Anton Chekhov The Russian Master
and Other Stories
O X I O R I) VVOR L D'S C LA S S I C S
THE WORLD'S CLASSICS
THE RUSSIAN MASTER AND OTHER STORIES
Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in south Russia, the son of a poor grocer. At the age of nineteen he followed his family to Moscow, where he studied medi- cine and helped to support the household by writing comic sketches for popular magazines. By the end of the i88os he was established as a writer of serious fiction, and had some experience as a playwright, while continu- ing to practise medicine on the small estate he had bought near Moscow. It was there that he wrote his innovatory drama The Seagull. Its disastrous opening performance was the cruellest blow of Chekhov's professional life, but its later successful production by the Moscow Art Theatre led to his permanent associ- ation with that company, his marriage to its leading actress, Olga Knipper, and his increasing preoccupation with the theatre. Forced by ill-health to move to Yalta in 1898 he wrote there, despite increasing debility, his two greatest plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. The prcmiere of the latter took place on his forty-fourth birthday. Chekhov died six months later, on 2july 1904.
Ronald Hingley, Emeritus Fellow of St Anthony's College, Oxford, has edited and translated The Oxford Chekhov (9 volumes), and is the author of A New Life of Attton Chekhov (also published by Oxford University Press).
THE WORLD'S CLASSICS
ANTON CHEKHOV
The Russian Master
and Other Stories
Trauslated u>ith aii introductiou aud noies hy konaldiiini;ley
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Chekhov, A. P. The Russian imaster and other sl^^.—(The Wurld's classics) I. TitU 11. Hingky, Rcmald 891.73'3[F] PG3456 ISBN 0-19-281680-2
Library of Cmgreu Catalogmg in Publication Data Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904. The Ri^&n imaster and otther st^te. (The Wurld's clasics) Bibliography: p. I. Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904-Tran.rlatioru, English. I. Hinglry, Rcmald. ll. TitU. PG3456.A15H56 1984 891.73'3 83-23719 1SBN 0-19-281680-2 (pbk.)
Printed in Great Britain BPCC HauU Books Ayksbury, Bu.cks
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Select Bibliography xii
A Chronology of Anton Chckhov xiii
his wife I
{Cynpyza, 1899)
A lady with A dog 7
(/laMa c coĉauKoŭ, i 899)
the duel 22
(Jly9Ab, I 89 I)
a hard case it4
( lfeAoeeK 8 r/Jymjinpe, 1898)
gooseberries 126
(KpblJICOSHUK, 1898)
concerning love 136
(0 Af06eu, I 898)
peasants i44
(MyJICuKu, 1897)
angel I72
(l(ywe11Ka, i 898)
the russian master 183
( Y11umeAb cAosecHocmu, 1894)
terror 203
(Cmpax, 1892)
the prder of st. anne 2i4
(Arma Ha wee, 1895) Notes 227
INTRODUCTION
The clcvcn itcms in this book liavc bccn choscn from the short storics of the author's maturity (1888-1904). Onc of thesc, 'The Russian Master, will bc famili.Tr to somc rcadcrs undcr thc :irgu:ibly in:iccur:ite titlc given to it by othcr translators: l'lie Tcacher of Literatnre. So Chekhovian a work is it that it might almost be called, without disparagemcnt, a parody of the mastcr by himsclf. Hcre wc havc the usual romantic illusions about love and marriagc shipwrcckcd on the usual subnicrgcd rcefs of domestic triviality and provincial vulgarity: all forming a most original sermon on thc themc 'man docs not livc by brcad alonc'.
The Russiati Master has a fascinating history. In 1889 Chckhov publishcd what is now thc first of its two chaptcrs as a sclf- containcd story undcr a diffcrcnt title, Mediocrities. It thcn had thc happy cnding which thc tcxt of Chaptcr I still rctains, cxccpt, of course, that Chaptcr II now follows it, gradually but rcmorsclcssly rcvcrsing any such impression. As it happcns, wc know why Chekhov originally publishcd his story in this incompletc and mislcadingly optimistic form. Hc had read out a draft of what is now Chaptcr I to membcrs of his familv, confiding in them his intention of providing a continuation in which hc would blow his young couplc's happiness 'to smithcrccns'. Only whcn thcse kind- hcartcd listcncrs had appcalcd to him not to spoil the cnding did he agree to publish thc story in truncatcd form. But the happily- ending Mediocrities of 1889 turned out too 'sloppy' in its author's vicw, and by 1894 he was ready with the vcry diffcrcnt vcrsion, cxpandcd and transformcd by the addition of thc astringcnt Chaptcr II, which we have hcrc.