A snapshot from my reading: In my ongoing project of reading all of Chekhov’s stories, I am more than halfway along, and I have come upon this small gem about Ognev and Vera. The title “Verotchka” is the informal and more affectionate form of “Vera” and I defy you not to admire her. As for Ognev…
The story is dated 1887-so this is a fairly early Chekhov narrative-and I presume the action, set in the present, takes place in the same year. Ognev is a twenty-nine-year-old statistician, a growing field in that era. Ognev is very proud of his profession which he thinks will end up being the leader of the sciences. Chekhov was full of confidence in human progress, but we will see from this story that there are some things that science and objectivity cannot teach us.
Ognev has wrapped up his current project of data gathering in the provinces and is preparing to return to his apartment in St. Petersburg, a bustling metropolis where he finds himself, surprisingly, isolated. He has made many new “friends” in the countryside but as he bids them farewell, he keeps saying that he’ll probably never see them again. One of those new acquaintances is Vera.
She offers to accompany him on his final walk down a path to a bridge before the woods that marks the boundary of her family’s property. When they reach the bridge, Vera turns away from Ognev, and trembling, confesses that she loves him. Chekhov writes that Ognev’s reaction is one of “confusion and terror”. I loved the use of the word “terror”. Perhaps Ognev is so used to being objective, Chekhov muses, that he can’t react subjectively, with spontaneous emotion, to the priceless chance for happiness that Vera is offering him. I also loved it that Chekhov can’t seem to figure out Ognev-a character that he has created. Chekhov seems to share the reader’s puzzlement at Ognev’s attitude.
Ognev, with a harsh social clumsiness, turns Vera down. He’s ambivalent. Vera leaves but later Ognev stalks her house, then finally leaves for St. Petersburg. With a wonderfully delicate irony, in an earlier dialogue, Vera has asked Ognev if he has forgotten anything as he fumbles with his stuff. He answers, “I don’t think so.” But of course, he has. He has forgotten Vera.
Throughout the story, there are images of the change in the seasons, like the migration of cranes over the horizon, that imply the passage of time and the pathos of lost chances. I like all the Chekhov stories that I have read, but “Verotchka” especially, is lodged in my brain and will never leave me.
Photography Credit: Jason Rice