Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovfarming, and science and love. My Ivanov says to the doctor (Act I.,Scene 5): “You took your degree only last year, my dear friend, youare still young and vigorous, while I am thirty-five. I have a right toadvise you ….” That is how these prematurely exhausted peopletalk. Further down, sighing authoritatively, he advises: “Don’t youmarry in this or that way (see above), but choose something commonplace,grey, with no vivid colours or superfluous flourishes. Altogetherbuild your life according to the conventional pattern. Thegreyer and more monotonous the background the better …. Thelife that I have led—how tiring it is! Ah, how tiring!”Conscious of physical exhaustion and boredom, he does not understandwhat is the matter with him, and what has happened.Horrified, he says to the doctor (Act I., Scene 3): “Here you tell meshe is soon going to die and I feel neither love nor pity, but a sort ofemptiness and weariness …. If one looks at me from outside it mustbe horrible. I don’t understand what is happening to my soul.” Findingthemselves in such a position, narrow and unconscientious peoplegenerally throw the whole blame on their environment, or writethemselves down as Hamlets and superfluous people, and are satisfiedwith that. But Ivanov, a straightforward man, openly says tothe doctor and to the public that he does not understand his ownmind. “I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” That he really doesn’tunderstand can be seen from his long monologue in Act III., where,tete-a-tete with the public, he opens his heart to it and even weeps.The change that has taken place in him offends his sense of whatis fitting. He looks for the causes outside himself and fails to findthem; he begins to look for them inside and finds only an indefinitefeeling of guilt. It is a Russian feeling. Whether there is a death orillness in his family, whether he owes money or lends it, a Russianalways feels guilty. Ivanov talks all the time about being to blame insome way, and the feeling of guilt increases in him at every juncture.In Act I. he says: “Suppose I am terribly to blame, yet mythoughts are in a tangle, my soul is in bondage to a sort of sloth, andI am incapable of understanding myself ….” In Act II. he says toSasha: “My conscience aches day and night, I feel that I am profoundlyto blame, but in what exactly I have done wrong I cannotmake out.”105