Ivanoff: A Play
1923
Chekhov's first full-length drama introduces us to Nikolai Ivanov, a young estate owner suffocating in the provincial darkness of 1880s Russia. He is brilliant, restless, and deeply exhausted by a life that offers him nothing to do. His wife Anna is dying of tuberculosis, her devotion a constant reproach to his emotional absence. When the luminous young Sasha enters his orbit, Ivanov finds himself drawn toward a transgression that will confirm every ugly suspicion his critics have whispered about him. But this is no mere melodrama of adultery. Chekhov dismantled the theatrical conventions of his era, refusing to let his characters become either villains or victims. The humor cuts sharp and sudden. The tragedy arrives without announcement. Ivanov is that most Russian of creatures: the superfluous man, educated and empty, yearning for meaning in a world that has none to offer. The play scandalized its first audiences because it refused to judge anyone, because it looked at human failure with the same clear, compassionate eye we turn upon the weather.
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“Sasha: Men don't understand a lot of things. Every young girl is going to be drawn more to a failure than to a successful man, because they're all attracted by the notion of active love... Do you understand? Active. Men are busy with their work, and therefore for them love is something right in the background. A conversation with the wife, a stroll with her in the garden, a nice time, a cry on her grave - that's all. But for us love is life. I love you, that means that I dream of how I'll cure you of your depression, of how I'll go with you to the ends of the earth... When you're up, so am I; when you're down, so am I. ... The more work there is, the better love is ...””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“we all have too many wheels, screws and valves to judge each other on first impressions or one or two pointers. I don't understand you, you don't understand me and we don't understand ourselves.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“A naive man is nothing better than a fool. But you women contrive to be naive in such a way that in you it seems sweet, and gentle, and proper, and not as silly as it really is.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“If an intelligent, educated, and healthy man begins to complain of his lot and go down-hill, there is nothing for him to do but to go on down until he reaches the bottom--there is no hope for him. Where could my salvation come from? How can I save myself? I cannot drink, because it makes my head ache. I never could write bad poetry. I cannot pray for strength and see anything lofty in the languor of my soul. Laziness is laziness and weakness weakness. I can find no other names for them. I am lost, I am lost; there is no doubt of that.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“Ivanov: With a heavy head, with a slothful spirit, exhausted, overstretched, broken, without faith, without love, without a goal, I roam like a shadow among men and I don't know who I am, why I'm alive, what I want. And I now think that love is nonsense, that embraces are cloying, that there's no sense in work, that song and passionate speeches are vulgar and outmoded. And everywhere I take with me depression, chill boredom, dissatisfaction, revulsion from life... I am destroyed, irretrievably!””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“It's better to live down a scandal than to ruin one's life.””
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
