This is one of only two animal stories Chekhov ever wrote–that is, a story about animals who have interiority and consciousness.
Me, I didn’t like it much. It struck me as draggy and dull.
But it was quite a hit in its day, proving so popular after its publication in The New Times that it was brought out in stand-alone form as a book.
The story, in a nutshell: Kashtanka, a mongrel dog owned by a carpenter, becomes separated from her master. She is taken in by a circus animal trainer, where she is treated far better – she eats well and sleeps on a comfortable bed. In time she learns to perform, but on her very first night on stage she spots her former owner, the carpenter, and rushes off with him. The story ends with her trotting happily beside her old, mean owner.
“Kashtanka” is — well, it’s not much. But it does end on a brilliant note. In the penultimate paragraph, Kashtanka is trotting along, reunited with her old owner, “and it seemed to her that she had been following them for ages, and was glad there had not been a break for a minute of her life.”
That’s good, I think! That’s a decent portrayal of what a dog’s consciousness might be like – all in the moment. She seems to have forgotten everything that she experienced after separating from her owner. All she knows is what is right there in front of her.
And what about her life with the animal trainer – the good food, the companionship of the other animals in the household, the activity? “That seemed to her now like a long, tangled, oppressive dream.”
That’s really good.
So, while I didn’t like the story overall, it was wildly popular when it was published. When Chekhov moved into an apartment in the home of his editor and mentor Alexei Suvorin, he discovered that the Suvorin children had named their dogs after characters in “Kashtanka.”
“They think I am some sort of genius,” Chekhov wrote, referring to the Suvorin children, “because I wrote ‘Kashtanka.’”
READ THIS? READ THAT!
I’ve tried to avoid circular loops in these “read this then that” recommendations. But there is really no other story to compare to this one save “Whitebrow.” If you read “Kashtanka,” you should read “Whitebrow.” And vice versa.
A Chekhov Circus 