SOURCE: "Anton Chekhov," in The Art of Celebration, Faber and Faber, 1979, pp. 110-22.

In this excerpt, Mudford explores how Chekhov's characters struggle between present despair and hope for the future.

What beautiful trees—and how beautiful, when you think of it, life ought to be with trees like these!

Three Sisters, Act Four

Tolstoy once complained to Chekov in conversation: 'You know I cannot abide Shakespeare, but your plays are even worse.¹ Chekov's plays lacked, in his opinion, a point of view. Chekov, who felt an unequalled love and affection for Tolstoy, admitted the truth in what he was saying; but could not do anything about it.

I have often been blamed, even by Tolstoy, for writing about trifles, for not having any positive heroes … but where am I to get them! Our life is provincial, the cities unpaved, the villages poor, the masses abused. In our youth...