NOTE-BOOK OF ANTON CHEKHOV

Translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf

1921

This volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works which Anton Chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methods of his artistic production.  Among his papers was found a series of sheets in a special cover with the inscription:  “Themes, thoughts, notes, and fragments.”  Madame L.O.  Knipper-Chekhov, Chekhov’s wife, also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themes for his future work, quotations which he liked, etc.  If he used any material, he used to strike it out in the note-book.  The significance which Chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the fact that he recopied most of it into a special copy book.

ANTON CHEKHOV’S DIARY.

1896

My neighbor V.N.S. told me that his uncle Fet-Shenshin, the famous poet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably let down the window of his carriage and spit at the University.  He would expectorate and spit:  Bah!  His coachman got so used to this that every time he drove past the University, he would stop.

In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin.  I often saw Potapenko.  Met Korolenko.  I often went to the Maly Theatre.  As Alexander [Chekhov’s brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G. simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the Novoye Vremya and said to me indignantly:  “Why do you set the old man (i.e.  Souvorin) against Burenin?” I have never spoken ill of the contributors to the Novoye Vremya in Souvorin’s presence, although I have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them.

In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N.  Tolstoi.  He was irritated, made stinging remarks about the decadents, and for an hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talked nonsense all the time.  Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi’s daughters] laid out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out; I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that annoyed them.  By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack.  Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to their father is touching.  The countess denounced the painter Ge all the evening.  She too was irritated.

May 5.  The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has painted from a photograph.  In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N. He is director of the Foreign Department ... editor of a magazine ... and doctor of medicine.  He gives the impression of being an unusually stupid person and a reptile.  He said:  “There’s nothing more pernicious on earth than a rascally liberal paper,” and told us that, apparently, the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free of charge, ask him for a tip.  He and S. speak of the peasants with exasperation and loathing.