in a grave tone announced:
"Chekhov
is not a religious man." But Chekhov himself considered his medical
training and scientific outlook not only as beneficial but essential
for
writing truthfully. "I am not the one
to
negate the value of science” he said,
“and do not even wish to be one of those writers who believe they can
figure
out everything for themselves" (Chekhov).
In a letter to his publisher, Chekhov vented his anger: "To hell with the philosophy of the great
men of this world!
All great wise men are as despotic as generals and as impolite and
insensitive
as generals because they are confident of their impunity. Diogenes spat
in
people’s beards knowing that he would not be called to account; Tolstoy
calls
doctors scoundrels and flaunts his ignorance of important issues
because he is
another Diogenes whom no one will report to the police or denounce in
the
papers" (Chekhov).
My
sentiment
exactly!
When
others
got
all
the
publicity
for
their
acts
of
defiance, Chekhov was giving
free
medical treatment to more than a thousand local peasants and provided
for
medication without as much as mentioning it.
He protested to the authorities
over the mistreatment of ethnic minorities in the Crimea, he raised the
alarm
over the disappearance of wildlife. He took charge of the building of
local
schools. He bought the building materials, contracted the craftsmen and
supervised the work in person. On his initiative the local committee
construct
a much-needed local highway, and Chekhov helped the peasants in his
neighborhood to a new belfry for their church. He collected and donated
books
for public libraries at his own expense. He and the painter Ilya Repin
pooled
resources for a museum of fine arts in Taganrog. In Moscow, he raised
funds for
a new clinic treating skin diseases. (“Skin disease” was in those days
a
euphemism for the clap and the syphilis.) "There
is more love for mankind in electricity and steam” he said, “than in chastity and abnegation from meat.
The world is
full of evils, but it doesn’t follow that I should wear straw sandals
because
of it."
In 1896 he finally had to accept
the diagnosis of his illness: tuberculosis.
It was in July 2, 1904 in
Badenweiler, a German spa. Short after midnight Chekhov woke up his
wife and
asked her to send for the doctor. His pulse was extremely weak. The
doctor gave
him camphor injections and ordered for his patient a bottle of
champagne.
Chekhov sat up on his bed and in a loud and emphatic voice he said to
the
doctor in German “Ich sterbe – I
am
dying." He took the glass and smiled at his wife: "It’s a long time since I’ve had champagne."
After drinking up to the last drop, Chekhov sank back, turned over to
his left
side, and lying still in this position, he died. The night completely
silent
except for a nocturnal moth, which kept crashing into the light bulbs.
The
doctor had long left the room, when suddenly, with a tremendous pop,
the cork
flew out of the half emptied champagne bottle.
Chekhov was brought back to
Russia in a refrigerated railroad car, bearing the inscription: "For
Oysters." His grave is in the New Virgin Cemetery in Moscow.
©
– 4/17/2009 – by michael sympson, 1,250 words, all rights reserved
