We all remember Chekhov’s dictum that brevity is the sister of talent. First of all, it refers to the talent of Anton Pavlovich himself. Being an ingenious master of “talking” details, the writer knew how to use one or two well-aimed words, to present his characters as living people to the court of justice and to comprehensively describe the situations in which they found themselves.
“Thick and thin”, plot and plot
Consider, for example, the story "Thick and thin." Its summary is reduced to such events: the official’s family is leaving the train on the platform of the Nikolaev railway station. Someone calls out to the head of the family, he turns around, and it turns out that he was recognized by a former classmate, and now also an official. The one who arrived is “thin”: thin, not richly dressed, and does not smell very presentable from him, ham road sandwiches and
coffee grounds. It is laden with suitcases, cartons and other travel belongings. And his former friend is “fat.” His lips glistening hearty, he smells fragrant with expensive cologne and expensive wine and dinner, which he just ate in the forecourt restaurant. Here, in fact, is the whole plot that makes up the story "Fat and thin." A summary of it further: a small conversation between Misha (“fat”) and Porfiry (“thin”). And here Chekhov's “details” come to the fore. Thin at first does not notice the difference in social status between himself and the second official. He lives poorly, but is quite satisfied. He has a small salary, makes cigarette cases for sale, his wife gives private music lessons. Porfiry is sincerely glad to meet with a bosom friend of childhood, emotions and memories surged through and overwhelm the hero. He, like a friend, has tears in his eyes, and both, as Chekhov writes, are “pleasantly stunned”. However, the tonality of the work fundamentally changes when the “party” of the fat comes into the narrative. “Friend Misha”, it turns out, has already become a secret adviser - the rank in tsarist Russia is considerable!
It has "two stars", and in general, it is well settled. This is where the hidden conflict of the work ensues, which is embedded in the very title of the story “Thick and Thin,” the brief content of which we are considering. For Porfiry, a friend’s take-off on a career ladder was unexpected. Being himself a petty official and a “small” man, he used to reverence for the powers that be and fear them. The hero immediately “turns on” the mechanism of honoring, lizobluzheniya, fear of superiors. Chekhov masterfully shows this. Thin, as if everything was distorted, his smile from a sincere one becomes miserable, strained, resembling a grin, and a long chin stretches out and becomes even longer. He mutters something, stutters and is a completely miserable sight. Porfiry is humiliated, and humiliated voluntarily! Spiritual slavery, mental, like poison, oozes literally from every pore of his body, from each of his words. He again represents "Misha", whom he now names in title, wife and son, and both he and the family members seem to become even "thinner", stretched into a string, or cowardly hide, trying to become invisible, cringe. This episode provokes bitter laughter and resentment for the man, for his trampled on merits of the story "Thick and thin." A brief summary of it later comes down to a description of the emotions of the heroes. "Tolstoy" all the hype around his title is unpleasant. He really was delighted with Porfiry and sees in him not a subordinate, but a man, a long-time accomplice of children's leprosy. "Fat" with pleasure would talk about the past, remembered carefree childhood. But such an idyll is impossible, Chekhov believes.
“Thick, thin”, the brief content of which we are considering, is a realistic work. And the behavior of Porfiry is completely typical and corresponds to the cruel truth of life. In a society where there are no all kinds of freedoms, where autocracy violates human rights and comprehensively enslaves it, where the material side of life dictates its own rules, a small person can very rarely behave on an equal footing with a "big man." This is told to us by the humanistic traditions of all Russian literature: the Pushkin station ranger Samson Vyrin, the Gogolevsky Akaki Bashmachkin, and Makar Devushkin Dostoevsky. And remember the "Death of an official" of the same Chekhov - why did his hero die? Fear that sneezed at the boss! Here is our summary of “Thick and thin” focuses your attention, dear readers, on the main problem of the story: how can a person be “drop by drop” squeezing a slave out of himself? Voluntary slave!
The composition of the work is circular: it ends with the phrase uttered by Chekhov at the beginning - that both were pleasantly stunned. Of course, “nice” is already in a figurative sense. But how to get rid of this servility - such a question the author poses to readers. And each of us needs to answer him.