nobleman was Tchertkov, the Tolstoyan and friend of Tolstoy.

There is in this nothing striking to a Russian, but to the English student
it is sufficiently significant for several reasons. It illustrates how
recent a growth was the educated middle-class in pre-revolutionary Russia,
and it shows, what is perhaps more significant, the homogeneity of the
Russian people, and their capacity for completely changing their whole way
of life.

Chekhov's father started life as a slave, but the son of this slave was
even more sensitive to the Arts, more innately civilized and in love with
the things of the mind than the son of the slaveowner. Chekhov's father,
Pavel Yegorovitch, had a passion for music and singing; while he was still
a serf boy he learned to read music at sight and to play the violin. A few
years after his freedom had been purchased he settled at Taganrog, a town
on the Sea of Azov, where he afterwards opened a "Colonial Stores."

This business did well until the construction of the railway to
Vladikavkaz, which greatly diminished the importance of Taganrog as a port
and a trading centre. But Pavel Yegorovitch was always inclined to neglect
his business. He took an active part in all the affairs of the town,
devoted himself to church singing, conducted the choir, played on the
violin, and painted ikons.

In 1854 he married Yevgenia Yakovlevna Morozov, the daughter of a cloth
merchant of fairly good education who had settled down at Taganrog after a
life spent in travelling about Russia in the course of his business.

There were six children, five of whom were boys, Anton being the third son.
The family was an ordinary patriarchal household of the kind common at that