Here we have yet another “strangers sleeping together in a Russian hut” story.
In this case, it’s a forester’s hut and the stranger is a hunter. The forester is a fearful man. They discuss the relative fearsomeness of wild animals and evil men.
In the woods, they hear a cry. The forester is terrified and wants to bolt the door. The hunter wants to investigate and help whoever is crying out.
The hunter plunges into the darkness while the forester trembles alone in the dark. The hunter returns, having helped a woman whose wagon tipped into a ditch.
At this point, the tale turns sideways. The hunter, enraged by the forester’s cowardice, decides to steal the forester’s money. Of course, there isn’t any money; in the end, he storms out the door.
It’s hard to know what to make of this tale. We have, on the one hand, a man too fearful to aid another human in need. And on the other hand, we have a man who is brave enough to venture forth in the dark to help a stranger, but also so self-righteous that he is willing to rob his host.
I can imagine–maybe in a longer work–a compelling portrait of a character who is both brave and spitefully bad, as is the case of the hunter. But in this story he simply comes of as cartoonish. At best.
If you happen to read this story “in order,” that is, as part of Volume 10 of Constance Garnett’s translations of Chekhov, you will see that there is a bit of a theme to this volume: Misanthropy. Humans are dummies (“A Happy Man”), harpies (“A Defenceless Creature,”) predators (“An Enigmatic Nature,”) cads (“The Jeune Premier,”) or just simpletons, as irrational as a flock of starlings (“Minds in Ferment.”) The tales are meant to be funny but the humor hasn’t aged particularly well, partly because the form (and many of the underlying attitudes) is outdated. There’s an edge of miserable meanness to them all.
I don’t necessarily dislike the harsh light of these stories, but it’s tiresome to read so many stacked up one after another.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
Oh so many Chekhov stories feature men and women bunking with strangers in uncomfortable, out of the way places. “A Troublesome Visitor,” written in 1886, feels like a failure, but it points toward later, much richer stories involving travelers and unexpected bedmates. One of the very best of these is “Peasant Wives,” written in 1891. It’s an incredibly complex portrait of strangers passing the night together, trading tales. It contains worlds and worlds, and manages to give a sense, to a modern reader, of what it might have been like to enter a 19th Century Russian village at dusk and spend the evening trading stories.
A Chekhov Circus 