Just half a month ago, shortly after Lionel had finished his written exams for the Sorbonne's academic year, a 19-year-old Russian youth graduated with excellent grades from his hometown's secondary school and arrived in Moscow to reunite with his family.
However, a fierce argument also erupted within this poor little family—
"What?! Give up medicine? To study what? Literature? Philosophy?"
Pavel Yegorovich simply couldn't believe his ears.
His face, wrinkled from years of toil and unfulfilled ambitions, was now flushed crimson with anger and disappointment.
He slammed the tea bowl in his hand onto the table:
"Anton! Are you mad?! What have we, as a family, been scrimping and saving for? It's for you!
It's for you to get into medical school, to become a respectable doctor in the future! To escape this damned poor nest! To show those who look down on us!
Literature? Philosophy? Can that feed you? Those are things for gentlemen and young masters with nothing better to do after they've eaten their fill!
Do you want our whole family to keep wallowing in this mud pit?"
The lady of the house, Yevgeniya Yakovlevna, silently wept nearby.
She understood her youngest son's love for books but was even clearer about the harshness of reality.
She stammered,
"Anton, a doctor... a doctor is a respected profession... studying literature, it's too... too unreliable..."
The eldest son, Alexander, had just woken from a hangover.
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, his tone carried his usual cynicism and a hint of jealousy:
"Ha! Our little philosopher is about to be born? Do you want to be Count Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?
Wake up, Anton! Look at reality!
Without rubles, all ideals are dog crap! Studying medicine will at least let you eat and stay warm, but writing those things..."
He sneered,
"...how many kopecks can that buy you?"
Younger brothers Nikolai and Ivan were still small, looking bewildered at their agitated family.
The only daughter, Masha, gazed worriedly at her brother, whom she had adored since childhood.
She vaguely sensed Anton's persistence and pain.
Faced with the family's almost unanimous opposition, Chekhov, at the center of the storm, appeared unusually silent and resolute.
He didn't crack a few jokes as he usually would to ease the tension, nor did he fiercely retort.
He simply stated calmly yet unequivocally:
"Father, Mother, Alexander, I understand your expectations, and I understand what studying medicine means for our family. But please, look outside!"
He pointed to the gloomy Moscow streets outside the window:
"Look at this land! It's sick, gravely ill! Not a physical ailment, but a sickness of the soul! It's the spiritual numbness, hypocrisy, laziness, and silence in the face of injustice!"
His voice began to grow excited:
"As a doctor, perhaps I could save a few people, a few dozens. But I feel a more urgent calling! With my pen! With my thoughts!
To expose the cancerous tumors that sicken our nation, to awaken slumbering souls, to prick the conscience of those accustomed to apathy!
Isn't that what Gogol and Mr. Shchedrin did? Isn't this more important than merely treating physical wounds?
Isn't this a deeper form of 'healing'?"
Pavel roared, cutting him off:
"Nonsense! What soul? What cancerous tumors? Is that something for you to manage? Those are matters for His Imperial Majesty and the ministers!
For you, the son of a commoner, to become a doctor and live a stable life, that would be the greatest contribution to our family!
Stop dreaming those impractical dreams! You must report to medical school!"
Chekhov looked directly into his father's angry eyes, unwavering:
"Father, I am not dreaming. I know this is difficult, and I know it will disappoint the family.
But I cannot turn my back on everything I feel!
If, solely for the sake of 'stability,' I turn a blind eye to the groans of an entire nation and the degradation of its soul...
then even if I wear a white coat, my heart will never be at peace. Please... understand me."
Pavel suddenly stood up, pacing agitatedly in the small room:
"Understand? I cannot understand! I only know that without bread, all nobility is empty talk!
Do you want to starve yourself? Do you want our whole family to suffer with you? Literature? Philosophy?
Those are all castles in the air! They are things that harm people!"
...
The family meeting ultimately ended on a sour note, and Chekhov retreated to his cold room.
His family's opposition and financial pressure suffocated him.
He knew his father had a point; studying medicine was indeed the safest ladder to change both his family's and his own destiny.
The gloomy Moscow sky outside the window and the dilapidated streetscape seemed to confirm his father's worries.
However, Otechestvennye Zapiski (Fatherland Notes) lying open on the small attic table, and the story "The Old Guard" within it, burned in his heart like an unquenchable flame.
And of course, there was the latest piece, "My Uncle Jules," which also revealed how fragile kinship could be under the distortion of money—a chronic ailment of Russia as well.
He seemed to hear the silent cries of countless souls deep within the Russian land, and saw the spiritual illnesses pervading society, waiting to be "healed."
Compromise would mean betraying his inner calling, becoming another "little fellow" who witnessed suffering with indifference, lost in numbness.
Resistance, however, would mean a rupture with his family, a path fraught with thorns, and an uncertain future.
Chekhov sat by the cold window, plunged into unprecedented confusion and struggle: Medicine? Literature? Bread? Ideals? Family expectations? The nation's suffering?...
These weighty propositions clashed violently in his 19-year-old mind.
The long, cold night passed, the flickering light of the kerosene lamp casting shifting shadows on Chekhov's young and serious face.
He finally made up his mind:
To Paris, to follow the mentor in his heart, Mr. Lionel Sorell!
----
"So, this is why you came to Paris?"
Lionel looked somewhat speechlessly at Chekhov, who was vigorously munching on a grilled sausage and jam bread in front of him.
The two were sitting in "Le Grand Café" on Boulevard des Capucines near the opera house—one of the few cafés and restaurants open until the early hours, mainly serving actors and audience members after opera performances.
Chekhov ate heartily while intermittently recounting his experiences—family conflict, stealing money and running away, taking a train to St. Petersburg, then a ship across the Baltic Sea to Hamburg, Germany... where he was then completely robbed by pickpockets.
He had to use every means possible—hitchhiking on trains, catching rides on carriages, walking... finally reaching Paris.
Chekhov wiped food remnants and onion soup from his mustache with his hand:
"Mr. Sorell, I've made up my mind. Although my family opposes it... I must become a writer who dissects Russian society, just like you, even though I know it will be difficult..."
Lionel silently thought to himself:
"For you, it might not be too difficult..."
But aloud, he asked:
"Then you came to find me for...?"
Chekhov's eyes lit up:
"To follow you!"
Lionel: "..."
Chekhov, swept up in self-congratulation, asked:
"Could you let me stay in the room closest to yours? Just watching you write, listening to what you say and do every day, I would feel incredibly happy."
Lionel shivered and quickly waved his hand:
"I only have two rooms at home right now, and both are occupied... I see you're tired, so let's end it here for tonight. I'll take you to a hotel."
(End of Chapter)
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