Shamokhin’s comments on the Adriatic resorts no doubt reflect Chekhov’s own sentiments. The Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov used material from ‘Ariadna’ for his film Dark Eyes (Ochi chornye), starring Marcello Mastroianni.

The story that the hero Shamokhin tells seems very much to conform to the view of women and sex reflected in Chekhov’s work in general. Chekhov once remarked of sex that it was either the vestige of something that was wonderful in the past, or else the beginning of something that might be wonderful one day. Shamokhin’s idealistic view of love comes up against several snags. First, there is the fact that Ariadna, far from appreciating his idealistic love, instead falls for the sheer animal sexuality of Lubkov. Lubkov’s technique might be described as ‘full frontal attack’, with no consideration of any abstraction such as love. His cynicism about women can be compared to that of Panaurov in ‘Three Years’ or Lysevich in ‘A Woman’s Kingdom’. Both Lubkov and Panaurov leave a trail of abandoned women and children behind them. It must be said, on the other hand, that the cold and narcissistic Ariadna, however beautiful she might be, hardly deserves the adulation that she harvests. Her seduction and abandonment is an appropriate response to her lack of redeeming qualities. She will presumably continue to drift from one dependent relationship to another. Shamokhin has chosen as an object for his infatuation a woman who conforms to and confirms his idea of women’s worthlessness.

Lubkov’s and Panaurov’s parasitical relationships to their friends are totally of a piece with their cynical approach to women. The reader cannot help but be astonished by the way in which such individuals take advantage of their friends’ unstinting and uncomplaining generosity with money (it being the Russian habit unashamedly to ask for a loan that clearly cannot be repaid). We read wide-eyed how Shamokhin again and again lends Lubkov money that he will clearly never see again. Shamokhin seems totally without willpower – to say no to either Ariadna or Lubkov, despite his critical attitude to both and disgust at their lifestyle, a lifestyle that he ends up sharing. His total disdain for money and willingness to incur endless debts to support first his wastrel friend and then Ariadna remind us that Russian attitudes to money and financial matters have historically been very different from those found in the West. The story that Shamokhin recounts of his relationship to Ariadna and Lubkov is subtly ironized by the device of the author/narrator to whom he tells his story and who finally is totally bored by it and falls asleep. We realize that Shamokhin’s ultimate need is to tell in as much embarrassing detail as he can the story of his own abasement.

Chekhov’s art is delicately poised between the achievements of nineteenth-century Russian realism and the abstraction and experimentation of the twentieth century. In his work we see a movement away from the large form, towards an increasingly poetic orientation towards the word and organization of the text. Such artistic movements as impressionism and the decorativeness of art nouveau find echoes in different stories. His world is not one in which there are easily discovered universal truths. Each grain of insight, each transcendental moment has to be earned at great cost, and the author unceasingly and mercilessly reminds us of its ephemeral nature. At the end of the day, there is a hard-hearted kindness in his work that refuses easy answers and comforting half-truths. To read his works with the insight they demand, and to learn to see the world with the courage with which he depicts it, is one of the most rewarding journeys literature has to offer.

FURTHER READING

Gordon McVay (tr.), Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters (London: Folio Society, 1994), the best selection and translation of letters.

Brian Reeves (tr.), The Island of Sakhalin (Cambridge: Ian Faulkner, 1993).

SECONDARY LITERATURE: GENERAL BOOKS

Toby W. Clyman, A Chekhov Companion (Westport/London: Greenwood Press, 1985), a very valuable if expensive collection of essays, with extensive bibliography.

P. Debreczeny and T. Eekman (eds), Chekhov’s Art of Writing: A Collection of Critical Essays (Columbus: Slavica, 1977).

Thomas Eekman (ed.), Critical Essays on Anton Chekhov (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989), 208 pp.

W. Gerhardie, Anton Chekhov: A Critical Study (London: Macdonald, 1974), ‘Bloomsbury’ Chekhov, but well-informed.

R.