Prominent among a small group of Russian writers was the
lately deceased Anton Chékhov, whose stories the critics place
on the highest level. We publish a translation of one of his strongest and
most characteristic pieces of short fiction, one which symbolizes in many
ways the feelings of modern Russia—sense of stagnation, revolt against
the baseness and banality of existence, and inability to cope effectively
with surrounding forces. The tedium of life—this is the keynote of
Varka's tragedy, and this is what a vast people is trying to throw off—too
frequently by means that remind one of the poor little slavey's solution of
the terrible problem. It is indeed a somber tale, but its deep significance
will not fail to be appreciated by our readers. Fiction writing in Russia
to-day is no purely diverting matter. Art, under the existing conditions,
must express what lies nearest the heart, and as Mr. Brinton said in the
April number of the Cosmopolitan, "not until most of the country's
wrongs are righted or her bleeding wounds are healed, will fiction or the
drama settle complacently down to a trivial dilettanteism."
