shows us, but Russian life and character in general, in which the old order is giving place to the new, and we see the practical, modern spirit invading the vague, aimless existence so dear to the owners of the cherry orchard. A new epoch was beginning, and at its dawn the singer of old, dim Russia was silenced.
In the year that saw the production of "The Cherry Orchard," Tchekoff, the favourite of the Russian people, whom Tolstoi declared to be comparable as a writer of stories only to Maupassant, died suddenly in a little village of the Black Forest, whither he had gone a few weeks before in the hope of recovering his lost health.
Tchekoff, with an art peculiar to himself, in scattered scenes, in haphazard glimpses into the lives of his characters, in seemingly trivial conversations, has succeeded in so concentrating the atmosphere of the Russia of his day that we feel it in every line we read, oppressive as the mists that hang over a lake at dawn, and, like those mists, made visible to us by the light of an approaching day.
Novel:
THE SHOOTING PARTY
PRELUDE
On an April day of the year 1880 the doorkeeper Audrey came into my private room and told me in a mysterious whisper that a gentleman had come to the editorial office and demanded insistently to see the editor.
‘He appears to be a chinovnik,’ Andrey added. ‘He has a cockade…’
‘Ask him to come another time,’ I said, ‘I am busy today. Tell him the editor only receives on Saturdays.’
‘He was here the day before yesterday and asked for you. He says his business is urgent. He begs, almost with tears in his eyes, to see you. He says he is not free on Saturday… Will you receive him?’
I sighed, laid down my pen, and settled myself in my chair to receive the gentleman with the cockade. Young authors, and in general everybody who is not initiated into the secrets of the profession, are generally so overcome by holy awe at the words ‘editorial office’ that they make you wait a considerable time for them. After the editor’s ‘Show him in,’ they cough and blow their noses for a long time, open the door very slowly, come into the room still more slowly, and thus rob you of no little time. The gentleman with the cockade did not make me wait. The door had scarcely had time to close after
