–27. The Darling

I. The Darling

Olenka, the daughter of retired collegiate assessor Plemyannikov, sat on the porch of her house, lost in thought. It was hot, the flies were pestering annoyingly, and it was pleasant to think that evening would soon come. From the east dark rain clouds were gathering, and from there came occasional wafts of moisture.

In the middle of the courtyard stood Kukin, the impresario and owner of the pleasure garden “Tivoli,” who rented a wing of the same courtyard, looking at the sky.

“Again!” he said in despair. “It’s going to rain again! Every day rain, every day rain—as if on purpose! It’s a noose! It’s ruin! Terrible losses every day!”

He threw up his hands and continued, addressing Olenka:

“There you have it, Olga Semyonovna, our life. Enough to make you weep! You work, you try, you suffer, you don’t sleep nights, you’re always thinking how to make things better—and what happens? On one hand, the public—ignorant, savage. I give them the very best operetta, féerie, magnificent comic singers, but is that what they want? Do they understand any of it? They want a circus! Give them vulgarity! On the other hand, look at the weather. Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of May and then all May and June, simply terrible! The public doesn’t come, but don’t I pay rent? Don’t I pay the actors?”

The next day toward evening clouds gathered again, and Kukin said with hysterical laughter:

“Well, so what? Let it! Let it flood the whole garden, let it flood me too! May I have no happiness in this world or the next! Let the actors sue me! What’s a trial? Siberian hard labor! The scaffold! Ha-ha-ha!”

And the third day the same…

Olenka listened to Kukin silently, seriously, and sometimes tears came to her eyes. In the end Kukin’s misfortunes touched her, and she fell in love with him. He was short, thin, with a yellow face and hair brushed back at the temples; he spoke in a thin tenor, and his face always bore an expression of despair; yet he aroused in her a genuine, deep feeling. She constantly loved someone and could not live without it. Earlier she had loved her papa, who now sat ill in a dark room, in an armchair, breathing heavily; she had loved her aunt, who sometimes came from Bryansk every two years; and earlier still, when she was at the progymnasium, she had loved her French teacher. She was a quiet, good-natured, tender-hearted young lady with a meek, soft gaze, very healthy. Looking at her full, rosy cheeks, at her soft white neck with its dark birthmark, at her kind, naïve smile that appeared on her face when she listened to something pleasant, men too would smile, and lady visitors could not restrain themselves from suddenly seizing her hand in the middle of conversation and exclaiming in a burst of pleasure:

“Darling!”

The house in which she had lived from birth and which was written in her name in the will stood on the outskirts of town, in Gypsy Settlement, not far from the Tivoli garden; in the evenings and at night she could hear the music playing in the garden, the rockets bursting with a crack, and it seemed to her that this was Kukin warring with his fate and storming his chief enemy—the indifferent public; her heart would grow sweetly faint, she did not want to sleep at all, and when toward morning he returned home, she would softly knock on the window from her bedroom and, showing him through the curtains only her face and one shoulder, would smile tenderly…

He proposed, and they were married.

He was happy, but since it rained on the wedding day and then during the night, the expression of despair never left his face.

After the wedding they lived well. She sat at the box office, looked after order in the garden, kept accounts, paid wages, and her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve smile that resembled radiance flickered now in the box-office window, now backstage, now in the buffet. And she already told her acquaintances that the most remarkable, most important and necessary thing in the world was the theater and that true pleasure and becoming educated and humane were possible only in the theater.

“But does the public understand that?” she would say. “They want a circus! Yesterday we did ‘Faust Inside Out,’ and almost all the boxes were empty, but if Vanechka and I had put on some vulgar thing, believe me, the theater would have been packed. Tomorrow Vanechka and I are putting on ‘Orpheus in the Underworld,’ do come.”

And whatever Kukin said about the theater and actors, she repeated. Like him, she despised the public for its indifference to art and its ignorance; she interfered at rehearsals, corrected the actors, watched the behavior of the musicians, and when the local newspaper gave an unfavorable review of the theater, she would cry and then go to the editorial office to explain.

The actors loved her and called her “we and Vanechka” and “darling”; she pitied them and lent them small sums, and if they happened to deceive her, she only cried quietly but did not complain to her husband.

In winter too they lived well. They rented the town theater for the whole winter and sublet it for short periods now to a Little Russian troupe, now to a conjuror, now to local amateurs. Olenka grew plump and beamed with pleasure, while Kukin grew thinner and yellower and complained of terrible losses, though business went quite well all winter. At night he coughed, and she gave him raspberry tea and linden blossom, rubbed him with cologne, and wrapped him in her soft shawls.

“What a dear little thing you are!” she would say with complete sincerity, smoothing his hair. “What a handsome little thing you are!”

During Lent he went to Moscow to assemble a troupe, and without him she could not sleep, kept sitting at the window looking at the stars. And during this time she compared herself to hens, which also do not sleep all night and feel uneasy when there is no rooster in the henhouse. Kukin was delayed in Moscow and wrote that he would return by Easter, and in his letters he was already giving instructions about the Tivoli. But late in the evening on the Monday of Holy Week, there suddenly came an ominous knocking at the gate; someone was pounding on the wicket like on a barrel: boom! boom! boom! The sleepy cook, splashing barefoot through the puddles, ran to open.

“Please open!” someone said from behind the gate in a hollow bass. “There’s a telegram for you!”

Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but now for some reason she went numb. With trembling hands she unsealed the telegram and read the following:

“Ivan Petrovich died today suddenly awaiting instructions funeral Tuesday.”

That was how it was printed in the telegram: “funeral” and also some other incomprehensible word “suchala”; the signature was that of the director of the operetta troupe.

“My darling!” sobbed Olenka. “My dear Vanechka, my darling! Why did I ever meet you? Why did I come to know you and love you? Who have you abandoned your poor Olenka to, poor, unhappy…”

Kukin was buried on Tuesday, in Moscow, at Vagankov Cemetery; Olenka returned home on Wednesday, and as soon as she entered her room, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard in the street and in the neighboring courtyards.

“Darling!” said the neighbors, crossing themselves. “Darling Olga Semyonovna, dear, how she is grieving!”

Three months later Olenka was returning from mass one day, sad, in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbors, Vasily Andreich Pustovalov, the manager of the merchant Babakayev’s lumberyard, was walking beside her, also returning from church. He wore a straw hat and a white waistcoat with a gold chain and looked more like a landowner than a merchant.

“Everything has its order, Olga Semyonovna,” he said sedately, with sympathy in his voice, “and if one of our dear ones dies, it means God willed it so, and in that case we must be mindful of ourselves and bear it with submission.”

Having walked Olenka to the wicket gate, he said goodbye and went on. After that she heard his sedate voice all day, and as soon as she closed her eyes, she imagined his dark beard. She liked him very much. And apparently she also made an impression on him, because a little later an elderly lady, barely acquainted with her, came to have coffee with her, and as soon as she sat down at the table, she began without delay to speak of Pustovalov, saying that he was a good, solid man, and that any bride would be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov himself came to visit; he stayed not long, about ten minutes, and spoke little, but Olenka fell in love with him, so in love that she did not sleep all night and burned as if in a fever, and in the morning she sent for the elderly lady. Soon she was engaged, and then came the wedding.

Pustovalov and Olenka, having married, lived well. Usually he sat in the lumberyard until dinner, then went out on business, and Olenka took his place, sitting in the office until evening and writing out bills and dispatching goods.

“Lumber goes up twenty percent every year now,” she would tell customers and acquaintances. “For goodness’ sake, we used to deal in local lumber, but now Vasechka has to go to Mogilev province every year for lumber. And what a freight rate!” she would say, covering both cheeks with her hands in horror. “What a freight rate!”

It seemed to her that she had been dealing in lumber for a long, long time, that the most important and necessary thing in life was lumber, and something familiar and touching sounded in the words: beam, round timber, board, batten, joist, lath, plank, slab…

Whatever thoughts her husband had, she had the same. If he thought the room was hot or that business had become slow, she thought so too. Her husband did not like any entertainment and on holidays sat at home, and so did she.

“You’re always at home or in the office,” acquaintances would say. “You should go to the theater, darling, or the circus.”

“Vasechka and I have no time for theaters,” she would reply sedately. “We’re working people, we have no time for trifles. What good is there in theaters?”

On Saturdays Pustovalov and she went to vespers, on holidays to early mass, and, returning from church, they walked side by side with tender faces; both smelled good, and her silk dress rustled pleasantly; at home they drank tea with fancy bread and various jams, then ate pie. Every day at noon the courtyard and the street beyond the gate smelled deliciously of borscht and roast mutton or duck, and on fast days of fish, and you could not pass the gate without wanting to eat. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers were treated to tea with bagels. Once a week the couple went to the bathhouse and returned from there side by side, both red.

“We live well, thank God,” Olenka would tell her acquaintances. “God grant everyone to live as Vasechka and I do.”

When Pustovalov went to Mogilev province for lumber, she missed him terribly and did not sleep at night, wept. Sometimes in the evenings the regimental veterinarian, Smirnin, a young man who rented the wing from her, would come to see her. He would tell her something or play cards with her, and this diverted her. Especially interesting were the stories from his own family life; he was married and had a son, but had separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and now he hated her and sent her forty rubles a month for the support of his son. And listening to this, Olenka would sigh and shake her head, and feel sorry for him.

“Well, God keep you,” she would say, bidding him farewell and seeing him to the stairs with a candle. “Thank you for coming to keep me company, God grant you health, Queen of Heaven…”

And she always expressed herself so sedately, so judiciously, imitating her husband; the veterinarian was already disappearing behind the door below, but she would call after him and say:

“You know, Vladimir Platonich, you should make peace with your wife. You should forgive her, at least for the sake of your son!… The little boy surely understands everything.”

And when Pustovalov returned, she would tell him in a low voice about the veterinarian and his unhappy family life, and both would sigh and shake their heads and talk about the boy, who probably missed his father; then, by some strange flow of thoughts, both would stand before the icons, make prostrations, and pray that God would send them children.

And so the Pustovalovs lived quietly and humbly, in love and complete harmony for six years. But then one winter Vasily Andreich, having drunk hot tea at the lumberyard, went out without a hat to dispatch some lumber, caught cold, and fell ill. He was treated by the best doctors, but the illness got the better of him, and he died after being sick for four months. And Olenka was widowed again.

“Who have you abandoned me to, my darling?” she sobbed, burying her husband. “How shall I live now without you, bitter and unhappy as I am? Good people, pity me, an orphan…”

She wore a black dress with weepers and had given up hats and gloves forever, went out rarely, only to church or to her husband’s grave, and lived at home like a nun. And only when six months had passed did she take off the weepers and begin to open the shutters on the windows. She was sometimes seen in the mornings going to market for provisions with her cook, but what her life was like at home now and what went on in her house could only be guessed. People guessed, for instance, from seeing her in her garden drinking tea with the veterinarian while he read the newspaper aloud to her, and also from the fact that, meeting an acquaintance at the post office, she said:

“We have no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and because of that there’s a lot of disease. You keep hearing of people getting sick from milk and catching things from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals really ought to be looked after as carefully as the health of people.”

She repeated the veterinarian’s thoughts and now held the same opinions as he about everything. It was clear that she could not live even one year without attachment and had found her new happiness in the wing. Another woman would have been condemned for this, but no one could think badly of Olenka, and everything in her life was so understandable. She and the veterinarian told no one of the change that had occurred in their relations and tried to hide it, but they did not succeed, because Olenka could not have secrets. When his guests came, his fellow officers from the regiment, she, while pouring tea for them or serving supper, would begin to talk about cattle plague, about pearl disease, about the town slaughterhouses, and he would be terribly embarrassed, and when the guests left, he would seize her hand and hiss angrily:

“I’ve asked you not to talk about what you don’t understand! When we veterinarians are talking among ourselves, please don’t interfere. It’s tiresome, finally!”

And she would look at him with amazement and alarm and ask:

“Volodechka, what am I to talk about then?!”

And she would embrace him with tears in her eyes, beg him not to be angry, and both were happy.

But this happiness did not last long. The veterinarian left with his regiment, left forever, because the regiment was transferred somewhere very far away, almost to Siberia. And Olenka was left alone.

Now she was completely alone. Her father had long since died, and his armchair lay in the attic, dusty, missing one leg. She grew thin and plain, and people in the street no longer looked at her as before and did not smile at her; obviously the best years were over, left behind, and now some new life, unknown, was beginning, which it was better not to think about. In the evenings Olenka sat on the porch, and she could hear music playing in the Tivoli and rockets bursting, but this no longer evoked any thoughts. She gazed indifferently at her empty courtyard, thought of nothing, wanted nothing; she ate and drank as if involuntarily.

And the main thing, worst of all, was that she no longer had any opinions. She saw objects around her and understood everything that was happening, but could not form any opinion about anything and did not know what to talk about. She might see, for instance, a bottle standing, or the rain falling, or a peasant driving by in a cart, but what the bottle was for, or the rain, or the peasant, what their meaning was, she could not say. With Kukin and Pustovalov and then with the veterinarian, Olenka could explain everything and would have given her opinion on anything, but now there was the same emptiness in her thoughts and in her heart as in her courtyard.

The town was gradually expanding in all directions; Gypsy Settlement was already called a street, and where the Tivoli garden and the lumberyards had been, houses had already grown up and a row of lanes had formed. How quickly time runs! Olenka’s house had darkened, the roof had rusted, the shed had tilted, and the whole yard was overgrown with weeds and stinging nettles. Olenka herself had aged, grown plain; in summer she sat on the porch, and in winter she sat at the window looking at the snow. When spring wafted to her, when the wind brought the sound of the cathedral bells, memories of the past would suddenly flood over her, her heart would grow sweetly faint, and abundant tears would pour from her eyes; but this lasted only a moment, and then again emptiness, and she did not know why she was living. The black kitten Bryska rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka was not moved by these feline caresses. Was that what she needed? She needed such love as would take hold of her whole being, her whole soul and mind, would give her thoughts, a direction in life, would warm her aging blood. And she would shake black Bryska from her lap and say with vexation:

“Go away, go away… There’s nothing here for you!”

And so day after day, year after year—and no joy, and no opinion of her own. Whatever Mavra the cook said was good enough.

One hot July day, toward evening, when the town herd was being driven down the street and the whole yard was filled with clouds of dust, someone suddenly knocked at the gate. Olenka went herself to open it and, looking out, was dumbstruck: before the gate stood the veterinarian Smirnin, already gray and in civilian clothes. She suddenly remembered everything, could not restrain herself, burst into tears, and laid her head on his chest without saying a word, and in the strength of her emotion did not notice how the two of them then went into the house, how they sat down to tea.

“My dear!” she murmured, trembling with joy. “Vladimir Platonich! God has sent you!”

“I want to settle here for good,” he said. “I’ve resigned and have come to try my luck as a free man, to live a settled life. And it’s time to send my son to school. He’s grown up. I’ve made peace with my wife, you know.”

“And where is she?” asked Olenka.

“She’s at the hotel with the boy, and I’m looking for lodgings.”

“Lord, dear man, take my house! Isn’t that lodgings? Oh, Lord, I won’t take anything from you,” Olenka said excitedly, and she began to cry again. “You live here, and the wing is enough for me. Heavens, what joy!”

The next day they were already painting the roof and whitewashing the walls, and Olenka, arms akimbo, was walking about the yard giving orders. Her face lit up with its former smile, and she was all alive, fresh, as if she had awakened from a long sleep. The veterinarian’s wife arrived, a thin, homely lady with short hair and a capricious expression, and with her a boy, Sasha, small for his age (he was going on ten), plump, with bright blue eyes and dimples in his cheeks. And as soon as the boy came into the yard, he ran after the cat, and at once his gay, joyful laughter was heard.

“Auntie, is this your cat?” he asked Olenka. “When she has kittens, please give us one. Mama is very afraid of mice.”

Olenka talked with him, gave him tea, and her heart in her breast suddenly grew warm and sweetly faint, as if this boy were her own son. And when in the evening he sat in the dining room repeating his lessons, she looked at him with tenderness and pity and whispered:

“My darling, my pretty one… My little child, and you were born so clever, so fair!”

“An island is called,” he read aloud, “a part of land surrounded on all sides by water.”

“An island is called a part of land…” she repeated, and this was her first opinion that she had expressed with confidence after so many years of silence and emptiness in her thoughts.

And she already had opinions, and at supper she talked with Sasha’s parents about how difficult it was for children to study in gymnasiums nowadays, but that all the same classical education was better than the modern kind, since from the gymnasium all roads were open: if you want, become a doctor, if you want, become an engineer.

Sasha began attending the gymnasium. His mother went to Kharkov to visit her sister and did not return; his father went away every day somewhere to inspect herds, and sometimes was away from home for three days at a time, and it seemed to Olenka that Sasha was completely neglected, that he was unwanted in the house, that he was starving; and she moved him into the wing and set him up there in a little room.

And now six months have passed since Sasha has been living in her wing. Every morning Olenka comes into his room; he is fast asleep, his hand under his cheek, not breathing. She is sorry to wake him.

“Sashenka,” she says sadly, “get up, dear! Time for school.”

He gets up, dresses, says his prayers, then sits down to tea; he drinks three glasses of tea and eats two big bagels and half a French loaf with butter. He has not quite awakened from sleep and is therefore out of sorts.

“You haven’t learned your fable very well, Sashenka,” says Olenka, looking at him as if seeing him off on a long journey. “What a worry you are to me. You must try, dear, study… Mind your teachers.”

“Oh, leave me alone, please!” says Sasha.

Then he goes down the street to school, a small figure, but in a big cap, with a satchel on his back. Olenka follows him noiselessly.

“Sashenka-a!” she calls.

He turns around, and she puts a date or a caramel into his hand. When they turn into the lane where the gymnasium stands, he becomes ashamed that a tall, stout woman is following him; he looks around and says:

“Auntie, go home now, I can go the rest of the way myself.”

She stops and watches him without blinking until he disappears through the school entrance. Ah, how she loves him! Of all her former attachments not one was so deep; never before had her soul surrendered so selflessly, so disinterestedly, and with such joy as now, when her maternal feeling was kindling more and more. For this boy who was not her own, for his dimples, for his cap, she would give her whole life, give it with joy, with tears of tenderness. Why? Who knows why?

Having seen Sasha to school, she goes home quietly, so content, so peaceful, so full of love; her face, which has grown younger in the past six months, smiles, beams; people meeting her feel pleasure and say to her:

“Good morning, darling Olga Semyonovna! How are you, darling?”

“It’s so hard to study in gymnasiums nowadays,” she tells them at the market. “It’s no joke, yesterday in the first form they were assigned a fable to learn by heart, plus a Latin translation, plus a problem… How is a little one to manage?”

And she begins to talk about teachers, about lessons, about textbooks—the same things that Sasha says about them.

At three o’clock they have dinner together, in the evening they do homework together and cry. Putting him to bed, she crosses him for a long time and whispers a prayer; then, going to bed herself, she dreams of that distant, misty future when Sasha, having finished his studies, will become a doctor or an engineer, will have his own big house, horses, a carriage, will marry and have children… She falls asleep and keeps thinking about the same thing, and tears run down her cheeks from her closed eyes. And the black kitten lies at her side and purrs:

“Purr…purr…purr…”

Suddenly there is a loud knock at the gate. Olenka wakes up and cannot breathe from fear; her heart pounds. Half a minute passes, and there is another knock.

“It’s a telegram from Kharkov,” she thinks, beginning to tremble all over. “His mother is demanding Sasha come to her in Kharkov… Oh, Lord!”

She is in despair; her head, feet, and hands grow cold, and it seems to her that there is no one unhappier in the whole world. But another minute passes, voices are heard: it is the veterinarian coming home from his club.

“Well, thank God!” she thinks.

Little by little the heaviness lifts from her heart, she feels light again; she lies down and thinks of Sasha, who is sleeping soundly in the next room and sometimes says in his sleep:

“I’ll show you! Get out! Don’t fight!”

—Anton Chekhov

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II. Afterword to “The Darling”

There is a story in the Book of Numbers, profound in meaning, about how Balak, King of Moab, invited Balaam to curse the people of Israel, who had approached his borders. Balak promised Balaam many gifts for this, and Balaam, yielding to temptation, set off to Balak, but on the way was stopped by an angel whom the donkey saw but Balaam did not see. Despite this stop, Balaam arrived at Balak’s and went up with him on a mountain where an altar had been prepared with slaughtered calves and sheep for the cursing. Balak awaited the curse, but instead of a curse, Balaam blessed the people of Israel.

Chapter 23: (11) And Balak said to Balaam: “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have done nothing but bless them!”

(12) And Balaam answered and said: “Must I not take care to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

(13) And Balak said to him: “Come with me to another place… and curse them from there.”

And he took him to another place, where sacrifices were also prepared. But again Balaam, instead of cursing, blessed.

So it was in the third place also.

Chapter 24: (10) And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together, and Balak said to Balaam: “I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times.

(11) Now therefore flee to your place; I thought to promote you to great honor, but the Lord has kept you back from honor.”

And so Balaam went away without receiving the gifts, because instead of cursing he had blessed the enemies of Balak.

What happened to Balaam very often happens to genuine poets and artists. Tempted either by the promises of Balak—popularity—or by his own false, imposed views, the poet does not even see the angel who stops him, whom the donkey sees, and he wants to curse, but behold, he blesses.

This very thing happened to the genuine poet and artist Chekhov when he wrote this charming story “The Darling.”

The author obviously wants to laugh at the pitiful (according to his reasoning, but not according to his feeling) creature “Darling,” now sharing the cares of Kukin with his theater, now absorbed in the interests of the lumber trade, now under the influence of the veterinarian considering the fight against pearl disease the most important thing, now finally absorbed in questions of grammar and the interests of the gymnasium boy in the big cap. Kukin’s last name is comical, even his illness and the telegram announcing his death are comical, the lumber merchant with his gravity is comical, the veterinarian is comical, and so is the boy—but what is not comical but holy, wonderful, is the soul of “Darling” with her capacity to give herself over entirely to whomever she loves.

I think that in the author’s reasoning, not in his feeling, when he wrote “The Darling,” there hovered an unclear notion of the new woman, of her equality with men, developed, educated, independent, working no worse—if not better—than men for the good of society, of that very woman who raised and maintains the woman question; and he, having begun to write “The Darling,” wanted to show what a woman should not be. The Balak of public opinion invited Chekhov to curse the weak, submissive, devoted to men, undeveloped woman, and Chekhov went up the mountain, and calves and rams were offered up, but when he began to speak, the poet blessed what he had wanted to curse. I, at least, despite the wonderful, gay comedy of the whole work, cannot read certain parts of this remarkable story without tears. I am moved by the story of how she, with complete self-renunciation, loves Kukin and everything that Kukin loves, and likewise the lumber merchant, and likewise the veterinarian; and still more by how she suffers, left alone, when she has no one to love; and how, finally, with all the strength of both womanly and maternal feeling (which she had not experienced directly), she surrendered herself to boundless love for the future man, the gymnasium boy in the big cap.

The author makes her love the ridiculous Kukin, the insignificant lumber merchant, and the unpleasant veterinarian, but love is no less sacred whether its object is Kukin or Spinoza, Pascal, or Schiller, and whether its objects change as quickly as with “Darling” or whether the object remains one throughout life.

Some time ago I happened to read in Novoye Vremya an excellent feuilleton by Mr. At about women. The author expressed in this feuilleton a remarkably intelligent and profound thought about women. “Women,” he says, “are trying to prove to us that they can do everything the same as we men. I not only do not argue with this,” says the author, “but am ready to agree that women can do everything that men do, and perhaps even better; but the trouble is that men cannot do anything that comes close to what women can do.”

Yes, this is undoubtedly so, and this concerns not only childbearing, nursing, and the first upbringing of children, but men cannot do that highest, best, and most God-approaching work—the work of love, the work of complete surrender of oneself to the one one loves, which good women have done so well and naturally, and do, and will do. What would become of the world, what would become of us men, if women did not have this quality and did not manifest it? Without women doctors, telegraphers, lawyers, scientists, and writers we could manage, but without mothers, helpers, companions, comforters, women who love in a man everything that is best in him and by imperceptible suggestion call forth and support all that is best in him—without such women life in this world would be hard. There would not have been Mary and Magdalene with Christ, there would not have been Clara with Francis of Assisi, there would not have been the wives of the Decembrists in Siberian exile, there would not have been among the Dukhobors their wives, who did not hold back their husbands but supported them in their martyrdom for truth; there would not have been thousands upon thousands of unknown—the very best, as all unknown things are—women, comforters of drunken, weak, depraved people, those who need the comforts of love more than anyone else. In this love, whether directed toward Kukin or toward Christ, lies the main, great, irreplaceable power of woman.

The whole so-called woman question, which has seized, as must happen with every vulgarity, the majority of women and even men, is an astonishing misunderstanding!

“Woman wants to perfect herself”—what could be more legitimate and just than this?

But woman’s work, by her very calling, is different from man’s work. And therefore the ideal of woman’s perfection cannot be the same as the ideal of man’s perfection. Let us grant that we do not know what this ideal is; in any case, it is undoubtedly not the ideal of man’s perfection. Yet toward the attainment of this masculine ideal is now directed all that ridiculous and unkind activity of the fashionable women’s movement that now so confuses women.

I am afraid that Chekhov, writing “The Darling,” was under the influence of this misunderstanding.

Like Balaam, he intended to curse, but the god of poetry forbade him and commanded him to bless, and he blessed and unconsciously clothed this dear creature in such wonderful light that it will forever remain a model of what a woman can be in order to be happy herself and to make happy those with whom fate brings her together.

This story is so beautiful because it came out unconsciously.

I was learning to ride a bicycle in a riding hall where divisional reviews are held. At the other end of the hall a lady was learning to ride. I thought about how not to disturb this lady and began to look at her. And looking at her, I involuntarily began to draw closer and closer to her, and despite the fact that she, noticing the danger, hurried to move away, I rode into her and knocked her down—that is, I did the exact opposite of what I wanted, only because I had directed my intensified attention upon her.

The same thing, only in reverse, happened with Chekhov: he wanted to knock “Darling” down and turned his intensified attention of a poet upon her, and thereby exalted her.

—L. Tolstoy

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Translator’s Notes:

• “The Darling” (Dushechka, 1899) is one of Chekhov’s most famous stories. The diminutive means “dear little soul.”
• Tolstoy’s afterword (1905) became one of his most famous pieces of literary criticism.
• The comparison to Balaam (Numbers 22-24) was a favorite of Tolstoy’s for describing how artists unconsciously express truths contrary to their conscious intentions.
• The Decembrist wives followed their husbands into Siberian exile after the failed 1825 uprising.
• The Dukhobors were a pacifist sect Tolstoy admired; he helped arrange their emigration to Canada in 1899.
• Tolstoy’s critique of the “woman question” reflects his view that women’s true calling lies in self-sacrificing love rather than equality with men in public life.