The Duel

Reading notes

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 August 1891. Bogimovo. §4 If Ladzievsky's surname really is a bad one, he can be called something else. Let him be Lagievsky. Von Koren can go on being von Koren.

  A work-in-progress meta-reference, not a report about real people. "The Duel" (\emph{Дуэль}) was running serially in \emph{Novoye Vremya} even as Chekhov continued to revise it, and Ladzievsky (character:ladzievsky-duel) and Von Koren (character:von-koren-duel) are both his own invented characters within it -- evidently Suvorin (or another early reader) had objected to "Ladzievsky" as an unfortunate-sounding surname, and Chekhov here weighs a substitute ("Lagievsky") while defending Von Koren's Germanic-sounding name as realistic. The roll call that follows -- Wagner, Brandt, Fausek, Kovalevsky -- lists real contemporary Russian zoologists bearing non-Russian surnames, marshaled as evidence that a scientist character named "Von Koren" is true to life rather than a slip of nationality. Both names are kept in translation as the in-story proper nouns Chekhov is actually discussing, not treated as references to real acquaintances. The plural "Wagners" leading the list plays on a real coincidence noted two days earlier in (\S7): Nikolai Petrovich Wagner, the zoologist and writer, was at this time an actual houseguest at Bogimovo.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 August 1891. Bogimovo. §19 If the zoological conversations were thrown out of "The Duel," wouldn't it be livelier for it?

  A second, closing return to the work-in-progress discussed at \S4 and \S18: Chekhov floats cutting Von Koren's zoological set-piece dialogues from "The Duel" for pace, then leaves the question open rather than committing to the cut -- consistent with the novella's continued revision through its serialization, and with the letter's broader vein of self-doubt about his own current work (compare \S3's confession of a general "psychosis" of suspicion about his writing).

• To A. S. Suvorin, 16 October 1891. Moscow. §11 Let them go on sending the proofs of "The Duel" for the book

  "The Duel," then completing its serialization in Novoye Vremya, was simultaneously being set in proof for separate book publication; Chekhov notes the serial will run three more weeks and that he may revise the ending once he reaches Petersburg and can see proofs in person.

• To P. I. Chaykovsky, 18 October 1891. Moscow. §6 my long story "The Duel" will begin appearing in "Novoye Vremya,"

  "The Duel" had in fact already begun serialization in Suvorin's newspaper \emph{Novoye Vremya} on 1 October 1891 and continued through early November; by this letter's date of 18 October the story was thus already running, so Chekhov's future-tense phrasing ("будет печататься," "will begin appearing") most likely reflects loose, informal phrasing about the serialization as a whole rather than a precise claim that it had not yet started. Chekhov's request that Tchaikovsky wait for the forthcoming book edition rather than read the newspaper text reflects his continued dissatisfaction with the novella in its serialized state -- compare the private doubts about specific passages (the zoological set-pieces, character names) he had confided to Suvorin in and over the preceding weeks, and the proof corrections he was still making as late as, two days before this letter. "The Duel" is thus caught here, as elsewhere in the autumn 1891 correspondence, as a work Chekhov regards as still unfinished even as it appears serially -- he wants Tchaikovsky's first encounter with it to be the settled book text, expected in early December.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 October 1891. Moscow. §5 400+100+400

  Chekhov itemizes three separate advance payments totaling 900 rubles received from Suvorin's firm against his earnings for the novella "The Duel," out of a total he reckons at about 1400 due -- a characteristic run of the letters' recurring ledger-keeping over his debts to Suvorin's publishing house.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 October 1891. Moscow. §3 The Duel

  Chekhov's novella, serialized in "Novoye Vremya" earlier in 1891 (cf., on the naming of Von Koren and Ladzievsky) and now being set in a separate book edition through Suvorin's firm. This letter concerns the proofing schedule for that edition's first printer's sheet: Chekhov defends himself against an apparent charge from Suvorin (in a letter now lost) that he has been slow or negligent, insisting he already forwarded the corrected proof.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 15 November 1891. Moscow. §9 Not much of \emph{The Duel} is left. What remains can fit into two installments.

  By 15 November 1891 "The Duel" had been running in serial installments ("feuilletons") in Suvorin's \emph{Novoye Vremya} since 1 October, and Chekhov here reports the serialization nearly finished -- a marked change from the still-unsettled, mid-revision novella of (character names, cut-or-keep zoological dialogue) and (still untitled as late as 8 September) earlier that autumn. The closing chapters were evidently short enough that Chekhov could estimate their remaining newspaper footprint precisely: two more installments would clear the text. A separate book edition, discussed with Suvorin as early as (\S11, 16 October, "let them go on sending the proofs... for the book"), was being prepared in parallel and was the version Chekhov steered non-newspaper readers like Tchaikovsky toward.

• To A. I. Smagin, 21 November 1891. Moscow. §13 "The Duel," which is already being printed as a separate book

  By late November 1891 "Дуэль" ("The Duel"), which had run serially in \textit{Novoye Vremya} through the autumn, was going into a separate book edition; Chekhov promises Smagin a copy once it appears, alongside the two of his own books already sent (\S13, unspecified in the letter).

• To A. S. Suvorin, 27 November 1891. Moscow. §7 I still haven't received the end of the proofs for \emph{The Duel}, and I think that the proofreading...will drag on into the beginning of December; which means the book may not come out in December.

  A status update on the book publication of "The Duel," which had been serialized in \emph{Novoye Vremya} through the autumn of 1891 (see, first appearing). Here the concern has shifted from composition to production: proofreading delays outside Chekhov's control threaten to push the separate book edition's release past its intended December date.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 3 December 1891. Moscow. §6 The Duel

  Chekhov's novella, serialized in Novoye Vremya through the autumn of 1891; here he reports an encouraging pattern of reader mail from around Russia and delayed provincial press criticism, taking both as good signs for the book edition's sales.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 11 December 1891. Moscow. §15 \emph{The Duel}

  Chekhov's novella, then about to appear in book form after its newspaper serialization (cf. its reception discussed at, section 6); Chekhov here asks Suvorin to route his 20 author's copies through the Moscow shop rather than by post, for simple convenience.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 15 December 1891. Moscow. §8 "The Duel"

  Chekhov's novella, serialized in Novoye Vremya through the autumn of 1891; here, alongside Kashtanka, it is reported as also unlikely to make its intended holiday book-publication date.

• To M. K. Zankovetskaya, 12 January 1892. Moscow. §4 I am sending my "Duel" and a letter from Korobka, which I received yesterday.

  Chekhov sends Zankovetskaya a copy of his novella "The Duel", serialized through the autumn of 1891 and much discussed elsewhere in the corpus during its composition (e.g., weighing character names and the zoological digressions). By January 1892 the novella had appeared complete and this is an author's-copy gift rather than a work still in progress, one of several small courtesies -- alongside forwarding Korobka's letter and relaying word of a costume design -- that make up this brief, practical note.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 January 1891. Moscow. §4 I need to hurry and finish the novella I've begun

  The "povest'" (повесть, novella) Chekhov is racing to finish for lack of money is generally identified by scholars with "The Duel", on which he was at work that winter -- though Chekhov names no title here, and the identification remains an inference from the surrounding chronology rather than an assertion in the letter itself.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 31 January 1891. Moscow. §6 By the time you come to Moscow the novella will be finished

  The "povest'" (повесть, novella) Chekhov is at work on is generally identified by scholars with \emph{The Duel}, the same novella he mentions racing to finish for lack of money in the earlier letter to Suvorin of 5 January 1891; Chekhov again names no title here.

• To A. P. Lensky, 27 February 1891. Moscow. §9 a long story

  The "большая повесть" ("long story"/novella) Chekhov mentions in passing is generally identified by scholars with "The Duel", on which he was at work that winter and spring of 1891 -- though Chekhov names no title here, and the identification remains an inference from the surrounding chronology (cf. the same tentative identification made at the same remove in, five days earlier) rather than an assertion in the letter itself.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 August 1891. Bogimovo. §3 my long, wearisome story

  Not named in the letter's own text, but identified here -- with medium confidence, as an inferential (not asserted) identification -- as "The Duel" (\textit{Дуэль}), the long novella Chekhov was finishing that summer at Bogimovo for serialization in Suvorin's \textit{Novoye Vremya}. The inference rests on timeline and circumstance rather than an explicit title in this letter: the story is described as too long for the newspaper's ordinary format and unsuited to being split into installments, its proofs are to be corrected in Moscow, and its composition anxieties (length, a dragged-out ending, fatigue) match the running commentary on "The Duel" elsewhere in this same Bogimovo correspondence (cf., \S7, where Chekhov reports finishing the same "enormous story" a few days earlier).