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Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems 281

Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma

Valentina Emilia Balas
Bhaskar Bhuyan
Nitul Dutta Editors

Contemporary
Issues in
Communication,
Cloud and Big
Data Analytics
Proceedings of CCB 2020
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

Volume 281

Series Editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Warsaw, Poland

Advisory Editors
Fernando Gomide, Department of Computer Engineering and Automation—DCA,
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering—FEEC, University of Campinas—
UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil
Okyay Kaynak, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Derong Liu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA
Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Witold Pedrycz, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Alberta, Alberta, Canada
Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Marios M. Polycarpou, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, KIOS
Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks, University of Cyprus,
Nicosia, Cyprus
Imre J. Rudas, Óbuda University, Budapest, Hungary
Jun Wang, Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong,
Kowloon, Hong Kong
The series “Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems” publishes the latest develop-
ments in Networks and Systems—quickly, informally and with high quality. Original
research reported in proceedings and post-proceedings represents the core of LNNS.
Volumes published in LNNS embrace all aspects and subfields of, as well as new
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The series contains proceedings and edited volumes in systems and networks,
spanning the areas of Cyber-Physical Systems, Autonomous Systems, Sensor
Networks, Control Systems, Energy Systems, Automotive Systems, Biological
Systems, Vehicular Networking and Connected Vehicles, Aerospace Systems,
Automation, Manufacturing, Smart Grids, Nonlinear Systems, Power Systems,
Robotics, Social Systems, Economic Systems and other. Of particular value to both
the contributors and the readership are the short publication timeframe and the world-
wide distribution and exposure which enable both a wide and rapid dissemination of
research output.
The series covers the theory, applications, and perspectives on the state of the art
and future developments relevant to systems and networks, decision making, control,
complex processes and related areas, as embedded in the fields of interdisciplinary
and applied sciences, engineering, computer science, physics, economics, social, and
life sciences, as well as the paradigms and methodologies behind them.
Indexed by SCOPUS, INSPEC, WTI Frankfurt eG, zbMATH, SCImago.
All books published in the series are submitted for consideration in Web of Science.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15179

Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma · Valentina Emilia Balas ·
Bhaskar Bhuyan · Nitul Dutta
Editors

Contemporary Issues
in Communication, Cloud
and Big Data Analytics
Proceedings of CCB 2020
Editors
Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma Valentina Emilia Balas
Department of Information Technology Department of Automatics and Applied
Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology Software
Majitar, Sikkim, India Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad
Arad, Romania
Bhaskar Bhuyan
Department of Information Technology Nitul Dutta
Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology Department of Computer Science
Majitar, Sikkim, India and Engineering
Marwadi University
Rajkot, Gujarat, India

ISSN 2367-3370 ISSN 2367-3389 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems
ISBN 978-981-16-4243-2 ISBN 978-981-16-4244-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4244-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Singapore
Preface

Communication, cloud and big data have been three highly popular researched
domains in the past decade. Society has witnessed significant innovation in commu-
nication paradigms. Communication methods and associated technologies have
witnessed huge changes and tremendous growths. This journey is still on. Due to
significant penetration of the Internet and mobile technologies in the human society,
there has been shift in the communication means and methods, and ultimate goal
is perhaps to achieve easy-to-use and low-cost technologies as the user-friendly
communication systems.
Cloud technology has supported information technology industries significantly.
Cloud is being relied for data storage, computing and even for providing different
services to the end-users. Enterprises have become dependent heavily on cloud tech-
nologies. Although there are many research issues as well as policy-level issues, cloud
technology has become indispensable for the world of information technology.
At present scenario, it is visible that the human society is gradually becoming
heavily dependent on data. It will probably be not wrong if it is said that present
form of society is driven by data. Here, the technology named as big data analytics
plays a vast role. Big data analytics has tremendous potential that can impact the way
enterprises, business houses, organizations, even the nations across the globe can
function. There has been huge amount of data getting generated digitally, everyday
due to the usage of the Internet as a whole, and the technologies like social networks,
Internet of Things (IoT), and cyberphysical systems (CPS) in specific. Processing,
storage, distribution, and security of these data are major concerns. There is a need
of innovation of tools and technologies for these purposes.
These three domains have tremendous research scopes in isolation as well as when
looked as connected technologies to each other. The purpose of this book is to share
the latest research findings in the areas of communication, cloud technologies and
big data analytics.
The book is comprised of 38 research articles. The articles address various issues in
communication, cloud and big data analytics. There are few articles in the general area
of computing and healthcare informatics as well. The articles have been presented by
the respective authors during the first International Conference on Communication,

v
vi Preface

Cloud and Big Data 2020 (CCB 2020), organized by the Department of Informa-
tion Technology at Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT), Sikkim, during
December 18–19, 2020. CCB 2020 is the fourth one in the series.
We are thankful to all the contributing authors of CCB 2020. We thank Sikkim
Manipal Institute of Technology for extending all support in organizing CCB 2020.
We are highly grateful to Prof. Janusz Kacprzyk for his guidance and encouragement
throughout the journey. We thank the editorial team of Springer Nature for extending
great support to us. We thank Springer Nature for supporting us as the publication
partner and all the help that have been extended throughout the process of publishing
this book.

Gangtok, India Dr. Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma

Arad, Romania Dr. Valentina Emilia Balas
Gangtok, India Dr. Bhaskar Bhuyan
Rajkot, India Dr. Nitul Dutta
Contents

Communication
Reliable Data Delivery in Software-Defined Networking: A Survey . . . . . 3
Prerna Rai and Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma
Phishing Websites, Detection and Analysis: A Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Leena I. Sakri, Pushpalatha S. Nikkam, Madhuri Kulkarni,
Priyanka Kamath, Shreedevi Subrahmanya Bhat, and Swati Kamat
Analysis of Security Attacks in SDN Network: A Comprehensive
Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Ali Nadim Alhaj and Nitul Dutta
An Overview of 51% Attack Over Bitcoin Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Raja Siddharth Raju, Sandeep Gurung, and Prativa Rai
An IPS Approach to Secure V-RSU Communication from Blackhole
and Wormhole Attacks in VANET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Gaurav Soni, Kamlesh Chandravanshi, Mahendra Ku. Jhariya,
and Arjun Rajput
BER Analysis of FBMC for 5G Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Balwant Singh, Malay Ranjan Tripathy, and Rishi Asthana
Impact of TCP-SYN Flood Attack in Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Anurag Sharma, Md. Ruhul Islam, and Dhruba Ningombam
An Efficient Cooperative Caching with Request Forwarding
Strategy in Information-Centric Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Krishna Delvadia and Nitul Dutta
Instabilities of Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Priya Ranjan

vii
viii Contents

Delay-Based Approach for Prevention of Rushing Attack

in MANETs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Ashwin Adarsh, Tshering Lhamu Tamang, Payash Pradhan,
Vikash Kumar Singh, Biswaraj Sen, and Kalpana Sharma
ASCTWNDN:A Simple Caching Tool for Wireless Named Data
Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Dependra Dhakal, Mohit Rathor, Sudipta Dey, Prantik Dey,
and Kalpana Sharma
Design of MIMO Cylindrical DRA’s Using Metalstrip for Enhanced
Isolation with Improved Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
A. Jayakumar, K. Suresh Kumar, T. Ananth Kumar, and S. Sundaresan

Cloud
A Robust BSP Scheduler for Bioinformatics Application on Public
Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Leena I. Sakri and K. S. Jagadeeshgowda
Mobile Cloud-Based Framework for Health Monitoring
with Real-Time Analysis Using Machine Learning Algorithms . . . . . . . . . 173
Suman Mohanty, Ravi Anand, Ambarish Dutta, Venktesh Kumar,
Utsav Kumar, and Md. Ruhul Islam

Big Data Analytics

Genomic Data and Big Data Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma

Image Processing
Feature Extraction Techniques for Shape-Based CBIR—A Survey . . . . . 205
Naiwrita Borah and Udayan Baruah
Object Detection Under Occlusion in Aerial Images: A Review . . . . . . . . 215
Praveen Kumar Pradhan and Udayan Baruah
Comprehensive Comparative Study on Several Image Captioning
Techniques Based on Deep Learning Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Chitrapriya Ningthoujam and Tejbanta S. Chingtham
A Comparison of Image Compression Techniques Over Wireless
Fading Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Priyanka Hazowary, Sushanta Kabir Dutta, and Rupaban Subadar
Image Transformation into Cartoon Using OpenCV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Aaditaa Soni and Anand Sharma
Contents ix

An Advanced Revealing and Classification System for Plant

Illnesses Using Unsupervised Bayesian-based SVM Classifier
and Modified HOG-ROI Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
P. Pugazhendiran, K. Suresh Kumar, T. Ananth Kumar,
and S. Sundaresan

Computation
Advanced FET-Based Biosensors—A Detailed Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
M. Suryaganesh, T. S. Arun Samuel, T. Ananth Kumar,
and M. Navaneetha Velammal
A Survey on Trends of Two-Factor Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Dereje Tirfe and Vivek Kumar Anand
A Survey on Biosignals as a Means of Human Computer Interaction . . . 297
Tanuja Subba and Tejbanta Singh Chingtham
A Survey on Application of Machine Learning in Property
and Casualty Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Amlan Jyoti Dey and Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma
Exploratory Data Analysis on IPL Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Santanu Mohapatra, Angana Goswami, Ashi Singh,
Vikash Kumar Singh, Biswaraj Sen, and Kalpana Sharma
Online Music Recommendations Using User’s Zodiac Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Sudipta Chakrabarty, Anushka Bhattacharya, Md. Ruhul Islam,
and Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma
Forecasting of Onion Prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
R. Sujay, V. K. Parvati, S. R. Biradar, Vijeta V. Kerur,
and Shrikrishna Sharad Huilgol
Complete Test Set Generation for Control Flipping Faults
in Reversible Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Mousum Handique, Amrit Prasad, and Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma
Prediction of MOSFET Count in Processor Integrated Circuit
Using Machine Learning Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Sourav Ghosh, Pranati Rakshit, Shankar Debnath, Dwaipayan Roy,
Sanjit Paul, and Madhura Chakraborty
PSO Optimum Design-PID Controller for Frequency Management
of Single Area Multi-Source Power Generating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
V. Kumarakrishnan, G. Vijayakumar, K. Jagatheesan, D. Boopathi,
B. Anand, and V. Kanendra Naidu
x Contents

Spatial Analysis-Based Study on Impact of COVID-19 on Power

Demand and Supply Prospective in Hilly State of Sikkim, India . . . . . . . . 385
Kamal Sapkota, Shabbiruddin, and Karma Sonam Sherpa
Ecological and Anthropogenic Factors Influencing Presence
of Tiger: A GIS-Based Study in Sikkim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Aranya Jha, Polash Banerjee, and Ajeya Jha

Health Informatics
Techniques in Detecting Diabetic Retinopathy: A Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Parul Datta, Prasenjit Das, and Abhishek Kumar
Specular Reflection Removal in Cervigrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Ayush Agarwal, Faraaz Ali, Aditya Kopparthi, Priya Ranjan,
Kumar Dron Shrivastav, and Rajiv Janardhanan
Kloman Metre: An EMD-Based Tool for Triaging Diseases
Leading to Lung Infections Including COVID-19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Niranjan Chavan, Priya Ranjan, Uday Kumar, Kumar Dron Shrivastav,
Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma, and Rajiv Janardhanan
Artificial Intelligence in Diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome . . . . 453
Debasmita Ghosh Roy and P. A. Alvi
Comparative Assessment of Different Feature Selection Methods
with Proposed Method in the Application of Diabetes Detection . . . . . . . . 465
Sourav Ghosh, Pranati Rakshit, Sayan Paul, Rishav Sen,
Rinika Manna, and Sandeep Shaw

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Editors and contributors

About the Editors

Dr. Hiren Kumar Deva Sarma is Professor in the Department of Information

Technology, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim. He received Bach-
elor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from Assam Engineering College,
Guwahati, Assam (1998). He completed Master of Technology in Information Tech-
nology from Tezpur University, Assam (2000). He received Doctor of Philosophy (in
Computer Science and Engineering) from Jadavpur University, West Bengal (2013).
He has co-authored two books, edited three book volumes, and published more than
70 research papers in different International Journals and referred International and
National Conferences of repute. He is the recipient of Young Scientist Award from
International Union of Radio Science (URSI) in the XVIII General Assembly 2005,
held at New Delhi, India, and has received IEEE Early Adopter Award in 2014.
His current research interests are networks, network security, robotics, and big data
analytics.

Dr. Valentina Emilia Balas is currently Full Professor in the Department of Auto-
matics and Applied Software at the Faculty of Engineering, “Aurel Vlaicu” University
of Arad, Romania. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Electronics and Telecommunica-
tions from Polytechnic University of Timisoara. Dr. Balas is Author of more than 350
research papers in refereed journals and International Conferences. She is Editor-in
Chief to International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms (IJAIP) and to
International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering (IJCSysE), Member in
Editorial Board member of several national and international journals, and is Evalu-
ator Expert for national, international projects and Ph.D. thesis. She served as General
Chair of the International Workshop Soft Computing and Applications (SOFA) in
eight editions 2005–2020 held in Romania and Hungary. Her research interests are in
intelligent systems, fuzzy control, soft computing, smart sensors, information fusion,
modeling, and simulation.

xi
xii Editors and contributors

Dr. Bhaskar Bhuyan is presently working as Associate Professor in the Depart-

ment of Information Technology, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology affiliated
to Sikkim Manipal University, Sikkim, India. He did his B.E. (1997) in Computer
Science & Engineering from Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College (now
NIT), Allahabad, India. He did his M.Tech. (2000) in Information Technology and
Ph.D. (2017) in Computer Science & Engineering from Tezpur University, Assam,
India. He has 18+ years of professional experience in teaching as well as in industry.
He has published several research papers in various conferences and journals of
repute, and co-edited one book (conference proceedings). His research interests
include computer networks, wireless sensor networks, mobile ad hoc networks,
Internet of things, and cloud computing.

Dr. Nitul Dutta is Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty

of Engineering (FoE), Marwadi University, Rajkot, Gujarat since 2014. He has more
than 20 years of experience in teaching and research. He received B.E. degree in
Computer Science and Engineering from Jorhat Engineering College, Assam (1995)
and M. Tech. degree in Information Technology from Tezpur University, Assam
(2002). He received Ph.D. (Engineering), in the field of Mobile IPv6 from Jadavpur
University, West Bengal (2013). He has published 15 research papers in various
journals and 30 research papers in various conferences of repute. He has co-edited
three books (two conference proceedings and one edited volume). He has successfully
completed two sponsored research projects funded by AICTE, Government of India.
His current research interests are wireless communication, mobility management in
IPv6 based network, cognitive radio networks, and cyber security.

Contributors

Ashwin Adarsh Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Sikkim Manipal

Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Bangalore, India
Ayush Agarwal Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University
Noida, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Ali Nadim Alhaj Department of Computer Engineering, Marwadi University,
Rajkot, Gujarat, India
Faraaz Ali Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University Noida,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
P. A. Alvi Department of Physics, Banasthali Vidyapith, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
B. Anand Department of EIE, Hindusthan College of Engineering and Technology,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
Ravi Anand Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Sikkim Manipal
Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar, India
Editors and contributors xiii

Vivek Kumar Anand Marwadi University, Rajkot, India

T. Ananth Kumar Department of CSE, IFET College of Engineering, Villupuram,
Tamil Nadu, India
T. S. Arun Samuel Department of ECE, National Engineering College, Kovilpatti,
Tamil Nadu, India
Rishi Asthana Goel Institute of Technology and Management, Lucknow, Uttar
Pradesh, India
Polash Banerjee Department of CSE, SMIT, SMU, Majitar, Sikkim, India
Udayan Baruah Department of Information Technology, Sikkim Manipal Institute
of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar, Sikkim, India
Shreedevi Subrahmanya Bhat Department of Information Science and Engi-
neering, SDM College of Engineering and Technology, Dharwad, India
Anushka Bhattacharya Department of Computer Science, Bengal Institute of
Technology, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
S. R. Biradar Department of Information Science and Engineering, SDM College
of Engineering & Technology, Dharwad, Karnataka, India;
Affliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, India
D. Boopathi Department of EEE, Paavai Engineering College, Pachal, Tamil Nadu,
India
Naiwrita Borah Department of Information Technology, Sikkim Manipal Institute
of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar, Sikkim, India
Sudipta Chakrabarty Department of Computer Applications, Techno India,
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Madhura Chakraborty Department of Electronics and Communication Engi-
neering, JIS College of Engineering, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India
Kamlesh Chandravanshi Department of Information Technology, LNCT, Bhopal,
India
Niranjan Chavan Health Data Analytics & Visualization Environment, Amity
Institute of Public Health, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, India
Tejbanta S. Chingtham Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar,
Sikkim, India
Tejbanta Singh Chingtham Department of CSE, Sikkim Manipal Institute of
Technology, SMU, Majitar, Sikkim, India
Prasenjit Das Chitkara University School of Computer Applications, Chitkara
University, Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, India
xiv Editors and contributors

Parul Datta Chitkara University School of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara

University, Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, India
Shankar Debnath Department of Computer Science and Engineering, JIS College
of Engineering, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India
Krishna Delvadia Department of Information Technology, Uka Tarsadia Univer-
sity, Surat, Gujarat, India;
Department of Computer Engineering, Marwadi University, Rajkot, Gujarat, India
Amlan Jyoti Dey Technology Specialist, NIIT Technologies Ltd, Noida, India
Sudipta Dey Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Majitar, Rangpo, Sikkim,
India
Prantik Dey Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Majitar, Rangpo, Sikkim,
India
Dependra Dhakal Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Majitar, Rangpo,
Sikkim, India
Ambarish Dutta Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Sikkim
Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar, India
Nitul Dutta Department of Computer Engineering, Marwadi University, Rajkot,
Gujarat, India
Sushanta Kabir Dutta Department of Electronics and Communication Engi-
neering, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India
Sourav Ghosh Department of Computer Science and Engineering, JIS College of
Engineering, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India
Angana Goswami Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Sikkim
Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Sikkim, India
Sandeep Gurung Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Majitar, Sikkim, India
Mousum Handique Assam University, Silchar, Assam, India
Priyanka Hazowary Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India
Shrikrishna Sharad Huilgol Department of Information Science and Engineering,
SDM College of Engineering & Technology, Dharwad, Karnataka, India;
Affliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi, India
Md. Ruhul Islam Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Sikkim
Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim Manipal University, Majitar, India
K. S. Jagadeeshgowda Department of Computer Science, Sri Krishna Institute of
Technology, Bengaluru, India
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he would simply have been beating his hands against a door which
was wide open. For the Russian drama, like the Russian novel, has,
without making any fuss about it, never done but one thing—to
depict life as clearly as it saw it, and as simply as it could.
That is why there has never been a naturalist school in Russia.
The Russians are born realists; they do not have to label themselves
realists, because realism is the very air which they breathe, and the
very blood in their veins. What was labelled realism and naturalism
in other countries simply appeared to them to be a straining after
effect. Even Ibsen, whose great glory was that, having learnt all the
tricks of the stagecraft of Scribe and his followers, he demolished the
whole system, and made Comedies and Tragedies just as skilfully
out of the tremendous issues of real life—even Ibsen had no great
influence in Russia, because what interests Russian dramatists is
not so much the crashing catastrophes of life as life itself, ordinary
everyday life, just as we all see it. “I go to the theatre,” a Russian
once said, “to see what I see every day.” And here we have the
fundamental difference between the drama of Russia and that of any
other country.
Dramatists of other countries, be they English, or French, or
German, or Norwegian, whether they belong to the school of Ibsen,
or to that which found its temple in the Théâtre Antoine at Paris, had
one thing in common; they were either reacting or fighting against
something—as in the case of the Norwegian dramatists—or bent on
proving a thesis—as in the case of Alexandre Dumas fils, the
Théâtre Antoine school, or Mr. Shaw—; that is to say, they were all
actuated by some definite purpose; the stage was to them a kind of
pulpit.
On the English stage this was especially noticeable, and what the
English public has specially delighted in during the last fifteen years
has been a sermon on the stage, with a dash of impropriety in it.
Now the Russian stage has never gone in for sermons or theses: like
the Russian novel, it has been a looking-glass for the use of the
public, and not a pulpit for the use of the playwright. This fact is
never more strikingly illustrated than when the translation of a foreign
play is performed in Russia. For instance, when Mr. Bernard Shaw’s
play, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, was performed in December, 1907,
at the Imperial State-paid Theatre at St. Petersburg, the attitude of
the public and of the critics was interesting in the extreme. In the first
place, that the play should be produced at the Imperial State-paid
Theatre is an interesting illustration of the difference of the attitude of
the two countries towards the stage. In England, public performance
of this play is forbidden; in America it was hounded off the stage by
an outraged and indignant populace; in St. Petersburg it is produced
at what, in Russia, is considered the temple of respectability, the
home of tradition, the citadel of conservatism. In the audience were a
quantity of young, unmarried girls. The play was beautifully acted,
and well received,[25] but it never occurred to any one that it was
either daring or dangerous or startling; it was merely judged as a
story of English life, a picture of English manners. Some people
thought it was interesting, others that it was uninteresting, but almost
all were agreed in considering it to be too stagey for the Russian
taste; and as for considering it an epoch-making work, that is to say,
in the region of thought and ideas, the very idea was scoffed at.
These opinions were reflected in the press. In one of the
newspapers, the leading Liberal organ, edited by Professor
Milioukov, the theatrical critic said that Mr. Bernard Shaw was the
typical middle-class Englishman, and satirised the faults and follies
of his class, but that he himself belonged to the class that he
satirised, and shared its limitations. “The play,” they said, “is a typical
middle-class English play, and it suffers from the faults inherent to
this class of English work: false sentiment and melodrama.”
Another newspaper, the Russ, wrote as follows: “Bernard Shaw is
thought to be an enfant terrible in England. In Russia we take him as
a writer, and as a writer only, who is not absolutely devoid of
advanced ideas. In our opinion, his play belongs neither to the
extreme right nor to the extreme left of dramatic literature; it is an
expression of the ideas of moderation which belong to the centre,
and the proof of this is the production of it at our State-paid Theatre,
which in our eyes is the home and shelter of what is retrograde and
respectable.”[26]
 Such was the opinion of the newspaper critic on Mr. Bernard
Shaw’s play. It represented more or less the opinion of the man in
the street. For nearly all European dramatic art, with the exception of
certain German and Norwegian work, strikes the Russian public as
stagey and artificial. If a Russian had written Mrs. Warren’s
Profession, he would never have introduced the scene between
Crofts and Vivy which occurs at the end of Act iii., because such a
scene, to a Russian, savours of melodrama. On the other hand, he
would have had no hesitation in putting on the stage (at the Imperial
State-paid Theatre) the interior, with all its details, of one of the
continental hotels from which Mrs. Warren derived her income. But,
as I have already said, what interests the Russian dramatist most
keenly is not the huge catastrophes that stand out in lurid pre-
eminence, but the incidents, sometimes important, sometimes trivial,
and sometimes ludicrous, which happen to every human being every
day of his life. And nowhere is this so clearly visible as in the work of
Tchekov; for although the plays of Tchekov—which have not yet
been discovered in England, and which will soon be old-fashioned in
Russia—are not a reflection of the actual state of mind of the
Russian people, yet as far as their artistic aim is concerned, they are
more intensely typical, and more successful in the achievement of
their aim than the work of any other Russian dramatist.[27]
Tchekov has written in all eleven plays, out of which six are farces
in one act, and five are serious dramas. The farces, though
sometimes very funny, are not important; it is in his serious dramatic
work that Tchekov really found himself, and gave to the world
something new and entirely original. The originality of Tchekov’s
plays is not that they are realistic. Other dramatists—many
Frenchmen, for instance—have written interesting and dramatic
plays dealing with poignant situations, happening to real people in
real life. Tchekov’s discovery is this, that real life, as we see it every
day, can be made just as interesting on the stage as the
catastrophes or the difficulties which are more or less exceptional,
but which are chosen by dramatists as their material because they
are dramatic. Tchekov discovered that it is not necessary for real life
to be dramatic in order to be interesting. Or rather that ordinary
everyday life is as dramatic on the stage, if by dramatic one means
interesting, as extraordinary life. He perceived that things which
happen to us every day, which interest us, and affect us keenly, but
which we would never dream of thinking or of calling dramatic when
they occur, may be made as interesting on the stage as the most far-
fetched situations, or the most terrific crises. For instance, it may
affect us keenly to leave for ever a house where we have lived for
many years. It may touch us to the quick to see certain friends off at
a railway station. But we do not call these things dramatic. They are
not dramatic, but they are human.
Tchekov has realised this, and has put them on the stage. He has
managed to send over the footlights certain feelings, moods, and
sensations, which we experience constantly, and out of which our life
is built. He has managed to make the departure of certain people
from a certain place, and the staying on of certain others in the same
place, as interesting behind the footlights as the tragic histories of
Œdipus or Othello, and a great deal more interesting than the
complicated struggles and problems in which the characters of a
certain school of modern dramatists are enmeshed. Life as a whole
never presents itself to us as a definite mathematical problem, which
needs immediate solution, but is rather composed of a thousand
nothings, which together make something vitally important. Tchekov
has understood this, and given us glimpses of these nothings, and
made whole plays out of these nothings.
At first sight one is tempted to say that there is no action in the
plays of Tchekov. But on closer study one realises that the action is
there, but it is not the kind usually sought after and employed by men
who write for the stage. Tchekov is, of course, not the first dramatic
writer who has realised that the action which consisted in violent
things happening to violent people is not a whit more interesting,
perhaps a great deal less interesting, than the changes and the
vicissitudes which happen spiritually in the soul of man. Molière
knew this, for Le Misanthrope is a play in which nothing in the
ordinary sense happens. Rostand’s L’Aiglon is a play where nothing
in the ordinary sense happens.[28] But in these plays in the
extraordinary sense everything happens. A violent drama occurs in
the soul of the Misanthrope, and likewise in that of the Duke of
Reichstadt. So it is in Tchekov’s plays. He shows us the changes,
the revolutions, the vicissitudes, the tragedies, the comedies, the
struggles, the conflicts, the catastrophes, that happen in the souls of
men, but he goes a step further than other dramatists in the way in
which he shows us these things. He shows us these things as we
ourselves perceive or guess them in real life, without the help of
poetic soliloquies or monologues, without the help of a Greek chorus
or a worldly raisonneur, and without the aid of startling events which
strip people of their masks. He shows us bits of the everyday life of
human beings as we see it, and his pictures of ordinary human
beings, rooted in certain circumstances, and engaged in certain
avocations, reveal to us further glimpses of the life that is going on
inside these people. The older dramatists, even when they deal
exclusively with the inner life of man, without the aid of any outside
action, allow their creations to take off their masks and lay bare their
very inmost souls to us.
Tchekov’s characters never, of their own accord, take off their
masks for the benefit of the audience, but they retain them in exactly
the same degree as people retain them in real life; that is to say, we
sometimes guess by a word, a phrase, a gesture, the humming of a
tune, or the smelling of a flower, what is going on behind the mask;
at other times we see the mask momentarily torn off by an outbreak
of inward passion, but never by any pressure of an outside and
artificial machinery, never owing to the necessity of a situation, the
demands of a plot, or the exigencies of a problem; in fact, never by
any forces which are not those of life itself. In Tchekov’s plays, as in
real life, to use Meredith’s phrase, “Passions spin the plot”; he shows
us the delicate webs that reach from soul to soul across the trivial
incidents of every day.
I will now analyse in detail two of the plays of Tchekov. The first is
a drama called Chaika. “Chaika” means “Sea-gull.” It was the first
serious play of Tchekov that was performed; and it is interesting to
note that when it was first produced at the Imperial Theatre at St.
Petersburg it met with no success, the reason being, no doubt, that
the actors did not quite enter into the spirit of the play. As soon as it
was played at Moscow it was triumphantly successful.
The first act takes place in the park in the estate belonging to
Peter Nikolaievitch Sorin, the brother of a celebrated actress, Irina
Nikolaievna, whose stage name is Arkadina. Preparations have been
made in the park for some private theatricals. A small stage has
been erected. The play about to be represented has been written by
Constantine, the actress’s son, who is a young man, twenty-five
years old. The chief part is to be played by a young girl, Ina, the
daughter of a neighbouring landowner. These two young people are
in love with each other. Irina is a successful actress of the more or
less conventional type. She has talent and brains. “She sobs over a
book,” one of the characters says of her, “and knows all Russian
poetry by heart; she looks after the sick like an angel, but you must
not mention Eleanora Duse in her presence, you must praise her
only, and write about her and her wonderful acting in La Dame aux
Camélias. In the country she is bored, and we all become her
enemies, we are all guilty. She is superstitious and avaricious.”
Constantine, her son, is full of ideals with regard to the reform of the
stage; he finds the old forms conventional and tedious, he is longing
to pour new wine into the old skins, or rather to invent new skins.
There is also staying in the house a well-known writer, about forty
years old, named Trigorin. “He is talented and writes well,” one of the
other characters says of him, “but after reading Tolstoy you cannot
read him at all.” The remaining characters are a middle-aged doctor,
named Dorn; the agent of the estate, a retired officer, his wife and
daughter, and a schoolmaster. The characters all assemble to
witness Constantine’s play; they sit down in front of the small
extemporised stage, which has a curtain but no back cloth, since this
is provided by nature in the shape of a distant lake enclosed by
trees. The sun has set, and it is twilight. Constantine begs his guests
to lend their attention. The curtain is raised, revealing a view of the
lake with the moon shining above the horizon, and reflected in the
water. Ina is discovered seated on a large rock dressed all in white.
She begins to speak a kind of prose poem, an address of the Spirit
of the Universe to the dead world on which there is supposed to be
no longer any living creature.
Arkadina (the actress) presently interrupts the monologue by
saying softly to her neighbour, “This is decadent stuff.” The author, in
a tone of imploring reproach, says, “Mamma!” The monologue
continues, the Spirit of the World speaks of his obstinate struggle
with the devil, the origin of material force. There is a pause. Far off
on the lake two red dots appear. “Here,” says the Spirit of the World,
“is my mighty adversary, the devil. I see his terrible glowing eyes.”
Arkadina once more interrupts, and the following dialogue ensues:
Arkadina: It smells of sulphur; is that necessary?
Constantine: Yes.
Arkadina (laughing): Yes, that is an effect.
Constantine: Mamma!
Ina (continuing to recite): He is lonely without man.
Paulin (the wife of the agent): (To the doctor): You have
taken off your hat. Put it on again, you will catch cold.
Arkadina: The doctor has taken off his hat to the devil, the
father of the material universe.
Constantine (losing his temper): The play’s over. Enough!
Curtain!
Arkadina: Why are you angry?
Constantine: Enough! Pull down the curtain! (The curtain is
let down.) I am sorry I forgot, it is only certain chosen people
that may write plays and act. I infringed the monopoly, I ... (He
tries to say something, but waves his arm and goes out.)
Arkadina: What is the matter with you?
Sorin (her brother): My dear, you should be more gentle
with the amour propre of the young.
Arkadina: What did I say to him?
 Sorin: You offended him.
Arkadina: He said himself it was a joke, and I took his play
as a joke.
Sorin: All the same ...
Arkadina: Now it appears he has written a masterpiece! A
masterpiece, if you please! So he arranged this play, and
made a smell of sulphur, not as a joke, but as a manifesto! He
wished to teach us how to write and how to act. One gets
tired of this in the long-run,—these insinuations against me,
these everlasting pin-pricks, they are enough to tire any one.
He is a capricious and conceited boy!
Sorin: He wished to give you pleasure.
Arkadina: Really? Then why did he not choose some
ordinary play, and why did he force us to listen to this
decadent rubbish? If it is a joke I do not mind listening to
rubbish, but he has the pretension to invent new forms, and
tries to inaugurate a new era in art; and I do not think the form
is new, it is simply bad.
Presently Ina appears; they compliment her on her performance.
Arkadina tells her she ought to go on to the stage, to which she
answers that that is her dream. She is introduced to Trigorin the
author: this makes her shy. She has read his works, she is overcome
at seeing the celebrity face to face. “Wasn’t it an odd play?” she asks
Trigorin. “I did not understand it,” he answers, “but I looked on with
pleasure—your acting was so sincere, and the scenery was
beautiful.” Ina says she must go home, and they all go into the house
except the doctor. Constantine appears again, and the doctor tells
him that he liked the play, and congratulates him. The young man is
deeply touched. He is in a state of great nervous excitement. As
soon as he learns that Ina has gone he says he must go after her at
once. The doctor is left alone. Masha, the daughter of the agent,
enters and makes him a confession: “I don’t love my father,” she
says, “but I have confidence in you. Help me.” “What is the matter?”
he asks. “I am suffering,” she answers, “and nobody knows my
suffering. I love Constantine.” “How nervous these people are,” says
the doctor, “nerves, all nerves! and what a quantity of love. Oh,
enchanted lake! But what can I do for you, my child, what, what?”
and the curtain comes down.
The second act is in the garden of the same estate. It is a hot
noon. Arkadina has decided to travel to Moscow. The agent comes
and tells her that all the workmen are busy harvesting, and that there
are no horses to take her to the station. She tells him to hire horses
in the village, or else she will walk. “In that case,” the agent replies, “I
give notice, and you can get a new agent.” She goes out in a
passion. Presently Constantine appears bearing a dead sea-gull; he
lays it at Ina’s feet.
Ina: What does this mean?
Constantine: I shot this sea-gull to-day to my shame. I
throw it at your feet.
Ina: What is the matter with you?
Constantine: I shall soon shoot myself in the same way.
Ina: I do not recognise you.
Constantine: Yes, some time after I have ceased to
recognise you. You have changed towards me, your look is
cold, my presence makes you uncomfortable.
Ina: During these last days you have become irritable, and
speak in an unintelligible way, in symbols. I suppose this sea-
gull is a symbol. Forgive me, I am too simple to understand
you.
Constantine: It all began on that evening when my play was
such a failure. Women cannot forgive failure. I burnt it all to
the last page. Oh, if you only knew how unhappy I am! Your
coldness is terrifying, incredible! It is just as if I awoke, and
suddenly saw that this lake was dry, or had disappeared
under the earth. You have just said you were too simple to
understand me. Oh, what is there to understand? My play
was a failure, you despise my work, you already consider that
 I am a thing of no account, like so many others! How well I
understand that, how well I understand! It is as if there were a
nail in my brain; may it be cursed, together with the amour
propre which is sucking my blood, sucking it like a snake! (He
sees Trigorin, who enters reading a book.) Here comes the
real genius. He walks towards us like a Hamlet, and with a
book too. “Words, words, words.” This sun is not yet come to
you, and you are already smiling, your looks have melted in
its rays. I will not be in your way. (He goes out rapidly.)
There follows a conversation between Trigorin and Ina, during
which she says she would like to know what it feels like to be a
famous author. She talks of his interesting life.
Trigorin: What is there so very wonderful about it? Like a
monomaniac who, for instance, is always thinking day and
night of the moon, I am pursued by one thought which I
cannot get rid of, I must write, I must write, I must ... I have
scarcely finished a story, when for some reason or another I
must write a second, and then a third, and then a fourth. I
write uninterruptedly, I cannot do otherwise. What is there so
wonderful and splendid in this, I ask you? Oh, it is a cruel life!
Look, I get excited with you, and all the time I am
remembering that an unfinished story is waiting for me. I see
a cloud which is like a pianoforte, and I at once think that I
must remember to say somewhere in the story that there is a
cloud like a pianoforte.
Ina: But does not your inspiration and the process of
creation give you great and happy moments?
Trigorin: Yes, when I write it is pleasant, and it is nice to
correct proofs; but as soon as the thing is published, I cannot
bear it, and I already see that it is not at all what I meant, that
it is a mistake, that I should not have written it at all, and I am
vexed and horribly depressed. The public reads it, and says:
“Yes, pretty, full of talent, very nice, but how different from
Tolstoy!” or, “Yes, a fine thing, but how far behind Fathers and
Sons; Tourgeniev is better.” And so, until I die, it will always
 be “pretty and full of talent,” never anything more; and when I
die my friends as they pass my grave will say: “Here lies
Trigorin, he was a good writer, but he did not write as well as
Tourgeniev.”
Ina tells him that whatever he may appear to himself, to others he
appears great and wonderful. For the joy of being a writer or an
artist, she says, she would bear the hate of her friends, want,
disappointment; she would live in an attic and eat dry crusts. “I would
suffer from my own imperfections, but in return I should demand
fame, real noisy fame.” Here the voice of Arkadina is heard calling
Trigorin. He observes the sea-gull; she tells him that Constantine
killed it. Trigorin makes a note in his notebook. “What are you
writing?” she says. “An idea has occurred to me,” he answers, “an
idea for a short story: On the banks of a lake a young girl lives from
her infancy onwards. She loves the lake like a sea-gull, she is happy
and free like a sea-gull; but unexpectedly a man comes and sees
her, and out of mere idleness kills her, just like this sea-gull.” Here
Arkadina again calls out that they are not going to Moscow after all.
This is the end of the second act.
At the third act, Arkadina is about to leave the country for Moscow.
Things have come to a crisis. Ina has fallen in love with the author,
and Constantine’s jealousy and grief have reached such a point that
he has tried to kill himself and failed, and now he has challenged
Trigorin to a duel. The latter has taken no notice of this, and is about
to leave for Moscow with Arkadina. Ina begs him before he goes to
say good-bye to her. Arkadina discusses with her brother her son’s
strange and violent behaviour. He points out that the youth’s position
is intolerable. He is a clever boy, full of talent, and he is obliged to
live in the country without any money, without a situation. He is
ashamed of this, and afraid of his idleness. In any case, he tells his
sister, she ought to give him some money, he has not even got an
overcoat; to which she answers that she has not got any money. She
is an artist, and needs every penny for her own expenses. Her
brother scoffs at this, and she gets annoyed. A scene follows
between the mother and the son, which begins by an exchange of
loving and tender words, and which finishes in a violent quarrel. The
mother is putting a new bandage on his head, on the place where he
had shot himself. “During the last few days,” says Constantine, “I
have loved you as tenderly as when I was a child; but why do you
submit to the influence of that man?”—meaning Trigorin. And out of
this the quarrel arises. Constantine says, “You wish me to consider
him a genius. His works make me sick.” To which his mother
answers, “That is jealousy. People who have no talent and who are
pretentious, have nothing better to do than to abuse those who have
real talent.” Here Constantine flies into a passion, tears the bandage
off his head, and cries out, “You people only admit and recognise
what you do yourselves. You trample and stifle everything else!”
Then his rage dies out, he cries and asks forgiveness, and says, “If
you only knew, I have lost everything. She no longer loves me; I can
no longer write; all my hopes are dead!” They are once more
reconciled. Only Constantine begs that he may be allowed to keep
out of Trigorin’s sight. Trigorin comes to Arkadina, and proposes that
they should remain in the country. Arkadina says that she knows why
he wishes to remain; he is in love with Ina. He admits this, and asks
to be set free.
Up to this point in the play there had not been a syllable to tell us
what were the relations between Arkadina and Trigorin, and yet the
spectator who sees this play guesses from the first that he is her
lover. She refuses to let him go, and by a somewhat histrionic
declaration of love cleverly mixed with flattery and common sense
she easily brings him round, and he is like wax in her fingers. He
settles to go. They leave for Moscow; but before they leave, Trigorin
has a short interview with Ina, in which she tells him that she has
decided to leave her home to go on the stage, and to follow him to
Moscow. Trigorin gives her his address in Moscow. Outside—the
whole of this act takes place in the dining-room—we hear the noise
and bustle of people going away. Arkadina is already in the carriage.
Trigorin and Ina say good-bye to each other, he gives her a long
kiss.
Between the third and fourth acts two years elapse. We are once
more in the home of Arkadina’s brother. Constantine has become a
celebrated writer. Ina has gone on the stage and proved a failure.
She went to Moscow; Trigorin loved her for a while, and then ceased
to love her. A child was born. He returned to his former love, and in
his weakness, played a double game on both sides. She is now in
the town, but her father will not receive her. Arkadina arrives with
Trigorin. She has been summoned from town because her brother is
ill. Everything is going on as it was two years ago. Arkadina, the
agent, and the doctor sit down to a game of Lotto before dinner.
Arkadina tells of her triumphs in the provincial theatres, of the
ovations she received, of the dresses she wore. The doctor asks her
if she is proud of her son being an author. “Just fancy,” she replies, “I
have not yet read his books, I have never had time!” They go in to
supper. Constantine says he is not hungry, and is left alone.
Somebody knocks at the glass door opening into the garden.
Constantine opens it; it is Ina. Ina tells her story; and now she has
got an engagement in some small provincial town, and is starting on
the following day. Constantine declares vehemently that he loves her
as much as ever. He cursed her, he hated her, he tore up her letters
and photographs, but every moment he was forced to admit to
himself that he was bound to her for ever. He could never cease to
love her. He begs her either to remain, or to let him follow her. She
takes up her hat, she must go. She says she is a wandering sea-gull,
and that she is very tired. From the dining-room are heard the voices
of Arkadina and Trigorin. She listens, rushes to the door, and looks
through the keyhole. “He is here, too,” she says, “do not tell him
anything. I love him, I love him more than ever.” She goes out
through the garden. Constantine tears up all his MSS. and goes into
the next room. Arkadina and the others come out of the dining-room,
and sit down once more to the card-table to play Lotto. The agent
brings to Trigorin the stuffed sea-gull which Constantine had shot
two years ago, and which had been the starting-point of Trigorin’s
love episode with Ina. He has forgotten all about it; he does not even
remember that the sea-gull episode ever took place. A noise like a
pistol shot is heard outside. “What is that?” says Arkadina in fright. “It
is nothing,” replies the doctor, “one of my medicine bottles has
probably burst.” He goes into the next room, and returns half a
minute later. “It was as I thought,” he says, “my ether bottle has
burst.” “It frightened me,” says Arkadina, “it reminded me of how....”
The doctor turns over the leaves of the newspaper. He then says to
Trigorin, “Two months ago there was an article in this Review written
from America. I wanted to ask you....” He takes Trigorin aside, and
then whispers to him, “Take Irina Nikolaievna away as soon as
possible. The fact of the matter is that Constantine has shot himself.”
Of all the plays of Tchekov, Chaika is the one which most
resembles ordinary plays, or the plays of ordinary dramatists. It has,
no doubt, many of Tchekov’s special characteristics, but it does not
show them developed to their full extent. Besides which, the subject
is more dramatic than that of his other plays; there is a conflict in it—
the conflict between the son and the mother, between the older and
the younger generation, the older generation represented by Trigorin
and the actress, the younger generation by Constantine. The
character of the actress is drawn with great subtlety. Her real love for
her son is made just as plain as her absolute inability to appreciate
his talent and his cleverness. She is a mixture of kindness, common
sense, avarice, and vanity. Equally subtle is the character of the
author, with his utter want of wit; his absorption in the writing of short
stories; his fundamental weakness; his egoism, which prevents him
recognising the existence of any work but his own, but which has no
tinge of ill-nature or malice in it. When he returns in the last act, he
compliments Constantine on his success, and brings him a Review
in which there is a story by the young man. Constantine
subsequently notices that in the Review the only pages which are cut
contain a story by Trigorin himself.
If Chaika is the most dramatically effective of Tchekov’s plays, the
most characteristic is perhaps The Cherry Garden. It is notably
characteristic in the symbolical and historical sense, for it depicts for
us the causes and significance of the decline of the well-born, landed
gentry in Russia.
A slightly Bohemian lady belonging to this class, Ranievskaia—I
will call her Madame Ranievskaia for the sake of convenience, since
her Christian name “Love” has no equivalent, as a name, in English
—is returning to her country estate with her brother Leonidas after
an absence of five years. She has spent this time abroad in Nice and
Paris. Her affairs and those of her brother are in a hopeless state.
They are heavily in debt. This country place has been the home of
her childhood, and it possesses a magnificent cherry orchard. It is in
the south of Russia.
In the first act we see her return to the home of her childhood—
she and her brother, her daughter, seventeen years old, and her
adopted daughter. It is the month of May. The cherry orchard is in full
blossom; we see it through the windows of the old nursery, which is
the scene of the first act. The train arrives at dawn, before sunrise. A
neighbour is there to meet them, a rich merchant called Lopachin.
They arrive with their governess and their servant, and they have
been met at the station by another neighbouring landowner. And
here we see a thing I have never seen on the stage before: a
rendering of the exact atmosphere that hangs about such an event
as (a) the arrival of people from a journey, and (b) the return of a
family to its home from which it has long been absent. We see at a
glance that Madame Ranievskaia and her brother are in all practical
matters like children. They are hopelessly casual and vague. They
take everything lightly and carelessly, like birds; they are convinced
that something will turn up to extricate them from their difficulties.
The merchant, who is a nice, plain, careful, practical, but rather
vulgar kind of person, is a millionaire, and, what is more, he is the
son of a peasant; he was born in the village, and his father was a
serf. He puts the practical situation very clearly before them. The
estate is hopelessly overloaded with debt, and unless these debts
are paid within six months, the estate will be sold by auction. But
there is, he points out, a solution to the matter. “As you already
know,” he says to them, “your cherry orchard will be sold to pay your
debts. The auction is fixed for the 22nd of August, but do not be
alarmed, there is a way out of the difficulty.... This is my plan. Your
estate is only 15 miles from the town, the railway is quite close, and
if your cherry orchard and the land by the river is cut up into villa
holdings, and let for villas, you will get at the least 25,000 roubles
(£2500) a year.” To which the brother replies, “What nonsense!” “You
will get,” the merchant repeats, “at the very least twenty-five roubles
a year a desiatin,”—a desiatin is about two acres and a half: much
the same as the French hectare,—“and by the autumn, if you make
the announcement now, you will not have a single particle of land
left. In a word, I congratulate you; you are saved. The site is
splendid, only, of course, it wants several improvements. For
instance, all these old buildings must be destroyed, and this house,
which is no use at all, the old orchard must be cut down.”
Madame Ranievskaia: Cut down? My dear friend, forgive
me, you do not understand anything at all! If in the whole
district there is anything interesting, not to say remarkable, it
is this orchard.
Lopachin: The orchard is remarkable simply on account of
its size.
Leonidas: The orchard is mentioned in the Encyclopædia.
Lopachin: If we do not think of a way out of the matter and
come to some plan, on the 22nd of August the cherry orchard
and the whole property will be sold by auction. Make up your
minds; there is no other way out, I promise you.
But it is no good his saying anything. They merely reply, “What
nonsense!” They regard the matter of splitting up their old home into
villas as a sheer impossibility. And this is the whole subject of the
play. The merchant continues during the second act to insist on the
only practical solution of their difficulties, and they likewise persist in
saying this solution is madness, that it is absolutely impossible. They
cannot bring themselves to think of their old home being turned into
a collection of villas; they keep on saying that something will turn up,
an old aunt will die and leave them a legacy, or something of that
kind will happen.
In the third act, the day of the auction has arrived, there is a dance
going on in the house. The impression is one of almost intolerable
human sadness, because we know that nothing has turned up, we
know that the whole estate will be sold. The whole picture is one of
the ending of a world. At the dance there are only the people in the
village, the stationmaster, the post-office officials, and so forth. The
servant they have brought from abroad gives notice. An old servant,
who belongs to the house, and is in the last stage of senile decay,
wanders about murmuring of old times and past brilliance. The
guests dance quadrilles through all the rooms. Leonidas has gone to
the auction, and Madame Ranievskaia sits waiting in hopeless
suspense for the news of the result. At last he comes back, pale and
tired, and too depressed to speak. The merchant also comes
triumphantly into the room; he is slightly intoxicated, and with a
triumphant voice he announces that he has bought the cherry
garden.
In the last act, we see them leave their house for ever, all the
furniture has been packed up, all the things which for them are so full
of little associations; the pictures are off the walls, the bare trees of
the cherry garden—for it is now autumn—are already being cut
down, and they are starting to begin a new life and to leave their old
home for ever. The old house, so charming, so full of old-world
dignity and simplicity, will be pulled down, and make place for neat,
surburban little villas to be inhabited by the new class which has
arisen in Russia. Formerly there were only gentlemen and peasants,
now there is the self-made man, who, being infinitely more practical,
pushes out the useless and unpractical gentleman to make way for
himself. The pathos and naturalness of this last act are
extraordinary. Every incident that we know so well in these moments
of departure is noted and rendered. The old servant, who belongs to
the house, is supposed to be in the hospital, and is not there to say
good-bye to them; but when they are all gone, he appears and
closes the shutters, saying, “It is all closed, they are gone, they
forgot me; it doesn’t matter, I will sit here. Leonidas Andreevitch
probably forgot his cloak, and only went in his light overcoat, I wasn’t
there to see.” And he lies motionless in the darkened, shuttered
room, while from outside comes the sound of the felling of the cherry
orchard.
Of course, it is quite impossible in a short analysis to give any idea
of the real nature of this play, which is a tissue of small details, every
one of which tells. Every character in it is living; Leonidas, the
brother, who makes foolish speeches and is constantly regretting
them afterwards; the plain and practical merchant; the good-natured
neighbour who borrows money and ultimately pays it back; the
governess; the clerk in the estate office; the servants, the young
student who is in love with the daughter,—we learn to know all these
people as well as we know our own friends and relations, and they
reveal themselves as people do in real life by means of a lifelike
representation of the conversation of human beings. The play is
historical and symbolical, because it shows us why the landed gentry
in Russia has ceased to have any importance, and how these
amiable, unpractical, casual people must necessarily go under, when
they are faced with a strong energetic class of rich, self-made men
who are the sons of peasants. Technically the play is extraordinarily
interesting; there is no conflict of wills in it, nothing which one could
properly call action or drama, and yet it never ceases to be
interesting; and the reason of this is that the conversation, the casual
remarks of the characters, which seem to be about nothing, and to
be put there anyhow, have always a definite purpose. Every casual
remark serves to build up the architectonic edifice which is the play.
The structure is built, so to speak, in air; it is a thing of atmosphere,
but it is built nevertheless with extreme care, and the result when
interpreted, as it is interpreted at Moscow by the actors of the artistic
theatre, is a stage triumph.
The three other most important plays of Tchekov are Ivanoff,
Three Sisters, and Uncle Vania,—the latter play has been well
translated into German.
Three Sisters is the most melancholy of all Tchekov’s plays. It
represents the intense monotony of provincial life, the grey life which
is suddenly relieved by a passing flash, and then rendered doubly
grey by the disappearance of that flash. The action takes place in a
provincial town. A regiment of artillery is in garrison there. One of the
three sisters, Masha, has married a schoolmaster; the two others,
Irina and Olga, are living in the house of their brother, who is a
budding professor. Their father is dead. Olga teaches in a provincial
school all day, and gives private lessons in the evening. Irina is
employed in the telegraph office. They have both only one dream
and longing, and that is to get away from the provincial corner in
which they live, and to settle in Moscow. They only stay on Masha’s
account. Masha’s husband is a kind and well-meaning, but
excessively tedious schoolmaster, who is continually reciting Latin
tags. When Masha married him she was only eighteen, and thought
he was the cleverest man in the world. She subsequently discovered
that he was the kindest, but not the cleverest man in the world. The
only thing which relieves the tedium of this provincial life is the
garrison.
When the play begins, we hear that a new commander has been
appointed to the battery, a man of forty called Vershinin. He is
married, has two children, but his wife is half crazy. The remaining
officers in the battery are Baron Tuzenbach, a lieutenant; Soleny, a
major; and two other lieutenants. Tuzenbach is in love with Irina, and
wishes to marry her; she is willing to marry him, but she is not in the
least in love with him, and tells him so. Masha falls passionately in
love with Vershinin. The major, Soleny, is jealous of Tuzenbach.
Then suddenly while these things are going on, the battery is
transferred from the town to the other end of Russia. On the morning
it leaves the town, Soleny challenges the Baron to a duel, and kills
him. The play ends with the three sisters being left alone. Vershinin
says a passionate good-bye to Masha, who is in floods of tears, and
does not disguise her grief from her husband. He, in the most
pathetic way conceivable, tries to console her, while the cheerful
music of the band is heard gradually getting fainter and fainter in the
distance. Irina has been told of the death of the Baron, and the sad
thing about this is that she does not really care. The three sisters are
left to go on working, to continue their humdrum existence in the little
provincial town, to teach the children in the school; the only thing
which brought some relief to their monotonous existence, and to one
of the sisters the passion of her life, is taken away from them, and
the departure is made manifest to them by the strains of the cheerful
military band.
I have never seen anything on the stage so poignantly melancholy
as this last scene. In this play, as well as in others, Tchekov, by the
way he presents you certain fragments of people’s lives, manages to
open a window on the whole of their life. In this play of Three Sisters
we get four glimpses. A birthday party in the first act; an ordinary
evening in the second act; in the third act a night of excitement
owing to a fire in the town, and it is on this night that the love affair of
Vershinin and Masha culminates in a crisis; and in the fourth act the
departure of the regiment. Yet these four fragments give us an
insight, and open a window on to the whole life of these people, and,
in fact, on to the lives of many thousand people who have led this life
in Russia.
Tchekov’s plays are as interesting to read as the work of any first-
rate novelist. But in reading them, it is impossible to guess how
effective they are on the stage, the delicate succession of subtle
shades and half-tones, of hints, of which they are composed, the
evocation of certain moods and feelings which it is impossible to
define,—all this one would think would disappear in the glare of the
footlights, but the result is exactly the reverse. Tchekov’s plays are a
thousand times more interesting to see on the stage than they are to
read. A thousand effects which the reader does not suspect make
themselves felt on the boards. The reason of this is that Tchekov’s
plays realise Goethe’s definition of what plays should be. “Everything
in a play,” Goethe said, “should be symbolical, and should lead to
something else.” By symbolical, of course, he meant morally
symbolical,—he did not mean that the play should be full of
enigmatic puzzles, but that every event in it should have a meaning
and cast a shadow larger than itself.
The atmosphere of Tchekov’s plays is laden with gloom, but it is a
darkness of the last hour before the dawn begins. His note is not in
the least a note of despair: it is a note of invincible trust in the
coming day. The burden of his work is this—life is difficult, there is
nothing to be done but to work and to continue to work as cheerfully
as one can; and his triumph as a playwright is that for the first time
he has shown in prose,—for the great poets have done little else,—
behind the footlights, what it is that makes life difficult. Life is too
tremendous, too cheerful, and too sad a thing to be condensed into
an abstract problem of lines and alphabetical symbols; and those
who in writing for the stage attempt to do this, achieve a result which
is both artificial and tedious. Tchekov disregarded all theories and all
rules which people have hitherto laid down as the indispensable
qualities of stage writing; he put on the stage the things which