Chekhov was regarded with a great and heart-felt love by all sorts of simple people with whom he came into contact--servants, messengers, porters, beggars, tramps, postmen,--and not only with love, but with subtle sensitiveness, with concern and with understanding. I cannot help telling here one story which was told me by a small official of the Russian Navigation and Trade Company, a downright man, reserved and perfectly direct in receiving and telling his impressions. It was autumn. Chekhov, returning from Moscow, had just arrived by steamer from Sebastopol at Yalta, and had not yet left the deck. It was that interval of chaos, of shouts and bustle which comes while the gangway is being put in place. At that chaotic moment the porter, a Tartar, who always waited on Chekhov, saw him from the distance and managed to climb up on the steamer sooner than any one else. He found Chekhov's luggage and was already on the point of carrying it down, when suddenly a rough and fierce-looking chief mate rushed on him. The man did not confine himself to obscene language, but in the access of his official anger, he struck the Tartar on the face. "And then an unbelievable scene took place," my friend told me--"the Tartar threw the luggage on the deck, beat his breast with his fists and, with wild eyes, was ready to fall on the chief mate, while he shouted in a voice which rang all over the port:" --"'What? Striking me? D'ye think you struck me? It is him--him, that you struck!'" "And he pointed his finger at Chekhov. And Chekhov, you know, was pale, his lips trembled. He came up to the mate and said to him quietly and distinctly, but with an unusual expression: 'Are not you ashamed!' Believe me, by Jove, if I were that chief mate, I would rather be spat upon twenty times in the face than hear that 'are not you ashamed.' And although the mate was sufficiently thick-skinned, even he felt it. He bustled about for a moment, murmured something and disappeared instantly. No more of him was seen on deck." III