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REMINISCENCES OF ANTON CHEKHOV
REMINISCENCES OF
ANTON CHEKHOV
BY
MAXIM GORKY, ALEXANDER KUPRIN
and I. A. BUNIN
TRANSLATED BY
S. S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF
NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. MCMXXI
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
FRAGMENTS OF RECOLLECTIONS BY MAXIM GORKY, 1
TO CHEKHOV'S MEMORY BY ALEXANDER KUPRIN, 29
A. P. CHEKHOV BY I. A. BUNIN, 91
ANTON CHEKHOV
FRAGMENTS OF RECOLLECTIONS
BY
MAXIM GORKY
Once he invited me to the village Koutchouk-Koywhere he had a tiny strip of landand a white, two-storied house. There,while showing me his “estate,” he began tospeak with animation: “If I had plenty ofmoney, I should build a sanatorium here forinvalid village teachers. You know, Iwould put up a large, bright building—verybright, with large windows and lofty rooms.I would have a fine library, different musicalinstruments, bees, a vegetable garden, anorchard…. There would be lectures onagriculture, mythology…. Teachers oughtto know everything, everything, my dearfellow.”
He was suddenly silent, coughed, lookedat me out of the corners of his eyes, andsmiled that tender, charming smile of hiswhich attracted one so irresistibly to him andmade one listen so attentively to his words.
“Does it bore you to listen to my fantasies?I do love to talk of it…. If youknew how badly the Russian village needs a nice, sensible, educated teacher! We oughtin Russia to give the teacher particularlygood conditions, and it ought to be done asquickly as possible. We ought to realizethat without a wide education of the people,Russia will collapse, like a house built ofbadly baked bricks. A teacher must be anartist, in love with his calling; but with ushe is a journeyman, ill educated, who goesto the village to teach children as thoughhe were going into exile. He is starved,crushed, terrorized by the fear of losing hisdaily bread. But he ought to be the firstman in the village; the peasants ought torecognize him as a power, worthy of attentionand respect; no one should dare to shoutat him or humiliate him personally, as withus every one does—the