The Russian Master and Other Stories

Начало книги

The clcvcn itcms in this book liavc bccn choscn from the short storics of the author's maturity (1888-1904). Onc of thesc, 'The Russian Master, will bc famili.Tr to somc rcadcrs undcr thc :irgu:ibly in:iccur:ite titlc given to it by othcr translators: l'lie Tcacher of Literatnre. So Chekhovian a work is it that it might almost be called, without disparagemcnt, a parody of the mastcr by himsclf. Hcre wc havc the usual romantic illusions about love and marriagc shipwrcckcd on the usual subnicrgcd rcefs of domestic triviality and provincial vulgarity: all forming a most original sermon on thc themc 'man docs not livc by brcad alonc'.

The Russiati Master has a fascinating history. In 1889 Chckhov publishcd what is now thc first of its two chaptcrs as a sclf- containcd story undcr a diffcrcnt title, Mediocrities. It thcn had thc happy cnding which thc tcxt of Chaptcr I still rctains, cxccpt, of course, that Chaptcr II now follows it, gradually but rcmorsclcssly rcvcrsing any such impression. As it happcns, wc know why Chekhov originally publishcd his story in this incompletc and mislcadingly optimistic form. Hc had read out a draft of what is now Chaptcr I to membcrs of his familv, confiding in them his intention of providing a continuation in which hc would blow his young couplc's happiness 'to smithcrccns'. Only whcn thcse kind- hcartcd listcncrs had appcalcd to him not to spoil the cnding did he agree to publish thc story in truncatcd form. But the happily- ending Mediocrities of 1889 turned out too 'sloppy' in its author's vicw, and by 1894 he was ready with the vcry diffcrcnt vcrsion, cxpandcd and transformcd by the addition of thc astringcnt Chaptcr II, which we have hcrc.

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