Page:Chekhov - The Darling and other Stories (Macmillan, 1917).djvu/10

 By his supremacy as a writer of short stories, Chekhov has been termed the Russian Maupassant, and there are, indeed, several vital resemblances between the outlook of the French and of the Russian master. The art of both these unflinching realists, in its exploration of human motives, is imbued with a searching passion for truth and a poet's sensitiveness to beauty. But whereas Maupassant's mental atmosphere is clear, keen, and strong, with a touch of a hard, cold wind, Chekhov's is born of a softer, warmer, kindlier earth. Had Maupassant written "The Darling," he would have been less patient with Olenka's lack of brains, more cynical over her forgetfulness of her first and second husband. And a French Olenka would, in fact, have been less naive than the Russian woman, and in that respect more open to criticism.

The temperamental difference between the Norman and the Russian, in fact, reflects the differences between their traditions and the spiritual valuations of their national cultures. As an illustration we may cite Chekhov's handling of those odious women, Ariadne and the rapacious wife in "The Helpmate."

It is characteristic that Chekhov shows them to us through the eyes of a kindly, good-natured type of man whose judgment, however exasperated, does not crystallise into hardness or bitterness. Chekhov, though often melancholy, is rarely cynical; he looks at human nature with the charitable eye of the wise doctor who has learnt from