An Artist's Story Page #5

"An Artist's Story" is a poignant short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that delves into the themes of art, existence, and the struggle for recognition. The narrative follows a struggling artist who reflects on his life and the meaning of his work in the face of indifference from society. Chekhov explores the complexities of the artist's journey, highlighting the tension between personal aspiration and societal expectations. Through vivid imagery and emotional depth, the story captures the essence of an artist's passion and the often harsh realities they face in pursuit of their craft.

								

distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! All of
us together would devote our leisure to science and art. Just as the
peasants sometimes work, the whole community together mending the roads,
so all of us, as a community, would search for truth and the meaning of
life, and I am convinced that the truth would be discovered very
quickly; man would escape from this continual, agonising, oppressive
dread of death, and even from death itself."

"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about science,
and are yourself opposed to elementary education."

"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs on
public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- such
education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's
Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was in
the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not elementary
education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual capacities.
What are wanted are not schools, but universities."

"You are opposed to medicine, too."

"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural
phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should not
be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause --
physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't believe in a
science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When science and art
are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, but at eternal and
universal--they seek for truth and the meaning of life, they seek for
God, for the soul, and when they are tied down to the needs and evils of
the day, to dispensaries and libraries, they only complicate and hamper
life. We have plenty of doctors, chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can
read and write, but we are quite without biologists, mathematicians,
philosophers, poets. The whole of our intelligence, the whole of our
spiritual energy, is spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs.
Scientific men, writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the
conveniences of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical
demands increase, yet truth is still a long way off, and man still
remains the most rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to
the degeneration of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all
fitness for life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning,
and the more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is
his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is
working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and is
supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I won't
work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!"

"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently
thinking my words pernicious to the young girl.

Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of the
room.

"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify
their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of schools
and hospitals, than to teach or heal."

"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented.

"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a high
value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never agree, since
I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which you have just
spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any landscape." And
turning at once to her mother, she began speaking in quite a different
tone: "The prince is very much changed, and much thinner than when he
was with us last. He is being sent to Vichy."

She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to me.
Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the table as
though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading the newspaper.
My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye and went home.

IV

It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side of the
pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, and only the
stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate with the lions on
it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to escort me.

"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make out
her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed upon
me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, well-bred
people, argue and irritate each other."

It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was already a
feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple cloud, and it
shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark fields of winter corn
by the sides. From time to time a star fell. Genya walked beside me
along the road, and tried not to look at the sky, that she might not see
the falling stars, which for some reason frightened her.

"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night air.
"If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual ends,
they would soon know everything."

"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise the
whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we should in
the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind will
degenerate till no traces of genius remain."

When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands with me.

"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse over
her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow."

I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and
dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not to look
at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, "I entreat
you."

I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came and
saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly and
enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, slender
neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. And
intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. I was
fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they were
different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked me. Genya
liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her heart by my
talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her sake alone; and I
dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me would possess those
trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the exquisite and beautiful
scenery in the midst of which I had felt myself hopelessly solitary and
useless.

"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you."

I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid of
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes