Excellent People

"Excellent People" is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov that delves into the lives and dilemmas of various characters, capturing the complexity of human nature and social interactions. The narrative revolves around a gathering at a summer estate where discussions about morality, society, and personal ambitions unfold. With Chekhov's signature wit and keen observations, the story explores themes of hypocrisy, the search for meaning, and the often conflicting desires of individuals, all while highlighting the peculiarities of the human condition. Through sharp dialogue and nuanced character portrayals, Chekhov invites readers to reflect on what it truly means to be 'excellent' in a flawed world.

								
ONCE upon a time there lived in Moscow a man called Vladimir Semyonitch
Liadovsky. He took his degree at the university in the faculty of law
and had a post on the board of management of some railway; but if you
had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at
you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would
answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone:

"My work is literature."

After completing his course at the university, Vladimir Semyonitch had
had a paragraph of theatrical criticism accepted by a newspaper. From
this paragraph he passed on to reviewing, and a year later he had
advanced to writing a weekly article on literary matters for the same
paper. But it does not follow from these facts that he was an amateur,
that his literary work was of an ephemeral, haphazard character.
Whenever I saw his neat spare figure, his high forehead and long mane of
hair, when I listened to his speeches, it always seemed to me that his
writing, quite apart from what and how he wrote, was something
organically part of him, like the beating of his heart, and that his
whole literary programme must have been an integral part of his brain
while he was a baby in his mother's womb. Even in his walk, his
gestures, his manner of shaking off the ash from his cigarette, I could
read this whole programme from A to Z, with all its claptrap, dulness,
and honourable sentiments. He was a literary man all over when with an
inspired face he laid a wreath on the coffin of some celebrity, or with
a grave and solemn face collected signatures for some address; his
passion for making the acquaintance of distinguished literary men, his
faculty for finding talent even where it was absent, his perpetual
enthusiasm, his pulse that went at one hundred and twenty a minute, his
ignorance of life, the genuinely feminine flutter with which he threw
himself into concerts and literary evenings for the benefit of destitute
students, the way in which he gravitated towards the young--all this
would have created for him the reputation of a writer even if he had not
written his articles.

He was one of those writers to whom phrases like, "We are but few," or
"What would life be without strife? Forward!" were pre-eminently
becoming, though he never strove with any one and never did go forward.
It did not even sound mawkish when he fell to discoursing of ideals.
Every anniversary of the university, on St. Tatiana's Day, he got drunk,
chanted Gaudeamus out of tune, and his beaming and perspiring
countenance seemed to say: "See, I'm drunk; I'm keeping it up!" But even
that suited him.

Vladimir Semyonitch had genuine faith in his literary vocation and his
whole programme. He had no doubts, and was evidently very well pleased
with himself. Only one thing grieved him--the paper for which he worked
had a limited circulation and was not very influential. But Vladimir
Semyonitch believed that sooner or later he would succeed in getting on
to a solid magazine where he would have scope and could display
himself--and what little distress he felt on this score was pale beside
the brilliance of his hopes.

Visiting this charming man, I made the acquaintance of his sister, Vera
Semyonovna, a woman doctor. At first sight, what struck me about this
woman was her look of exhaustion and extreme ill-health. She was young,
with a good figure and regular, rather large features, but in comparison
with her agile, elegant, and talkative brother she seemed angular,
listless, slovenly, and sullen. There was something strained, cold,
apathetic in her movements, smiles, and words; she was not liked, and
was thought proud and not very intelligent.

In reality, I fancy, she was resting.

"My dear friend," her brother would often say to me, sighing and
flinging back his hair in his picturesque literary way, "one must never
judge by appearances! Look at this book: it has long ago been read. It
is warped, tattered, and lies in the dust uncared for; but open it, and
it will make you weep and turn pale. My sister is like that book. Lift
the cover and peep into her soul, and you will be horror-stricken. Vera
passed in some three months through experiences that would have been
ample for a whole lifetime!"

Vladimir Semyonitch looked round him, took me by the sleeve, and began
to whisper:

"You know, after taking her degree she married, for love, an architect.
It's a complete tragedy! They had hardly been married a month
when--whew--her husband died of typhus. But that was not all. She caught
typhus from him, and when, on her recovery, she learnt that her Ivan was
dead, she took a good dose of morphia. If it had not been for vigorous
measures taken by her friends, my Vera would have been by now in
Paradise. Tell me, isn't it a tragedy? And is not my sister like an
ingénue, who has played already all the five acts of her life? The
audience may stay for the farce, but the ingénue must go home to rest."

After three months of misery Vera Semyonovna had come to live with her
brother. She was not fitted for the practice of medicine, which
exhausted her and did not satisfy her; she did not give one the
impression of knowing her subject, and I never once heard her say
anything referring to her medical studies.

She gave up medicine, and, silent and unoccupied, as though she were a
prisoner, spent the remainder of her youth in colourless apathy, with
bowed head and hanging hands. The only thing to which she was not
completely indifferent, and which brought some brightness into the
twilight of her life, was the presence of her brother, whom she loved.
She loved him himself and his programme, she was full of reverence for
his articles; and when she was asked what her brother was doing, she
would answer in a subdued voice as though afraid of waking or
distracting him: "He is writing. . . ." Usually when he was at his work
she used to sit beside him, her eyes fixed on his writing hand. She used
at such moments to look like a sick animal warming itself in the sun. .
. .

One winter evening Vladimir Semyonitch was sitting at his table writing
a critical article for his newspaper: Vera Semyonovna was sitting beside
him, staring as usual at his writing hand. The critic wrote rapidly,
without erasures or corrections. The pen scratched and squeaked. On the
table near the writing hand there lay open a freshly-cut volume of a
thick magazine, containing a story of peasant life, signed with two
initials. Vladimir Semyonitch was enthusiastic; he thought the author
was admirable in his handling of the subject, suggested Turgenev in his
descriptions of nature, was truthful, and had an excellent knowledge of
the life of the peasantry. The critic himself knew nothing of peasant
life except from books and hearsay, but his feelings and his inner
convictions forced him to believe the story. He foretold a brilliant
future for the author, assured him he should await the conclusion of the

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