e feels that those who say the artist is not a
judge are in error. What he must avoid becoming is a
prosecuting--perhaps even a defending--counsel.

Egoism seems to be the quality which offends Tchehov most. He is no more
in love with it when it masquerades as virtue than when it parades as
vice. _An Artist's Story_--a beautiful sad story, which might almost
have been written by Turgenev--contains a fine critical portrait of a
woman absorbed in the egoism of good works. She is always looking after
the poor, serving on committees, full of enthusiasm for nursing and
education. She lacks only that charity of the heart which loves human
beings, not because they are poor, but because they are human beings.
She is by nature a "boss." She "bosses" her mother and her younger
sister, and when the artist falls in love with the latter, the stronger
will of the woman of high principles immediately separates lovers so
frivolous that they had never sat on a committee in their lives. When,
the evening after the artist confesses his love, he waits for the girl
to come to him in the garden of her house, he waits in vain. He goes
into the house to look for her, but does not find her. Then through one
of the doors he overhears the voice of the lady of the good works:

"'God ... sent ... a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic voice,
probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese.... A crow
... A piece of cheese ... Who's there?" she called suddenly,
hearing my steps.

"It's I."

"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to open this minute; I'm giving
Dasha her lesson."

"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?"

"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the
province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad,"
she added after a pause. "'God sent ... the crow ... a piece ... of
cheese....' Have you written it?"

I went into the hall and stared vacantly at the pond and the
village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese ... God
sent the crow a piece of cheese."

And I went back by the way I had come here for the first
time--first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into
the avenue of lime-trees.... At this point I was overtaken by a
small boy who gave me a note.

"I told my sister everything and she insisted on my parting from
you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobe