Chekhov

“It is remembered that Chekhov’s death made a powerful impression on many as a family loss: so much did he draw people to him, enchanting them with the gentle authority of his talent. And yet, to explain him, to subject his pages to analysis, is very difficult, because in his stories—embracing all the profound content of life—he wove human souls from the finest threads and stirred them with an almost imperceptible breath of deeply felt elegy. Like one of his characters who lived in a wonderful garden, he was a king and master of tender colors. A writer of shades, he noticed every slightest trembling of the heart; he had access to the very fragrance of another person’s soul. That is why one cannot—and it would be sinful—to pull apart the lightest fabric of his works by threads: that would destroy it, and we would blow away the golden dust from the moth’s wings. Chekhov is less than anyone else—one cannot tell him; he must be read…”