Reading Chekhov

Chekhov's long story "Three Years" (1895) is perhaps the most profound of his fables of beauty. It is a modern retelling of the legend of Beauty and the Beast. (It has been mistakenly taken to be a story about commercial culture in Moscow.) Laptev, a rich, decent, intelligent, but ugly man, falls in love with a beautiful young woman named Julia, who is repelled by him. Chekhov is merciless in his description of Laptev: [He] knew that he was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, overtalkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for it. Julia turns down Laptev's proposal of marriage, and then decides to master her revulsion and accept him. She feels (as Irina in Three Sisters is to feel when she accepts the ill-favored Tuzenbach) that she cannot afford to be choosy. She is moving toward her mid-twenties, she lives at home with a self-absorbed, unloving father, and has no other prospects. Besides, she is kind and feels bad about refusing a decent, honest man. The novella traces the first three years of this sad marriage, narrating it mostly from Laptev's point of view but also, so that we may feel her revulsion, from Julia's. Six months into the marriage, in an exquisitely painful scene in Julia's bedroom, the couple confront their situation.

"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me before other people; you might conceal your feelings."

She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes looked big and black in the lamplight. "I beg your pardon," she said. He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations…

"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for, what did you want?"

She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would kill her.

"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. "No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh the cursed money! The cursed money!"

"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and, not knowing what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her.

"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake!"…

But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for her. Julia undergoes the terrible suffering of losing the child who has compensated her for her loveless marriage. For many months she can do nothing but grieve. And then, with the inexplicable but inevitable change of heart that occurs in myths and fairy tales, she falls in love with Laptev. However, the Chekhov story does not end like a fairy story. Laptev does not turn into a prince. He remains that peculiar creature-half man, half emblem-by which we mean a Chekhov character. When the magical moment comes, when Julia tells Laptev that she loves him (the scene is in a garden, of course), the prosaic Chekhov appears and coolly breaks the spell: "She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry for his lunch." Eight

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