57 German: one, two, three.
58 In the Russian, Charlotta confuses her genders, using the masculine singular instead of the feminine plural.
59 German: A good man, but a bad musician. A catchphrase from the comedy Ponce de Leon by Clemens von Brentano (1804), meaning an incompetent, another version of nedotyopa.
60 Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817–1875), Russian poet; his fustian ballad “Greshnitsa” (1858) was frequently recited at public gatherings, and even inspired a painting. It is about a Magdalen and her repentance at a feast in Judaea under the influence of Christ. Chekhov, who had a low opinion of Tolstoy’s poetry, cites it in his stories to ironic effect. The title refers back to Ranevskaya’s catalogue of sins in Act Two. The opening lines of the poem also comment by contrast on the dowdiness of her balclass="underline"
The people seethe; joy, laughter flash
The lute is twanged, the cymbals clash.
Fern fronds and flowers are strewn about,
And ’twixt the columns in th’arcade
In heavy folds the rich brocade
With ribbon broderie is decked out . . .
61 The treatment is to soak the wax in water, and then drink the water.
62 Title and opening line of a ballad by N. S. Rzhevskaya (1869).
63 George Calderon states that this is “a cant jocular phrase, a literary tag. Lopakhin is quoting out of some bad play, as usual when he is lively.” Chekhov uses it in his correspondence.
64 Yasha is distorting a phrase usually applied to welcome arrivals.
65 These lines did not exist in the first version of the play but were added to support Chekhov’s view of Lopakhin as a decent person.
66 This line does not appear in any of the printed editions but was improvised in performance by Ivan Moskvin. It got a laugh, and he asked if he could keep it in. “Tell Moskvin he can insert the new lines, and I will put them in myself when I read the corrected proofs. I give him the most complete carte blanche” (Chekhov to Olga Knipper, March 20, 1904). Somehow, Chekhov never did insert the line in the proofs, but it appears penciled in to the Moscow Art Theatre prompt script.
67 Another echo of Hamlet to Ophelia: “If you are honest and fair, your honesty could admit no props to your fairness” (Act II, scene 1).
68 The British often appear in nineteenth-century Russian fiction as progressive and enterprising businessmen. They were often hired as estate managers, land surveyors, or experts in animal husbandry. The uncle of the writer Nikolay Leskov was a Scotsman who managed several vast Russian estates for their aristocratic owners.
69 French: go on!
70 Sitting down for a brief while before leaving for a journey was an old Russian custom.
71 Pentecost or Whitsunday, always the Sunday that is closest to fifty days from Russian Easter.
APPENDIX
LOST AND UNWRITTEN PLAYS
Taras Bulba [Tapac Бyль·a], 1873–1874
According to Scriba (E. A. Solovyev-Andreevich), “A. P. Chekhov as remembered by his relatives,” Priazovsky kray 180 (1904), Chekhov’s earliest literary effort was a dramatization of Nikolay Gogol’s novel about Cossacks as a tragedy.
He Met His Match [Haшлa koca нa kaмeнь], 1878
From a letter of Aleksandr P. Chekhov to his younger brother Anton, October 14, 1878:
He Met His Match is written in excellent language and very characteristic of each of the persons you introduce, but your plot is quite trifling. This latest manuscript of yours, which, for the sake of convenience, I passed off as my own, I read to my comrades, people of taste, including S. Solovyev, the author of [the comedy] A Suburban Suitor.1 In every case the verdict was this: “The style is excellent, there’s some know-how, but not much observation and no experience of everyday life. In time, qui sait?,2 a professional writer might evolve.”
The Hen Has Good Reason to Cluck [He‰apoм kypицa пeлa], early 1880s
Mikhail P. Chekhov, Around Chekhov (Moscow, 1964):
When he was a student in the 7th class, Anton Pavlovich wrote [. . .] an awfully funny vaudeville The Hen Has Good Reason to Cluck and sent it [. . .] to us in Moscow to read aloud. [. . .] What became of the vaudeville, I don’t know.
The Clean-Shaven Secretary with the Pistol [Бpит‚ый cekpeтaapь cпиcтoлeтoм], early 1880s
Mikhail P. Chekhov, On Chekhov (Moscow, 1910):
He put into this vaudeville the editorial office of a newspaper with a double bed in it. One of the reporters brought an inept poem to be printed. And so Anton Pavlovich had to make up specially a particularly inept poem, in which the word “headlong” was to be repeated four times. Here is the poem:
Forgive me, my angel white as snow,
Friend of my days and my tender ideal,
That I, love forgot, rush there headlong,
Where death befalls . . . O, I am terrified! . . .
( . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . )
I go back to the grave with tear-stained eyes.
“The last line is a bit morbid,” says the editor to the hero of the vaudeville, “but the main thing is knowing how to recite.”
Mikhail P. Chekhov, Theatre, Actors and ‘Tatyana Repina’ (Petrograd, 1924):
. . . Chekhov did not send this vaudeville to the theatrical censor and, unfortunately, I know nothing about its fate.
A Parody of Drugged by Life [Пapo‰ия нa пьecy “Чa‰ жизни], 1884.
Chekhov to Nikolay Leikin,3 January 30, 1884:
Drugged by Life was written in the town of Voskresensk last summer, almost before my eyes. I also know the author, and his friends whom he mercilessly slights with his slander in his Abysses and Crises . . . Ashanin (former theater manager Begichev), Vycheslavtsev (former singer Vladislavtsev) and many other acquaintances of my family circle . . . It might be possible to do a little slandering of one’s own, hiding behind a pseudonym.4
Leikin to Chekhov, February 19, 1884:
The parody of B. Markevich’s play was already set up, when I got your letter not to print the parody, and I ordered the type to be dismantled.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark [Haмлeт, Пpинц ‰aтckий], 1887
Aleksandr P. Lazarev-Gruzinsky,5 “Lost Novels and Plays of Chekhov,” Energy (Énergiya) 3 (Petersburg, 1913):
On one of my next visits he presented me with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
“Take this playlet away with you to Kirzhach, A. S.! I began it, but I’m too lazy to finish it. I’m too busy and worn out by Ivanov. Write an ending, we’ll work it over together.”
I pled that I had never written a play and was afraid to disappoint the hopes he invested in me as a dramatist.
“Stuff and nonsense! You’ve got to begin some time, dear boy. Plays are our bread and butter. Write twenty plays, they’ll make you a whole fortune!”
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark had been begun by Chekhov on a quire of writing paper stitched into a notebook. This was Chekhov’s favorite meed of paper for more or less major items. On similar quires The Steppe had been written. Shorter stories he most often wrote on long, narrow strips of thin writing or letter paper. For Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Chekhov had written a list of the intended characters, to whom I might still add a few persons, as I wished, and about 200 to 250 lines of text [. . .] The criticism of theatrical manners was meant, among other things, to refer to the levity of backstage mores (Ophelia was supposed to appear to be cheating on Hamlet) and harshly tweak provincial impresarios for their stinginess, lack of culture, etc. Chekhov’s view of them was the gloomiest.