THEATER CHRONICLE
101
he could
be
nice to her for a few hours at least, under the circumstances.
But no, he cannot.
It
is off to the town in a buggy-to a vulgar pro–
vincial salon that bores him. And yet he is not a villain--only not a
hero; Chekhov, a realist, takes pains to show that it would require actual
heroism for this restless person to spend a few hours with his ailing wife.
Invalids are trying to
be
with. But just this allowance that Chekhov,
as an experienced doctor, makes for Ivanov renders the character highly
disturbing to the audience. Is he excusable or isn't he? Or, as the audi–
ence keeps arguing during the intermission, is he supposed to be "sym–
pathetic" ?
The audience, furthermore, could
be
reconciled to Ivanov if it
were assured that he was the victim of a complex or a typical product
of a social environment and hence "determined," an effect of a known
cause. But no explanation is forthcoming; it really is not clear why this
man is falling to pieces. All that is plain is that Ivanov cannot control
his actions, that his actions are indeed the reverse of what he would
will them to be. His behavior is a doom or tic to which he is subject
without being altered in his inner nature. A liberal of emancipated views,
he commits the unforgivable sin, at a climactic point of the plot, of
taunting his sick wife with being Jewish; this sin, just because it is un–
forgivable, has been waiting for him all along, as though it were en–
dowed with consciousness and had only to bide its time for him to
commit
it-at the most unforgivable moment. "Why did you have to
say that
then?"
the audience, appalled, wants to shriek at him. "You
know the poor woman is dying." But the truth is that the cry "Jewess!"
had to leap out of him at the very instant when he would least consent
to utter it, when, in other words, it could not
be
taken back. And having
gone this far, Ivanov goes still further in shamelessness; he lets her
know what the doctor had been keeping from her, the facts of her
condition.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Ivanov has done the un–
pardonable and yet he is not even a villain. This position is the very
essence of the non-heroic. It is not the immortal gods that have been
offended but Ivanov's conception of himself as an educated, civilized
gentleman who would not do precisely what he has just done. This sen–
sitive conception feels pain, and in that very idea there
is
naturally
something ludicrous. "Forgive me, Nora; that was unpardonable," says
Major Con Melody in
A Touch of the Poet,
apologizing to his wife for
an ugly statement that "slipped out." Almost immediately, he does it
again. "Deeply moved," he kisses her and then suddenly pushes her
away. "For God's sake, why don't you wash your hair? It turns my
