\W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. ‘Also Publishes [ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Drama: A Nonzon ANTHOLOGY led by Das Bevington ot a ‘Tue Nonron ANTHOLOGY OF AmnICAN AwenicaN LITERATURE led by Hy Ls Gates Jr ond Nolte ¥. Moy oa. ‘Tus Nonron ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE dtd by Nina Bayt “Tue NonTon ANTHOLOGY oF CriLpnen’s LerenaruRe eed by Jack i ‘Tue Nonron Astio4 bad by Ellen Gain Staton B. Gare ‘Tue Noxon AxtHotocy oF ENctisi LmERATure lay MH Abram ond Stophon Greet ‘Tur Nonrow Awraotocy oF Lrrenstune ay WoMen ‘ite ly Sondra 8. ilbrt and Suto Guar “Tue Nonton AwtHoLocy oF MopeRW aND Conte mPoRary POETRY iad by Jalan Rana chard Elian, and Robert Ole ‘Taz Norton Anriovocy oF Poetry edited by Margares Ferguson, Mar Jo Sle, an Jom lal hy ‘Tu Norton Anruotocy oF Suioxr Fiction, ited by RV. Cail ond Bihard Banach Tas Norton Axrto.ocy oF ThEony aNp Carricist etal ly Veen B. Leth et ‘Tus Nonrow AxtHoLoay oF Wont Lrrensrune etd ly Sarak Laval ue oP THe Figs Fouio oF SHAKESPEARE prepared hy Chron Hino ‘Tir Norton Facs ‘Tus NorTow Iwrnopuction 10 LirenaTune lita by Alto Both nd Kelly}. Mays ‘Tutt Nonron Reaner edited by Linda H. Parson and Joh C Breeton ‘Te Nonroy Saxouen ta by Thomas Caley Thr NonTow Suakesreane, Base oN rie Oxon Eprrion ~» A NORTON CRITICAL EDITION « ANTON CHEKHOV’S SHORT STORIES TEXTS OF THE STORIES BACKGROUNDS CRITICISM Sleced and Edited by RALPH E. MATLAW LATE OF “THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO W- W- NORTON & COMPANY New York LondonTSBN 0-393-045; ISBN 0-393-05002-7 pbk. Printed in the United States of Amerie, AL Rights Reser WLW. Norton & Company, In, 500 Fh Avenue, New York, NY. 1OLI0 2345675890338 + Karl Kramer miniature of Chekhov's art, and it bridges the gap between the ecstatic mood of the eccl and steppe stories of 1886 and 1887 and the lyricism of the prose of the 1900s, KARL KRAMER Stories of Ambiguity? two categories of 2 ind Edmund Wilson's initial example of ambig James’ work is The Turn of the Ser *$ on two opposed supp the ghasts; she Cleanth Brooks terpretation may appear than another for a given story; howe indicat wi enges from the reader's perce passages through< on Seton Type of Ambizty (New Yoxk, 188), Be We Ea EEE REESE eee Stories of Ambiguity + 339 | ssf ceaest examples of Cheklows ambiguity i his lt | elo: Bettothed (Nevesta, 1695) th uch 50 o begin here—because the ambiguity is closely ai je ly related to the prod- Tei fine dicused in the lat chapter and bosses fens Dos oF aut his only opportunity to watch Chethor ie fhe Procst of cotstracting a story which cam be eg ‘This is made poss fe has changed during the of a friend studying at the uni Fa year at and finds that she has Tooks forward to fnture. This inter ie Cherry a better future. 5 Soviet eon Ot worksBEES EEEEEReE eee eee 340 + Karl Kramer would see Nadya going The second posible interpretation wouk : through a series of awakenings and a process in which each new «jection of the previous one. We see such a process oment with the people who guide her. At the begin: believes that her mother Stories of Ambiguity «341 lesent bat say nothing really a in only that Nadya thought she would convey several facts about the the futu over Nadya, cher becomes increasingly ordinary Nadya can no Tonger understand why her mother ever struck her: question remains; cowly provincial life and will she find some %e condemned to an endless lusionments? It seems to me and this, of| i ought about feeling would pour ough her fk filed witha feeling of When she ‘ot there. Probably the rm 'w concern the presentation of Sasha's in several of the scenes just discussed, ‘When "ounces to Sasha that she is going away to study, she dee from his lips. She has no expects. 'd, he makes just the kind of speech version hopes to hes X, 44 " icant Sasha immediately plunges into talking am convinoed, be ir departure. people: w ously,” he began, frowning. “T ee de eds only to srt of Andreich rose up in ion and the naked lady with the vase {an eat poshle nd ing this speoch Chekhov reversed the conception seene. Indeed, Sesha de thus, ori which she ‘When she returns home for a ife—an observation Jn the final scene she is at home again on av ‘more, but as T went to ith in a better future and receiv ied, and then ogain new he went up to her room to a goadbye to her ovn, and vibra left the toun—as she supposed, forever” (IX, 450). These342+ Karl Kramer of herself than he can in the finished story. The final paragraph was also rewritten. Here is frst the origin and then the revised ves Stories of Ambiguity + 343 p to her room to pack and the next moming she left; ed a broad, pute life of labor (IX, 527) “Goodin, det Sh and before her sh We broad and not clea anew i ‘mysteries, attracted ler and beckoned her ip with him differs in two respects from and Pustovaloy, In the first place, the veterinarian ther parroting his opinions: “‘T've asked about things you don’t understand! When among themselves, please don't butt It’s really annoying? 322). In the second place, the ve narian does not die; he finally deserts Olenka to retum to his wi Now it could be more than coincidence that these two sets of Ge went up to her toom to pack, and the next moming she said goodbye te her own, and vibrant, joyful, left the town—as she supposed, forever (1%, 450)- ‘This rearrangement of the elements obviously indicates, it scems to ‘me, an effort to make Nadya’s future considerably less certain, to final doubt on her outcome. is a deliberate effort to plant ambi fof the story, then what is the significance of ity at the very ‘mother’s love she shows here, bu resents her fondling attentions, The fi back to bed and thinks of Sasha who is fast sly, Sesha is having a dream in which wolmates, but in view of the pattern estab- s, and in view of Sasha's ges rath represent? The traditional passive, This isthe vie , when he quotes with apy mn of Olenka’s character thi a love that would absorb her whole (Dushechka, 1898) it he rate, she compl ai over the opinions of her fst two husbands, Kukin and Post nator, at well as exerting her will in local goverment afairs at both of whom die. Describing her absorption of Kukin’s 04 ry turn.t Certainly she displays a despotic nature: she tyraninizes suse and her mother; she secks power in ougunization; there a crushes the beginnings of love f, However, to view the narator and Once psi, the “moda” Sova nt344 + Karl Kramer yy leaves a number of incidents and remarks unex- plained. We must Keep in mind the fact that we see Lide only through the narrator's eyes and that he himself vacates in his tude toward her, He begins by desesibing his life in the country: iemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely noth 6) impression of the two sisters, he ig Seemed to me young and paze, thanks to Missuse, end there was an atmosphere of ing” (IX, 89). He mak ance beginning to develop b the arts’ indolent ty and Lida’s a later scene when leas, she accuses in my work’ between Lida and the expects this of him. The possessor is nia [Missuse] thought thet as an artist T mm accurately guess at what T d her into the region of the ator, who vacillates between the extreme chatacter types of Misuse and Lida, who leads and is led by Missuse, who admices and abhors the strength of Lide’s persona the central charzcter in The Teacher of Literature slovesnost, 2854), if not ambivalent, is certainly shifty in Stories of Ambiguity + 345 ide toward his envionment. D. S. Mirsky is the spokesman indard interpretation of the story Chekhov excels in the at of ting the fst stage ofan ro- ist symptoms of a deviation ject 2 fepe ma that a th it ends by on with sells happiness and his nteletual ame that Nikitin comes a teal awareness of the false joubt about whether tional respon: fore, we have no means of knowing whether his feelings aze in any way permanent or simply the result of a combination of which make up his mood: “Since Nikitin had been in love with at the Shelestows pleased him: the house, the ind the wickerwork chairs and the old i ich the old man was fond reacting not to the Sheles- But I don’t look upon my has come to me by accident, as i perfectly natural, consister ‘awakening’: in bed one night he thinks that id... And he had a passionate poignant long: a, te rmself at some factory or big346+ Karl Kramer imself, to suffer another product of Nil 0 his experience, (VIN, 369-370). But this in's imagination; it bears no experience, is a revealing ref rmamiage Nikitin writes in cetings, our rides into the country, ther, which as though on pur. 1, 364) fitted in thought so delightful when has no influence over ear lter, "Spring was be the same joys notes in his diary: “There is not ge fom Nikitin’ die. OF dies contact with 28-4 vay of representing the fa from dhe. Bhat out peceton of eter) wer we fave no basis fr judging the appropri in responses, Ths, we ae eft not quite sertan to the actual world around him, or his moods, no more aesurate a telecon of ane: Corfe n0 ay of knoe am his prey ing for sure, and here ing, bt secondary importance. His vy are the two focuses preconception tory. The reader and he knows our perception of the what Gesrea the the then of ft it pointy ends In The Me von At et ‘coma Elord Stories of Ambiguity pattem and he asks how many “such men in shells were left, how ‘many more of them there will be” (IX, 264). Then Burkin and Ivan village, a Everything was sunk in deep, silent slumber, not movement, not a sound; one could hardly believe that nature could be 50 stil. When on 4 moonlit night you see a wide village street, with its cottages, its haystacks, and to sleep, a feeling of seren and sortow by the nocturnal shadows, the beautiful, and it scems as though the stars tenderly, and as if there were no 264) ‘The eatth itself is enveloped in a shell which Tulls one; the spisit of futliarnos’ spreads over the entire world. Burkin apparently suc- lecp. Ivan Ivanych, on the other crowded city, write use And that we spend our stupid, lazy wo ‘Now if yo documents, play whist—isn’t this a shell? ‘ole life among loafers, petty quancless, speak and hear various l you a very instructive story 265). ‘When Ivan Ivanych does tell his story in Gooseberries the con: fusions multiply because his behavior and even his words contradict hhis narrative. The two friends visit Alekhin’s estate in the country, ‘where their first action is to bathe. Ivan Ivanych is especially taken with his bath in the open air and continues to splash about rap- turously Jong after his companions have finished. The image that emerges is of a man who deeply loves the country from which he has long been cut off by life in the city. But his story concerns his brother, who retreats from city to country, to retire in the shell of a small estate, When Ivan Ivanych observes, “‘. . . I never sym- ppathized with his desire to lock himself up for his whole life on his ‘own country estate’ (IX, 269), his words fail to jibe with his hi ‘After expaning that his bt 's cramped style of living made350 + Karl Kramer the crowd in church ‘Thinking on his younger days, he is, tad et for somewhere faraway into -2nd now that X, 435). Cum ks of in a foreign country a more real thari his present life ‘The bishop does exist and he accurately perceives was standing there in ch 1om he should be closest. We stand in a p we refse to aesept our pringipal means -the evidence of our own fn ‘ee ing as to the bishop's ig at her uncle, hi person he to discover what sort of iat if he does not really exist, then there is id his existence is quickly forgotten by every- who would sometimes tell acquaintances her grandehildren, and about how she had had a bishop fearing that they not everyone did b rat wuld carry a lingering doubt about the ‘even of a hypothetical one, Her th to the bishop may imply her 0 in her ability aura of doubt itself hangs over the ending of The Bishop. -oncomnitant oodgates to a wi ch can ever be cotta _ ion, Chekhov's ambiguity inctly away from ing within a id forms a bridge between and the symbolist’s con- encompassed by a single realst’s singleplane view ception of heterogenous levels ("The Lady with the Dog] image The Bishop is an appropriate story with which to end an, 1 Chekhov's studies in the tenuous and uncertain nature of, ence in. a world whose exact proportions he is incapable ig, and where all truths are relative, Although this "vas not a consciously thought out and formulated ‘conception, nevertheles it is fundamental theme, wi pt at its denial, rans From the very earliest through the final stories that Chekhov verote, imate, though subdued, triumph sophic h ‘The last ten yeats represent the VIRGINIA LLEWELLYN SM’ 1e chameleon over the dream. The Lady with the Dogi © Chekhov was to 899). Love is reached as the hero, of Chekhov's narrative 4, For an cxcetlat dissusion of the these two stores are rather similar, and as in Neigh- sk to happiness lies in the fact of previous marriages— of the woman in About Love, of both lovers in The Lady with the Dog. Bat in tone they differ sharply from the eatler story. There is xno humor in them, only pathos and bittemess towards the fate that has brought about this situation, The emotional climax of About ‘Alekhin, parts with his beloved for ver: ‘oh, how suretched she and I were! I confessed my love to her, and with a searing pain in my heart I realized that everything that y of our love was imrelevant, mote restained, emotion is expressed in The Lady with and Anna Sergecena have fallen in love for the fst petty, and false.” A eat its most restrained andl moving. Tt has been shown that the theme of love being destroyed by a cruel fate did not always have for Chekhov the appeal of the tragic: