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Read Ebook: Note-Book of Anton Chekhov by Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Koteliansky S S Samuel Solomonovitch Translator Woolf Leonard Translator
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NOTE-BOOK OF ANTON CHEKHOV
Translated by S. S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF
This volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works which Anton Chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methods of his artistic production. Among his papers was found a series of sheets in a special cover with the inscription: "Themes, thoughts, notes, and fragments." Madame L.O. Knipper-Chekhov, Chekhov's wife, also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themes for his future work, quotations which he liked, etc. If he used any material, he used to strike it out in the note-book. The significance which Chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the fact that he recopied most of it into a special copy book.
ANTON CHEKHOV'S DIARY.
August 4. Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh, Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an icon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made a speech.
Vladimir Sloviov told me that he always carried an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,--in his opinion, it is a radical cure for piles.
October 17. Performance of my "Seagull" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. It was not a success.
On the 10th November I had a letter from A.F. Koni who says he liked my "Seagull" very much.
December 4. For the performance on the 17th October see "Theatral," No. 95, page 75. It is true that I fled from the theatre, but only when the play was over. In L.'s dressing-room during two or three acts. During the intervals there came to her officials of the State Theatres in uniform, wearing their orders, P.--with a Star; a handsome young official of the Department of the State Police also came to her. If a man takes up work which is alien to him, art for instance, then, since it is impossible for him to become an artist, he becomes an official. What a lot of people thus play the parasite round science, the theatre, the painting,--by putting on a uniform! Likewise the man to whom life is alien, who is incapable of living, nothing else remains for him, but to become an official. The fat actresses, who were in the dressing-room, made themselves pleasant to the officials--respectfully and flatteringly. They were old, respectable house-keepers, serf-women, whom the masters honored with their presence.
December 21. Levitan suffers from dilation of the aorta. He carries clay on his chest. He has superb studies for pictures, and a passionate thirst for life.
From January 10 to February 3 busy with the census. I am enumerator of the 16th district, and have to instruct the other enumerators of our Bavykin Section. They all work superbly, except the priest of the Starospassky parish and the Government official, appointed to the Zemstvo, G., ; he is away nearly all the time in Serpukhovo, spends every evening at the Club and keeps on wiring that he is not well. All the rest of the Government officials of our district are also said to do nothing.
Between "there is a God" and "there is no God" lies a whole vast tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little.
The ease with which Jews change their religion is justified by many on the ground of indifference. But this is not a justification. One has to respect even one's indifference, and not change it for anything, since indifference in a decent man is also a religion.
February 13. Dinner at Mme. Morosov's. Tchouprov, Sololevsky, Blaramberg, Sablin and myself were present.
February 15. Pancakes at Soldatienkov's . Only Golziev and myself were present. Many fine pictures, nearly all badly hung. After the pancakes we drove to Levitan, from whom Soldatienkov bought a picture and two studies for 1,100 roubles. Met Polyenov . In the evening I was at professor Ostroumov's; he says that Levitan "can't help dying." O. himself is ill and obviously frightened.
February 19. Dinner at the "Continental" to commemorate the great reform . Tedious and incongruous. To dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people, freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the street, in the bitter cold--that is lying to the Holy Ghost.
February 22. I went to Serpukhovo to an amateur performance in aid of the school at Novossiolki. As far as Zarizin I was accompanied by ... a little queen in exile,--an actress who imagines herself great; uneducated and a bit vulgar.
From March 25 till April 10 I was laid up in Ostroumov's clinic. Haemorrhage. Creaking, moisture in the apices of both my lungs; congestion in the apex of the right. On March 28 L.N. Tolstoi came to see me. We spoke of immortality. I told him the gist of Nossilov's story "The Theatre of the Voguls," and he evidently listened with great pleasure.
May 1. N. arrived. He is always thanking you for tea and dinner, apologizing, afraid of being late for the train; he talks a great deal, keeps mentioning his wife, like Gogol's Mijniev, pushes the proofs of his play over to you, first one sheet then another, giggles, attacks Menshikov, whom Tolstoi has "swallowed"; assures you that he would shoot Stassiulevitch, if the latter were to show himself at a review, as President of the Russian Republic; giggles again, wets his mustaches with the soup, eats hardly anything, and yet is quite a nice man after all.
May 4. The monks from the monastery paid us a visit. Dasha Moussin-Poushkin, the wife of the engineer Gliebov, who has been killed hunting, was there. She sang a great deal.
May 24. I was present at the examination of two schools in Tchirkov.
July 13. Opening of the school at Novossiolki which I have had built. The peasants gave me an icon with an inscription. The Zemstvo people were absent.
Braz does my portrait . Two sittings a day.
July 22. I received a medal for my work on the census.
September 4. Arrived in Paris. "Moulin Rouge," danse du ventre, Caf? du N?on with Coffins, Caf? du Ciel, etc.
September 14. Bayonne. Grande course landoise. Bull-fight.
September 22. From Biarritz to Nice via Toulouse.
October 7. Confession of a spy.
October 9. I saw B.'s mother playing roulette. Unpleasant sight.
November 15. Monte Carlo. I saw how the croupier stole a louis d'or.
April 16. In Paris. Acquaintance with M.M. Antokolsky and negotiations for a statue of Peter the Great.
May 5. Returned home.
An example of clerical boorishness. At a dinner party the critic Protopopov came up to M. Kovalevsky, clinked glasses and said: "I drink to science, so long as it does no harm to the people."
September 12. I was at L. Tolstoi's.
December 7. Talked to L. Tolstoi over the telephone.
ANTON CHEKHOV'S NOTE-BOOKS
Mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life.
Solomon made a great mistake when he asked for wisdom.
Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But don't be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance. They are not eagles, but rats or dogs.
Those who are more stupid and more dirty than we are called the people. The administration classifies the population into taxpayers and non-taxpayers. But neither classification will do; we are all the people and all the best we are doing is the people's work.
If the Prince of Monaco has a roulette table, surely convicts may play at cards.
Iv. could philosophize about love, but he could not love.
Why did Hamlet trouble about ghosts after death, when life itself is haunted by ghosts so much more terrible?
A bedroom. The light of the moon shines so brightly through the window that even the buttons on his night shirt are visible.
A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog....
A certain Councillor of State, looking at a beautiful landscape, said: "What a marvelous function of nature!" From the note-book of an old dog: "People don't eat slops and bones which the cooks throw away. Fools!"
He had nothing in his soul except recollections of his schooldays.
The French say: "Laid comme un chenille"--as ugly as a caterpillar.
People are bachelors or old maids because they rouse no interest, not even a physical one.
The children growing up talked at meals about religion and laughed at fasts, monks, etc. The old mother at first lost her temper, then, evidently getting used to it, only smiled, but at last she told the children that they had convinced her, that she is now of their opinion. The children felt awkward and could not imagine what their old mother would do without her religion.
There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.
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