On Chekhov: Gusev

On 'Gusev'

It has been often commented that Chekhov’s stories describe “ordinary people, leading ordinary lives and failing even at that.” This is unquestionably a significant and central aspect of the cosmos that Chekhov explores in his depictions of how men and women struggle with fate and nature, society and themselves—in other words, the world. Most characters, most people, do not have the strength, wisdom and/or sheer luck to win at the game of life and it can be questioned whether Chekhov ever implies that this impossible victory matters as much as the act of trying— what he refers to always as ‘work’.

“Gusev” is a story about two characters in the infirmary of a steamship headed home, to Russia. Both men are deathly ill; otherwise, they appear to be polar opposites. Gusev is a recently discharged orderly from peasant stock whose attitude toward life is evident in his easy acceptance of obedience and service to others. His is an existence of deep feeling and simple, modest judgment. In his delirium he imagines his small village, his parents, brother, young nephew and niece; feverish reverie transports him to the vast and harsh winter landscape of home, helping to dispel the torturous heat in the claustrophobic and crowded sick-room quarters below deck in the iron-clad vessel.

The social standing of Pavel Ivanych appears uncertain at first; illness and emaciation have distorted his features and physical presence beyond ready identification. He tells Gusev that his father was a priest— an ‘honest’ one, which earned him no favors with the high and mighty. Pavel Ivanych is an intellectual—cold, harsh and judgmental. He has journeyed through life as cantankerously as possible, making enemies and arguing at every chance. Pavel Ivanych is going home to Russia to spite his friends who bade him never return; he describes himself as ‘protest personified’.

Pavel Ivanych believes that he sees all, like a hawk hovering high above the earth, and that he understands everything. To him Gusev is a pathetic dupe who, one small step ahead of death, was herded like an animal onto the ship, hidden among a group of healthy soldiers so as to keep the regiment’s doctor’s ledgers in the pink.

It turns out, however, that Pavel Ivanych has done to himself what others did to Gusev: he lied to get onto the ship, pretending to be of a lower class because he could not pay the higher fare required of ‘quality’ passengers. Pavel Ivanych thinks that, because he takes a critical attitude toward his condition, he is not really ill like Gusev and the others in the infirmary.

Pavel Ivanych tells Gusev: “You have only one life to live and it mustn’t be wronged.” This line is a key to looking at these characters from a particular point of view. Without question or surprise, by the end of the story both men, first the intellectual protester and then the obedient peasant, will be dead. “Nature does not distinguish between saint and sinner.” It is given that in a certain sense life turns out wrong; we all die. Dreams fade and realities are often mercilessly capricious and absolute. In this story and in this line, there is a different voice and another outcome, less characteristic of the tone more frequently found in many of Chekhov’s works. It is life itself that must not be wronged.

Pavel Ivanych and Gusev are testaments to a kind of authenticity. Pavel Ivanych has been true to his nature as a solitary and ethical questioner of the status quo. He has not sought advantage but, rather, the opportunity to express the life within him. Gusev has also been true to his nature as a connected and feeling supporter of the status quo (even in delirium he imagines his niece so close, so present, that she could bring him a drink and receive his gift; he worries that his brother will not care for their aging parents properly). That each man has faults only makes them more human; as exemplars of destiny they have done what they could without compromise, if not without contradiction; each has paid the price for being exactly who he is.

The story ends with Gusev’s burial at sea. Stitched up in sailcloth and weighted with iron, his body descends deep into the water. His individual life is released from its earthly wrapping and reclaimed into the cycle of life, devoured dispassionately by a roaming shark and witnessed by a shimmering chorus of silvery fishes as ecstatic as the rainbow sky high above filled with colors for which, truly, there are no names.