Jester drawings are simple quick sketches designed to capture a glimpse of a moment, a fleeting scene from everyday life. They help the artist remember what they have witness so they can return to the subject and derive fresh insight from what is captured. Anton Chekhov considers himself an artist (Chekhov on Writing) and his masterpiece, “The Lady with the Dog” is created with words that capture a place and time, the movement between two people and the emotion of love discovered and contained in secrecy.
Chekhov in a letter to Alexei Suvorin on October 27, 1888 said, “You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist” (Chekhov on Writing). Chekhov is true to his word in the story “The Lady with a Dog.” He does not seek a moral solution but suspends the lovers in a timelessness that allows their unveiling to speak of what is real. He shows us the path Gurov and Anna take and how it is their one chance to live above the mundane. Chekhov writes in a way that brings to life Gurov and Anna the main characters in his short story.
Broken into four parts the story portrays the change brought about in Gurov’s heart as he encounters the Lady with the dog and begins an affair that he describes in the end as “only just beginning.” (882) For Gurov, Anna brings a softening of the heart that allows him to love for the first time in his life. How does love come about and find its unfolding? Chekhov does not answer except to illustrate the mystery that begins with “a strange light on the sea: the water … a soft warm lilac hue … a golden streak from the moon upon it” (872-873).
The unasked question Chekhov frames is best seen when you examine other works by the author. About Love” and “The Betrothed” are two short stories written during the same period of time at the end of Chekhov’s life when he lived in Yalta shortly before his death of tuberculosis in 1904 (Coulehan, “Betrothed Annotated”). All are works that explore the crisis caused by the culture of late 19th Century Russia where arranged marriages are the norm and couples live loveless lives. The result of these arrangements is a dullness of life that the main characters in “The Lady and the Dog”, Gurov and Anna, seek to overcome.
Entering into midlife, Gurov is jaded by what he described as “truly bitter experience” (Chekhov, “The Lady and the Dog”, 872). His view on women is unflattering. Although he can not live without them and women find something “attractive and elusive which allured” (872) them to him, Gurov soon becomes troubled by relationships that begin carefree. He is “eager for life” (872) so he practices unfaithfulness to his wife in spite of his bitter regard for women. His conclusion on love is that “every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation become unbearable” (872).
These thoughts foreshadow the affair he begins with the new women he meets one sultry evening in Yalta, Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits. For Gurov, Anna proves to be different. They face the unbearable when it comes, after falling deeply in love.
Anna appears to Gurov as young, inexperienced and awkward. He doesn’t describe her as beautiful but “recalled her slender delicate neck, her lovely gray eyes” (873) He then states, “There’s something pathetic about her, anyway” (873).
Eventually after Gurov returns to Moscow be becomes bored. The turning point in the story comes about by a comment a friend makes to Gurov about the sturgeon tasting too strong. This angered Gurov and he rants, “useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one’s time, the better part of one’s strength, and in the end there is left a life groveling and curtailed , worthless and trivial (874).
Thoughts of Anna begin to rise above the other women in his life, those who have attributed to his bitterness. He is haunted by her. “Anna Sergeyevna did not visit him in his dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a shadow”(877). They had said goodbye forever, but Gurov goes to Anna’s hometown in search of her.
Their encounter at the Opera House frightens Anna. Confronting the great unhappiness in her marriage Anna promises Gurov to come to meet him every three to four months. It is at one such meeting that Gurov catches his reflection in a mirror and see not only that he has grown older but that he genuinely loves Anna. He finds himself tenderly calming her distress as they begin to make plans for their future. These plans they know will come at a great cost as they break out from the cultural tradition that binds them.(882)
In “About Love” Chekhov explores a love affair where love is never admitted until the chance for love has passed. Alehin is unmarried and rejects the life of the idle rich to work off the debt his father incurred sending him to school. He meets Anna Alexyevna and is captivated by her. Anna is not unhappy in her marriage even though her husband is twice her age. Still, she falls quietly in love with Alehin.
Alehin narrates the story and explains “So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered.” (Chekhov) In the years spent as friends Alehin and Anna repeat the same questions over and over in their heads, always unanswered. They ask, what would happen if they love was revealed? They wonder at what cost would their love be fulfilled? Anna leaves when her husband is transferred to another province. All chances for love evaporate. As Anna’s train departs Alehin finally declares his love to her. In bitterness he walks back home realizing he has wasted a chance to love. Alehin concludes, “I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all” (Chekhov). He realizes too late he is the victim of too much reasoning.
Like Chekhov, when he wrote the short story, the character Sasha in “The Betrothed” is dying (Chekhov). Sasha, an artist, warns Nadya, young and betrothed to a man she does not love, of the perils of the dull dead life she is choosing should she go through with her arranged marriage. Eventually she listens to Sasha’s warning and escapes to St Petersburg where she attends the university. Nadya’s solution to life is in choosing her own course instead of using marriage as a means to happiness. This choice is novel for the time.
The Betrothed” is the last published work of Chekhov and thus his dying words to his literary audience. Sasha in an apostolic voice warns Nadya,
“Only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it’s only they who are wanted. The more of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of God will come on earth… Dear Nadya, darling girl, go away! Show them all that you are sick of this stagnant, grey, sinful life. Prove it to yourself at least (Chekhov)!”
Chekhov neither condones nor condemns marital affairs in his writing. He exposes marriage for monetary gains, living an idle life without purpose and without love. He beckons us through the voice of Gurov to see “how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects; everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aim of our existence” (“The Lady and the Dog” 875). Chekhov leaves for us the impression of the silence where the city is “hardly visible through morning mist; white clouds stood motionless on the mountain tops…and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us” (875). He asks us to consider the cost of living fully without regret.
At the age of 41, Chekhov marries a woman not unlike Nadya. Her name is Olga Knipper, an untraditional woman, an actress who often performed in his plays. Although their marriage is short lived due to his death in 1904, Chekhov apparently lives out the sentiments of his characters breaking with tradition and marries for love (Coulehan, “The Lady with the Dog Annotated”).
Works Sited
Chekhov, Anton. “About Love.” The Tales of Chekhov, Vol. 5: The Wife and Other
Stories. trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Ecco, 1985. Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 2004. New York University. 27 Feb. 2004 http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/191.htm>.
Chekhov, Anton. “Anton Chekhov on Writing.” Nebraska Center for Writers. 2004. Creighton University. 27 Feb. 2004 http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/chekwrit.htm>.
Chekhov, Anton. “Betrothed.” The Tales of Chekhov, Vol. 11: The Schoolmaster and Other Stories. trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Ecco, 1985. Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 2004. New York University. 27 Feb. 2004 http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/201.htm>.
Chekhov, Anton. “The Lady with the Dog.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology For Readers and Writers. 2nd ed. Eds.John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2003. 871-882.
Coulehan, Jack .”About Love Annotated.” , Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 2003. New York University. 27 Feb. 2004 http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med db/webdocs/webdescrips/chekhov11985-des-.html>.
Coulehan, Jack .”Betrothed Annotated.” Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 2003. New York University. 27 Feb. 2004 http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/chekhov1140-des-.html>.
Coulehan, Jack.”The Lady with the Dog Annotated.” Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 2003. New York University. http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/chekhov11775-des-.html>.
