1904
Assassination of Pleve, Minister of Interior, by Socialist revolutionaries. War with Japan Chekhov dies of TB on 15 July at Badenweiler in the Black Forest (Germany) Première of The Cherry Orchard at Moscow Art Theatre
NOTE ON TEXT
Chekhov’s stories (like most of the literature of the time) were not first published as separate books, but appeared in magazines or newspapers such as New Times, or in the thick journals, chiefly Russian Thought. Some of the stories were subsequently published in separate selections, such as Tales and Stories (1894).
In 1899 Chekhov made over the copyright of all his work (with the exception of the plays) to the publisher A. F. Marks in return for 75,000 roubles. Although the terms seemed favourable at the time, many of Chekhov’s friends felt he had been highly imprudent in signing the contract (Gorky unsuccessfully tried to get him to break the contract) as they considered the terms grossly inadequate. In addition the need to collate all the stories that had so far appeared in magazines and newspapers, together with meticulous editing and improving the material, taxed Chekhov sorely and was very time-consuming. The Marks edition was published in 1899–1901, in ten volumes, and reprinted in 1903. However, the main drawback of this edition was that the stories were not printed chronologically. The first scholarly edition, with full notes and commentary, was published in Moscow, 1944–51.
Between 1973 and 1983, the definitive thirty-volume edition, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniy i Pisem (Complete Collected Works and Letters) was published in Moscow, with extensive commentaries by leading Soviet Chekhov scholars. It is on this edition that these translations are based.
PATRONYMICS
Russian names consist of first name, patronymic and surname, the patronymic or middle name being derived from the father’s first name. For example, Chekhov’s middle name, Pavlovich, derives from his father’s first name, Pavel. In formal speech first name and patronymic are usuaclass="underline" a servant addressing his master would use both first name and patronymic. But a master would use only a first name when talking to a servant.
However, Chekhov does now and then use the direct equivalent of the English ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’. This is used to convey extreme formality; also, sarcasm on the part of the person using it – for example, when von Koren scoffs at Layevsky in ‘The Duel’. In both cases I have retained this form of address.
The Steppe
(THE STORY OF A JOURNEY)
I
Early one July morning a dilapidated springless brichka – one of those antediluvian carriages in which only merchants’ clerks, cattle dealers and impecunious priests travel in Russia these days – drove out of N—, the main town in Z— province and thundered along the post road. It rattled and squeaked at the slightest jolt – to the mournful accompaniment of a pail tied to the backboard. From these sounds alone and the pathetic leather strips dangling from its peeling chassis one could determine its great antiquity and fitness for the scrapheap.
Two residents of N— were seated in the brichka: a clean-shaven, bespectacled merchant in a straw hat by the name of Ivan Ivanych Kuzmichov who looked more like a civil servant than a merchant, and Father Khristofor Siriysky, senior priest of St Nicholas’s Church at N—, a small, long-haired old man wearing a grey canvas caftan, a broad-brimmed top hat and a colourful embroidered belt. The first was deep in thought and kept shaking his head to ward off sleep. His customary, cold, businesslike expression was at odds with the good humour of one who had just bid his family farewell and had drunk a glass or two. The second was gazing at God’s world in wonderment with his small moist eyes and with a smile so broad that it seemed even to take in the brim of his hat; his face was red and had a chilled look. Both Kuzmichov and Father Khristofor were on their way to sell wool. Just a few moments before, as they said farewell to their households, the two of them had heartily indulged themselves in cream doughnuts and despite the early hour had enjoyed a good drink… Both were in the best of moods.
Besides the above-mentioned gentlemen and Deniska, the coachman, who was tirelessly whipping the pair of sprightly bays, there was one other passenger in the carriage – a nine-year-old boy with a face that was brown from the sun and wet with tears. This was Yegorushka, Kuzmichov’s nephew. With his uncle’s permission and Father Khristofor’s blessing, he was on his way to grammar school. His mother, Olga Ivanovna – Kuzmichov’s sister and a minor civil servant’s widow, who doted on educated people and refined company – had prevailed upon her brother to take Yegorushka on his wool-selling trip and deliver him to the school. And now this boy, with no idea where or why he was travelling, was sitting on the box next to Deniska, clinging to his elbow to stop falling off and bobbing up and down like a kettle on the hob. The rapid motion made his red shirt billow out from his back like a balloon and his new, coachman-style hat with its peacock’s feather was constantly slipping onto the nape of his neck. He felt the most abject of mortals and just wanted to cry.
When the carriage passed the prison, Yegorushka looked at the guards slowly pacing up and down by the high white wall, at the small barred windows, at the glittering cross on the roof and he remembered how a week earlier, on the Day of Our Holy Lady of Kazan,1 he had gone with his mother to the prison chapel to celebrate the festival. And before that, at Easter, he had visited the prison with Lyudmila, the cook, and Deniska, and taken Easter cakes, eggs, pies and roast beef. The convicts had thanked them and crossed themselves – and one of them had given Yegorushka a pair of hand-made tin studs.
The boy gazed at these familiar places as that hateful carriage flashed past them, leaving everything in its wake. After the prison, black, sooty smithies flew by, and then the snug green cemetery enclosed by a cobblestone wall. From behind this wall white crosses and tombstones nestling in the foliage of the cherry trees gaily peeped out and from the distance they resembled white patches. Yegorushka remembered that when the cherry trees were in bloom those white patches would merge with the blossoms in a sea of white. And when the cherries ripened the white tombstones and crosses would be flecked with crimson spots, like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees, behind the wall, Yegorushka’s father and his grandmother, Zinaida Danilovna, slept day and night. When Grandmother had died they put her in a long narrow coffin and placed two five-copeck pieces over her eyes that would not close. Before she died she had been very much alive and used to bring him poppy-seed rolls from the market, but now she just slept and slept…
Beyond the cemetery were the smoking brickyards. Dense black smoke rose in great clouds from the squat reed-thatched roofs and drifted lazily upwards. The sky above the yards was murky and the big shadows cast by the clouds of smoke crept over the fields and across the road. Men and horses, covered in red dust, were moving about in the smoke by the roofs.
The town came to an end with the brickyards and the open country began. For the last time Yegorushka looked back at the town, pressed his face to Deniska’s elbow and wept bitterly.
‘Still blubbering, eh? Little cry-baby!’ said Kuzmichov. ‘Mama’s darling’s snivelling again! If you don’t want to come you’d better stay behind. No one’s forcing you.’
‘Never mind, Yegor my boy, never mind,’ Father Khristofor said in a rapid patter. ‘Never mind, boy… Call on God. It’s for a good purpose you’re travelling, not an evil one. As they say, knowledge is light and ignorance is darkness. Verily it is so!’