Le vent se lève!... il faut tenter de vivre!
Paul Valéry, Le cimetière marin, Charmes (1922)
In Pintura Constructiva, the painting from the home of this website, Joaquín Torres-García shows us “different aspects of reality that co-exist within a hierarchical philosophical structure, which ascends from the instinctive or sensorial level to the realm of spirituality and emotion, ultimately reaching, at the highest level, the domain of the intellectual”. I try to find what form that hierarchical philosophical structure takes for me. In this essay, I look at right and wrong through The Letter (1887), by Anton Chekhov. As all things that one does for the first time, I do it shyly and not very capably; the essay is mostly an illustration of how I read a short story. I decided to call it “Part I”, because I want to write a “Part II”, where I contrast this story to Historia de Rosendo Juárez (1970), by Jorge Luis Borges — hopefully, in a less descriptive, more analytical way than here — and in a final “Part III”, I aim to discover what I actually want to say, and say it.
It doesn't make much sense to read the below without reading first the story. It is here, although that translation is not the one I read (I read Rosamund Bartlett's translation of Chekhov from About Love and Other Stories, published by Oxford University Press).
Chekhov's The Letter (1887) very first line describes archdeacon Fyodor Orlov as “a handsome portly man of about fifty, pompous and austere as always”. He is very tired and all that occupies his mind at the moment is: when would his guest finally leave? His guest is Father Anastasy, a priest from a village nearby.
Anastasy is “an old man of about sixty-five, prematurely decript”, who has “a long narrow back like that of a fish”, and so on. Notice how, just in the first 3/4 of the first page, we already have a world of a difference between these two characters. Anastasy is a big loser (he has “nine children living off him who were failures just like he was”). He is there trying to score some points with the archdeacon because he has been forbidden from conducting services. This happened because of his drinking, not observing the fasts, not getting along with the clergy, etcetera, etcetera. The handsome Archdeacon has worked a lot the day before and wants to go to bed, but this guy won't catch a hint. He even knows he is bothering the archdeacon and kept planning to get up and leave, but “somehow it didn't happen”, so he's just there.
Why does Chekhov write this? Why do we have this start where this portly man is being annoyed by this loser who cannot leave? To me, the answer is that Chekhov needs this to set up the context for what is about to happen, and what I think is the first key majestic moment of the story: Anastasy suddenly — note the “suddenly”, it is alerting us that the story is going to advance now — remembers that the archdeacon has only about two hours of rest before having to conduct Easter service, so he “became so ashamed of his unwelcome, disagreeable presence that he decided to get up at once and give the exhausted man some rest”. However, instead of doing so, he starts coughing and looking “searchingly”, with a look of vague expectation and a face that reflected “a mixture of shame, timidity, and pathetic, forced merritment, of the kind exhibited by people who have no self-respect”. With this face is that he asks the archdeacon, before leaving, “to be given... just a little glass of vodka!” There were no emojis when Chekhov wrote the story, but I'm sure today's version of that sentence would end with a “:)”.
Obviously, the archdeacon denies it, harshly. So Anastasy becomes even more embarrased and “sank back down on to the chair, forgetting his decision to go home”. The archdeacon pities him when he sees his “bewildered, disconcerted face”.
The entire story is a masterpiece, and this moment in particular is to me one of the best things I've ever read. Note the structure of what is going on:
Father Anastasy, a drunk, big time loser, is visiting fifteen-years-younger, handsome, portly, hard-working archdeacon Fyodor Orlov, because the former has been forbidden to conduct services due to being a drunk loser,
he is overstaying his visit, annoying the archdeacon and not allowing him to rest,
he realizes this, so he gets very ashamed and gets up at once to leave;
but, before, what Chekhov told us is a drunk loser now has to be a drunk loser, so, since he is feeling ashamed, he does what drunk losers, or more generally, people who have no self-respect, do: looks for the way to humiliate himself in order to feel even more ashamed,
brilliantly (this might sound ironic but its not, I mean Chekhov is being brilliant), he convinces himself that the best thing to do is to ask ever-correct Fyodor for... “a little glass of vodka!”, because surely Fyodor will agree that what they need now is alcohol, right?
so Anastasy gets what he asked for: he gets a harsh no, and he humiliates himself and feels even more ashamed now. Chekhov told us Anastasy is a failure, so he delivers again: instead of just leaving, Anastasy is so embarrassed at asking for vodka that he sinks back to the couch and forgets his first embarrassment, so that he — what a loser! — is now back at overstaying his visit!
(Nabokov says “No author has ever created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has, characters who can often be summed up by the quotation from his story 'In the Cart': 'How strange, she reflected, why does God give sweetness of nature, sad, nice, kind eyes, to weak, unhappy useless people — and why are they so attractive?'” This is p. 250 of Lectures on Russian Literature)
My writing may suggest that I'm enjoying the fact that Anastasy is such a big loser; I am not. I'm just emphasizing how Chekhov promised us a loser in Anastasy, at the beginning of the story, and how he is delivering now by making Anastasy behave as a huge loser. Chekhov himself emphasizes the loser quality of Anastasy in the paragraph when he says that, to Father Fyodor, “the old man seemed not so much depraved and guilty as oppressed, abused, and unhappy”, and that he thinks that “the best thing which could happen to Father Anastasy now would be for him to die as quickly as possible and leave this world forever”. That is, in this paragraph (in a short story, every paragraph and every sentence is doing work) Chekhov is telling us not to mistake Anastasy for a bad person, for he is not: he is a just a loser.
The point that I'm making, however, goes beyond the “being a loser”; the point is that he is something, that in this case is a loser, and I emphasize the verb is because, in this story, every character is defined as something. They are something very well defined. Anastasy is not a character who has the characteristic of being a loser, anastasy is a loser. He exists because he is a loser, and he stops existing at being a loser. I will keep with the story now and make this point twice more, with the other two characters.
Note now how easily Chekhov advances the story. In four words, Chekhove moves us from this to something new: “footsteps could be heard”. We are now ready for the plot to advance, and the plot advanced is, for we are now introduced to Deacon Lyubimov, “an old but hearty man”. This character is way less described than the other two. Unlike before, Chekhov barely gives us anything about him before he starts “acting”. However, we kind of know a lot, already. Note that Fyodor is an archdeacon, and Anastasy is a simple priest. This guy is a deacon, i.e., something in the middle between the two characters of whom we know a lot about. Moreover, we know that Fyodor is handsome and energetic, and Anastasy is old and decrepit. This new guy is “old but hearty”, again telling us to think of him as something “in between” these two polar characters that we know by now. Isn't that good writing?
He comes and sits to tell, embarrassed — did you notice? embarrassment again — the archdeacon of his talk with his acquaintance, who tells him that his son Pyotr is behaving badly, eating Turkey during Lent. In the next paragraph, the archdeacon stands up and says that there are two types of people who do not observe fasts, and puts Pyotr in the category of those who don't because of lack of faith. Finishing, he says “ah, yes”, as if agreeing with himself.
Why is this paragraph there? Note that this is not explicitly advancing the story, that is, you can pretend this paragraph is not there and the story still makes sense. So why does Chekhov include it? Remember, in a short story, everything is doing work. To me, the paragraph is subtletly reinforcing a point, and the point is that the archdeacon is error-free: he is being told the story of a sinner, and he sees through it to the bone of the problem, lack of faith. Having found the reason of the failure, he feels satisfied and says “ah, yes”.
Pyotr not only eats Turkey, but also lives with a woman he is not married to, for three years already, “and there are no children”, says the deacon, which I am not yet sure whether to interpet as a good or bad thing... perhaps if there were children, then they would have married.
Anastasy interrupts to make fun of the deacon, the way drunks do, and the archdeacon tells him to not interfere. This is a small detail that will mount in a bit.
At a bit more of detail, the archdeacon gets angry, remembering that he always had a dislike for Pyotr, since the gymnasium (high school). He always knew he wasn't proper — in fact, he says those very same words a little after to the deacon. Annoyed, he wants to know what the deacon wants from him. The annoyance and intense emotions from the guy we know is well-adjusted suggests the story is about to advance, again.
Fyodor tells the deacon that what he sowed he must now reap — note that this common saying has a biblical origin, Galatians 6:7. He (the deacon) is to blame; it is shameful that his son behaves like this. The deacon “raises his guilty eyes to the archdeacon” to speak. Note the strength of emotions being invoked by Chekhov: shame and guilt.
We now learn a bit more about the deacon, beyond him being some “in between” of the archdeacon and the priest. He says that he was a good father, who spared him (Pyotr) nothing, and prayed to God dilligently for him. If he wasn't able to direct his son's mind, it's because he is simply not capable of it. He exemplifies by saying that he would tell Pyotr to go to church and he would ask: “Why? What's the point?” or tell him everything is relative, i.e., outsmarting him.
What is this doing? Once more, we see Chekhov remarkably delivering. We got a very concise promise of a character in between the two we already knew when we got introduced to the deacon, and now Chekhov is telling us: look, here you are. Why do I say this? Note the deacon is incapable of giving any answers to his entitled son, and he realizes so. He is incapable of managing his son, something that would never happen to the archdeacon, but he is way more self-aware of his limitations than Anastasy is.
A second time, Anastasy starts laughing and coughing, half-interrupting the scene. He seems to be glad there are other sinners in the world apart from him. The archdeacon again uses the same phrase to make him quiet. Why do we need this in the story? Consider again reading the story with this bit, and it again still works. Why then include it? Well, for the rest of the story, we will need Anastasy to have been present during this conversation, so what can Chekhov do with him? He does just enough: Chekhov keeps him in our minds by periodically making him laugh and cough.
The archdeacon — same as when he reprimands Anastasy when he asks for vodka, which I didn't mention above — feels sorry for the deacon, and decides to be less stern than before, but keeping his stance: “you're the one who is to blame, deacon, you know”, he says, more lightly.
There is silence now, and the archdeacon is yawning of tiredness, and thinking of tomorrow, which approaches fast. The deacon knows this, but he is desperate to be told what to do, so he pleads once more, until we get to an important advancement: the letter writing. The deacon can't write, he is not very smart; however, he is smart enough to know that the archdeacon is smarter than his son, and he can write a good letter. So they agree, and the letter writing starts.
The letter is strong. To me, it is particularly interesting when it says “i will not list your flaws here, since you are already well aware of them”. The story does enough to praise the letter, but I particularly liked that bit, for they seem to be the very just words, whereas us non-archdeacons are always saying either too much or too little...
Anyways, the deacon cannot be happier. He just got the solutions to his problem. The letter will set his son straight. What is more, he knows it. The archdeacon, who had forgotten his tiredness, is again tired and tells the deacon to leave. He takes Anastasy, who has been kept on scene by Chekhov, with him.
Note that now, as far as the story goes, we are in completely uncharted territory: we don't have our portly man anymore with us. This will be key to what is coming, and I will come back to it later.
It is the eve of Easter Sunday now, and the two men are walking together. Why is it Easter Sunday? Remember, Chekhov chose to make it so that Anastasy and the deacon are walking in Easter Sunday, and not on any other day. To me, he does this to show just how good the archdeacon is: he has just worked a lot, and he has a lot of work to do tomorrow, on Easter Sunday, perhaps the most important catholic holiday. Chekhov could also have chosen Christmas, but the Easter weather was probably a better fit, and this is mentioned below: “the soft still air smelt of spring and holidays”.
They are walking together, amazed at the letter. The deacon is cheered up and calmed down. Note this key detail, now, by Chekhov: “the awareness of having fulfilled his parental duty and his great faith in the letter's power had returned his sense of humor and bonhomie”. What is Chekhov telling us here? He is quietly emphasizing the character of the deacon, i.e., that he is smart enough to realize that he has, in his hands, the solution to the problem that worried him so much. He is happy for he knows this is the solution. He just needs to send the letter.
We have now arrived to a great moment. The deacon says the woman living with his son is dreadful, and Anastasy disagrees, saying “well, maybe he wants her there”. Okay, we accept that without much thought. But, why does Chekhov make him disagree? He is preparing us for what will come right after: the suggestion that the deacon don't send the letter. Why do I say Chekhov is preparing us? Well, he once more uses this kind of detail in the story, almost an ornament (but more than that), to tell us “hey, this guy is thinking something that goes against what I've been telling you so far”. Now that we have been suggested something is up, we get the big reveal: Anastasy thinks the deacon shouldn't send the letter. He will read the letter, and what then?
What the heck? The deacon is amazed at such a thought and tells him that he is responsible to God, to which Anastasy replies God will forgive him for his kindness. The deacon rightly points out that he is supposed to teach his son...“right?” and Anastasy says something like “yeah, I guess, but why call him a heathen? he'll be offended by that...” I am retelling the dialogue because I think it is a marvelous discussion over good and bad and punishment, which I want to address in the future. Storywise, we are now about to learn a great deal about Anastasy.
They now reach the deacon's house. It's tiny and he lives with his bed-ridden sister, whom he feared (why all this? I have some thoughts, but want to think more about it). Anastasy sees the table set for Easter, with cakes and all, and “for some reason” starts crying “probably because he was remembering his own home”, and then started laughing to cover it. Take a second to appreciate the beauty of this sentence. For contrast, look at the sentence before, when Chekhov tells us “Father Anastasy came inside too”. It's a fact, A just did B. Chekhov doesn't write “Anastasy came inside, for some reason, probably because it was windy outside”. However, he does write “for some reason started crying”, and then doesn't tell us why (and Chekhov is the one inventing Anastasy!), he tells us it is probably because he missed his own home. Why do this? Well, isn't it easy for you to just come inside anyone's house too? But then, it is not that easy to talk about your feelings, right? It is not that easy to look at the source, deep inside you, of those tears that come all of a sudden. Why is Chekhov world famous? It's because he gets all of what I'm saying, and he is so skilled that he can put the whole of humanity into a guy that just enters a house, and starts crying for some reason, which is the only reason to cry over.
What does someone who is a loser and a drunk do in this situation? Well, drink. So Anastasy asks for a little glass of vodka, because that's who he is. He is sad at looking at the table, because he misses his home and he is in pain at how everything is going bad for him (forbidden from giving services, etcetera), and do you think he will decide to get sober and get his shit together, to live happily ever after? This is not Hollywood, you big, big silly. So he will, tenderly and good heartedly as he is, drink just a little glass of vodka. Isn't life beautifully tragic?
Note also the disinterest from the deacon, who doesn't even reply: he is thinking of the letter. It's as if the characters are not even together at this point. They are both immersed in themselves.
“Don't send it!” says Anastasy again, to the deacon who is admiring the letter. He says this while pouring himself a second glass of vodka, as if oblivious of his actions. Take another moment to appreciate this second part of the sentence. The story would not be the same without this minor pointers that go to the very heart of the characters. Whereas the archdeacon is dignified, the deacon is aware of his short intellect, the priest is oblivious of his actions. The hierarchy in the “quality” of the characters is once and again emphasized, with extreme skill.
Now let us look at what Anastasy says. He tells the deacon to just forget about the matter and forgive his son... let me copy such a beautiful passage here:
“Forgive him and just forget about it! It's a question of conscience, Father. If his own father won't forgive him, who will? Is he going to live without forgiveness? Think about it, Father: there are plenty of people who are going to punish him without you weighing in as well; you should be looking for people to be nice to him! I'll... I'll just have a little drink, my friend... Last one... Now you just take that letter and write: I forgive you Pyotr! He will understand! And he will get the message! I know he will, my friend... Father, I mean; I know from my own experience. I used to live like other people and didn't have too many worries, but now that I have fallen from the one true path, all I want is for kind people to forgive me. And think about it: it's not the people who live righteously who need forgiving but the sinners. Why should you forgive your old lady here if she is not a sinner? No, you should be forgiving to people who you feel pity for... really!
Anastasy propped his head up on his fist and became lost in thought.
'It's awful!' he said with a sigh, clearly struggling with his desire for another drink. 'Awful! I was born in sin, lived in sin, and will die in sin... Lord, forgive me! I have lost my way, Father! There is no salvation for me! And it's not as if I lost my way earlier in my life, but in old age, when I'm about to die... I...' ”
Anastasy is a loser. I am now remembering that comment Saunders wrote in his book, where he says that we ask of the story “is this character good or bad?” to which Chekhov replies “yes”. I'm not sure I can convey just how much is condensed in those three short paragraphs. First, note how much the character Anastasy has gained in depth. Do we still think of him as a loser? Well, he has another drink while talking about forgiveness and sin, that is, he is sinning while asking for forgiveness. He will shortly be “clearly struggling with his desire for another drink” (which he will end up having soon). So I think he is a loser. Now, what do we make of that? He is telling the deacon to forgive his son, because if he doesn't, then what? Is he going to live without forgiveness? That's a terrifying image. Anastasy is asking for forgiveness for Pyotr, but he is asking for forgiveness for him (what do you say when you say something?). He doesn't seem to be so oblivious now, does he? He is a loser, but is there anything he can do about it? To make the point stronger, think now of the archdeacon. He is hardworking, disciplined, young, and so much more. Is there anything he can do about it? He just is all that. What virtue is there in being anything? Do we want to call the archdeacon a winner, now that we read the above? Fyodor, Lyubimov, and Anastasy are not good or bad, they are good and bad. Think of how majestic the story is: through strictly sticking to three character types and never deviating from what Chekhov initially told us each of the characters were, we are concluding that they are all actually not that different, in the sense that they are not good or bad, they are.
Let me go back to the story now. Anastasy tells the deacon to just forgive Pyotr, for he will understand. He just needs some love, basically. Anastasy knows this: he is in the same boat as Pyotr, and all he himself needs is love; he happens to be looking for it at the bottom of a bottle of vodka. What do we think of this idea of just needing love? Well, I agree, but he does not need the love of understanding and compassion that Anastasy is suggesting. Pyotr needs the letter: he needs some hard love. He needs a father, understood as a figure who tells him he has lost his path. He needs the kind of love that tells you you fucked up. Of course, Anastasy is oblivious to this; he is inferior, we know that. So all he thinks about love is through understanding and “it's okay”s.
-Us: Does this trait make Anastasty good or bad?
-Chekhov: Yes.
The deacon, however, we know is somewhat more intelligent. What will he do? Chekhov has made sure to tell us that the letter will set Pyotr straight. The deacon has heard Anastasy and is now thinking of his son, how he used to come for the holidays:
“His head was filled with nice, warm, sad thoughts — the sorts of things you can spend your whole life thinking about without getting tired of them. Missing his son, he read the letter one more time and looked questioningly at Anastasy.”
The deacon is missing his son and thinking about him. What will he do? He is fighting an important battle within himself, that's why he looks questioningly at Anastasy. We, readers, know that he knows the letter will set him straight. We also know he is responsible for Pyotr being what he is now; he couldn't set him straight in the past. What will he do?
He decides to send the letter. “I must”, he says. So he grabs an envelope, sits down, smiles, and writes at the bottom of the letter:
“'They have sent us a new supervisor. He's a bit more lively than the last one. He's a dancer and a chatterbox, and is so good at everything that all the Govorov daughters are mad about him. Kostyrev, the army chief, is also apparently going to have to retire soon. About time!'”
Finishing,
“Very pleased with himself, and not understanding that he had ended up undoing all the severity of the letter with his postscript, the deacon wrote out the address and put the letter in the most prominent place on the table.”
Why does he smile when he sits down? To me, he smiles because he has just given up. He gives up his fight between missing his son and sending him the letter by finding a great excuse (a lie): maybe he'll just take advantage of the occasion and give him a little update on the new supervisor and how the Govorov daughters are as silly as always. What is he doing? He is having his own little glass of vodka. Chekhov told us this guy was in the middle of the two others, and he is again delivering by having him do something in the middle.
The technicality of Chekhov and its characters is less important or impressive than their human condition, however. Chekhov keeps, straight as an arrow, with what the character is. Recall the deacon has never been able to manage his son; he's not smart enough. Chekhov told us this, and he put the solution literally in his hands, by way of the letter. However, the smartness is not really the issue with the deacon (or with you or me), the issue is who he is. The deacon has the solution to his worries in his hands (how many times have I said this?), but he cannot use it. Why? Because that's who he is! He is soft, he is a bad dad; he loves his son in a way that is no good! So he's utterly pleased with himself at just having ensured his son stays the way he is. Isn't that tragic? Isn't that beautifully real? Hasn't the short story just created a world that will permanently be there, the archdeacon working, Anastasy drinking and asking for forgiveness, and the deacon being miserable because his son is a sinner? Are these people good or bad? Is this world good or bad?
Throughout my writing, it may look like I am suggesting some kind of permanence of the characters, in the sense that I'm saying they are what they are and nothing will change. I am not, although I do think Chekhov is playing with that in this story. By “playing” I intend to say that he's also not saying yes or no; he's throwing a story at you so you read it and perhaps get aroused a little bit, and isn't that why we read?
Chekhov gives us no answer to the questions above. His genius lives not in answers, but in questions, as he himself said in a letter to his friend A.S. Suvorin, in October 27th, 1888:
“You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist. In “Anna Karenin” and “Evgeny Onyegin” not a single problem is solved, but they satisfy you completely because all the problems are correctly stated in them. It is the business of the judge to put the right questions, but the answers must be given by the jury according to their own lights.” [Source; the whole letter is magnificent and the others are too.]
Historia de Rosendo Juárez touches, to me, on the same emotions of shame and fear and guilt, and the same questions of what is good and what is bad, what is a man, how much can we say of who a man is based on what he does, and how much can we say of who a man is based on what he did in the past.