Chapter VI

It is true, on the whole, that we know nearly nothing, not only of his creative activities, but even of the external methods of his work. In this respect Anton Pavlovitch was almost eccentric in his reserve and silence. I remember him saying, as if by the way, something very significant:

--"For God's sake don't read your work to any one until it is published. Don't read it to others in proof even."

This was always his own habit, although he sometimes made exceptions for his wife and sister. Formerly he is said to have been more communicative in this respect.

That was when he wrote a great deal and at great speed. He himself said that he used to write a story a day. E. T. Chekhov, his mother, used to say: "When he was still an undergraduate, Antosha would sit at the table in the morning, having his tea and suddenly fall to thinking; he would sometimes look straight into one's eyes, but I knew that he saw nothing. Then he would get his note-book out of his pocket and write quickly, quickly. And again he would fall to thinking...."

But during the last years Chekhov began to treat himself with ever increasing strictness and exactitude: he kept his stories for several years, continually correcting and copying them, and nevertheless in spite of such minute work, the final proofs, which came from him, were speckled throughout with signs, corrections, and insertions. In order to finish a work he had to write without tearing himself away. "If I leave a story for a long time,"--he once said--"I cannot make myself finish it afterwards. I have to begin again."

Where did he draw his images from? Where did he find his observations and his similes? Where did he forge his superb language, unique in Russian literature? He confided in nobody, never revealed his creative methods. Many note-books are said to have been left by him; perhaps in them will in time be found the keys to those mysteries. Or perhaps they will forever remain unsolved. Who knows? At any rate we must limit ourselves to vague hints and guesses.

I think that always, from morning to night, and perhaps at night even, in his sleep and sleeplessness, there was going on in him an invisible but persistent--at times even unconscious--activity, the activity of weighing, defining and remembering. He knew how to listen and ask questions, as no one else did; but often, in the middle of a lively conversation, it would be noticed, how his attentive and kindly look became motionless and deep, as if it were withdrawing somewhere inside, contemplating something mysterious and important, which was going on there. At those moments A. P. would put his strange questions, amazing through their unexpectedness, completely out of touch with the conversation, questions which confused many people. The conversation was about neo-marxists, and he would suddenly ask: "Have you ever been to a stud-farm? You ought to see one. It is interesting." Or he would repeat a question for the second time, which had already been answered.

Chekhov was not remarkable for a memory of external things. I speak of that power of minute memory, which women so often possess in a very high degree, also peasants, which consists in remembering, how a person was dressed, whether he has a beard and mustaches, what his watch chain was like or his boots, what color his hair was. These details were simply unimportant and uninteresting to him. But, instead, he took the whole person and defined quickly and truly, exactly like an experienced chemist, his specific gravity, his quality and order, and he knew already how to describe his essential qualities in a couple of strokes.

Once Chekhov spoke with slight displeasure of a good friend of his, a famous scholar, who, in spite of a long-standing friendship, somewhat oppressed Chekhov with his talkativeness. No sooner would he arrive in Yalta, than he at once came to Chekhov and sat there with him all the morning till lunch. Then he would go to his hotel for half an hour, and come back and sit until late at night, all the time talking, talking, talking.... And so on day after day.

Suddenly, abruptly breaking off his story, as if carried away by a new interesting thought, Anton Pavlovitch added with animation:

--"And nobody would guess what is most characteristic in that man. I know it. That he is a professor and a savant with a European reputation, is to him a secondary matter. The chief thing is that in his heart he considers himself to be a remarkable actor, and he profoundly believes that it is only by chance that he has not won universal popularity on the stage. At home he always reads Ostrovsky aloud."

Once, smiling at his recollection, he suddenly observed:

--"D'you know, Moscow is the most peculiar city. In it everything is unexpected. Once on a spring morning S., the publicist, and myself came out of the Great Moscow Hotel. It was after a late and merry supper. Suddenly S. dragged me to the Tversky Church, just opposite. He took a handful of coppers and began to share it out to the beggars--there are dozens standing about there. He would give one a penny and whisper: 'Pray for the health of Michael the slave of God.' It is his Christian name Michael. And again: 'for the servant of God, Michael; for Michael, the servant of God.' And he himself does not believe in God.... Queer fellow!" ...

I now approach a delicate point which may not perhaps please every one. I am convinced that Chekhov talked to a scholar and a peddler, a beggar and a litterateur, with a prominent Zemstvo worker and a suspicious monk or shop assistant or a small postman, with the same attention and curiosity. Is not that the reason why in his stories the professor speaks and thinks just like an old professor, and the tramp just like a veritable tramp? And is it not because of this, that immediately after his death there appeared so many "bosom" friends, for whom, in their words, he would be ready to go through fire and water?

I think that he did not open or give his heart completely to any one (there is a legend, though, of an intimate, beloved friend, a Taganrog official). But he regarded all kindly, indifferently so far as friendship is concerned--and at the same time with a great, perhaps unconscious, interest.

His Chekhovian _mots_ and those little _traits_ that astonish us by their neatness and appositeness, he often took direct from life. The expression "it displeasures me" which quickly became, after the "Bishop," a bye-word with a wide circulation, he got from a certain gloomy tramp, half-drunkard, half-madman, half-prophet. I also remember talking once with Chekhov of a long dead Moscow poet, and Chekhov glowingly remembered him, and his mistress, and his empty rooms, and his St. Bernard, "Ami," who suffered from constant indigestion. "Certainly, I remember,"--Chekhov said laughing gayly--"At five o'clock his mistress would always come in and ask: 'Liodor Tranitch, I say, Liodor Tranitch, is it not time you drank your beer?'" And then I imprudently said: "O, that's where it comes from in your 'Ward N 6'?"--"Yes, well, yes"--replied Chekhov with displeasure.

He had friends also among those merchants' wives, who, in spite of their millions and the most fashionable dresses, and an outward interest in literature, say "ideal" and "in principal." Some of them would for hours pour out their souls before Chekhov, wishing to convey what extraordinarily refined, neurotic characters they were, and what a remarkable novel could be written by a writer of genius about their lives, if only they could tell everything. And he would sit quietly, in silence, and listen with apparent pleasure--only under his moustache glided an almost imperceptible smile.

I do not wish to say that he _looked_ for models, like many other writers. But I think, that everywhere and always he saw material for observation, and this happened involuntarily, often perhaps against his will, through his long-cultivated and ineradicable habit of diving into people, of analyzing and generalizing them. In this hidden process was to him, probably, all the torment and joy of his creative activity.

He shared his impressions with no one, just as he never spoke of what and how he was going to write. Also very rarely was the artist and novelist shown in his talk. He, partly deliberately, partly instinctively, used in his speech ordinary, average, common expressions, without having recourse either to simile or picturesqueness. He guarded his treasures in his soul, not permitting them to be wasted in wordy foam, and in this there was a huge difference between him and those novelists who tell their stories much better than they write them.

This, I think, came from a natural reserve, but also from a peculiar shyness. There are people who constitutionally cannot endure and are morbidly shy of too demonstrative attitudes, gestures and words, and Anton Pavlovitch possessed this quality in the highest degree. Herein, maybe, is hidden the key to his _seeming_ indifference towards question of struggle and protest and his aloofness towards topical events, which did and do agitate the Russian intelligentsia. He had a horror of pathos, of vehement emotions and the theatrical effects inseparable from them. I can only compare him in this with a man who loves a woman with all the ardor, tenderness and depth, of which a man of refinement and great intelligence is capable. He will never try to speak of it in pompous, high-flown words, and he cannot even imagine himself falling on his knees and pressing his hand to his heart and speaking in the tremulous voice of a young lover on the stage. And therefore he loves and is silent, and suffers in silence, and will never attempt to utter what the average man will express freely and noisily according to all the rules of rhetoric.