I MADE Chekhov's acquaintance in Moscow, towards the end of '95. We met then at
intervals and I should not think it worth mentioning, if I did not remember some very characteristic phrases.
"Do you write much?" he asked me once.
I answered that I wrote little.
"Bad," he said, almost sternly, in his low, deep voice. "One must work . . . without sparing oneself ... all one's life."
And, after a pause, without any visible connection, he added:
"When one has written a story I believe
that one ought to strike out both the beginning and the end. That is where we novelists are most inclined to lie. And one must write shortly—as shortly as possible."
Then we spoke of poetry, and he suddenly
became excited. "Tell me, do you care for
Alexey Tolstoy's poems? To me he is an
actor. When he was a boy he put on
evening dress and he has never taken it off."'
After these stray meetings in which we
touched upon some of Chekhov's favorite
topics—as that one must work "without
sparing oneself" and must write simply and
without the shadow of falsehood—we did
not meet till the spring of '99. I came to
Yalta for a few days, and one evening I
met Chekhov on the quay.
"Why don't you come to see me?" were
his first words. "Be sure to come tomorrow."
"At what time?" I asked.
"In the morning about eight."
And seeing perhaps that I looked surprised he added:
"We get up early. Don't you?"
"Yes I do too," I said.
"Well then, come when you get up. We will give you coffee. You take coffee?"
"Sometimes."
"You ought to always. It's a wonderful drink. When I am working, I drink nothing
but coffee and chicken broth until the evening. Coffee in the morning and chicken broth at midday. If I don't, my work suffers."
I thanked him for asking me, and we crossed the quay in silence and sat down on a bench.
"Do you love the sea?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "But it is too lonely."
"That's what I like about it," I replied.
"I wonder," he mused, looking through his spectacles away into the distance and
thinking his own thoughts. "It must be nice to be a soldier, or a young undergraduate ... to sit in a crowd and listen to the band. . . ."
And then, as was usual with him, after a pause and without apparent connection, he added :
"It is very difficult to describe the sea. Do you know the description that a schoolboy gave in an exercise?: 'The sea is vast.' Only that. Wonderful, I think."
Some people might think him affected in saying this. But Chekhov affected!
"I grant," said one who knew Chekhov well, "that I have met men as sincere as
Chekhov. But any one so simple, and so free from pose and affectation I have never known!"
And that is true. He loved all that was sincere, vital, and gay, so long as it was neither coarse nor dull, and could not endure pedants, or book-worms who have got so much into the habit of making phrases that they can talk in no other way. In his writings he scarcely ever spoke of himself or of his views, and this led people to think him a man without principles or sense of duty to his kind. In life, too, he was no egotist, and seldom spoke of his likings and dislikings. But both were very strong and lasting, and simplicity was one of the things he liked best. "The sea is vast." . . . To him, with his passion for simplicity and his loathing of the strained and affected, that was "wonderful." His words about the officer and the music showed another characteristic of his: his reserve. The transition from the sea to the officer was no doubt inspired by his secret craving for youth and health. The sea is lonely. . . . And Chekhov loved life and joy. During his last years his desire for happiness, even of the simplest kind, would constantly show itself in his conversation. It would be hinted at, not expressed.