Page:Chekhov - The Darling and other Stories (Macmillan, 1917).djvu/13

 the moonlit yard, a mysterious sense of the intricacy of the mesh of our lives steals over us. It is the poet's special sense for catching an atmosphere and in his plays, for instance, "The Cherry Orchard," we find the same delicate responsiveness to the spectacle of life's ceaseless intricacy. We get this again in the relations of the dying woman Nina Fyodorovna with her husband, the incorrigible Panaurov, and in Pollna Nikolaevna's inscrutable changes of feeling towards Laptev. With what beautiful slight, firm strokes these last two characters are touched in. If we stress here this side of Chekhov's talent—how a feeling of the inevitableness of things seems to float in the atmosphere of his finest sketches and stories—it is to point out how his flexible and transparent method reproduces the pulse and beat of life, Its pressure, Its fluidity, Its momentum. Its rhythm and change, with astonishing sureness and ease. But any appreciation of Chekhov's talent is Inevitably partial, since Its leading characteristic is Its surpassing variety. This, the first volume of a new translation of his Tales, presents a few aspects of Chekhov's incomparable gift. All who want to know modern Russian, especially the life of the educated class, must read Chekhov. . June, 1916.