Osip Braz. Portrait of Anton Chekhov, 1898
Tretyakov Gallery“In less than forty-four years, Chekhov:
- did not hide the secret of his origins;
- did not expect an inheritance and did not fight for it;
- did not suffer from unrequited love (at least, not his entire life);
- did not pursue women (at least, he kept quiet about it) and, on the other hand, did not turn his companions into mystical Beautiful Ladies;
- did not lose at cards;
- did not fight in duels;
- did not serve in the army nor fight in a war;
- did not stand on the scaffold, nor was he in hard labor or in exile (even a mild, domestic one);
- did not fight against the authorities or censorship;
- did not tell the truth to tsars with a smile (or without one);
- did not publish works abroad or underground;
- did not publish any magazines;
- did not have fatal conflicts with fellow writers;
- did not ostentatiously burn his main books (and simply did not ostentatiously destroy manuscripts);
- did not run away from home at night;
- did not commit suicide.”
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