Debt and Courtship: Two Paths to Resolution in Chekhov’s ‘The Bear’ and ‘The Proposal’

Chekhov’s vaudevilles The Bear and The Proposal both end with a turn towards marriage after a heated quarrel, but their structures differ. The creditor Smirnov arrives to collect a debt and, to his own surprise, asks for the widow’s hand; her counterpart’s neighbour Lomov comes to propose, yet arguments twice derail the conversation about marriage. Tracing who is pursuing what in each scene reveals that the comic ending amounts to more than reconciliation: even after the declaration, the circumstances that caused the quarrels remain unresolved.

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre has scheduled the premiere of Love, Debts and Haymaking, based on the two one-act plays, for 30 October 2026. Until the production opens, it is the published texts of The Bear and The Proposal that can be compared: the sequence of exchanges reveals different paths from quarrel to a marriage ending.

What do the two plays have in common, and where do they begin to differ?

The Bear and The Proposal are one-act plays by Chekhov, each designated by the author as ‘a joke in one act’. They present brief scenes with small casts, rapid shifts in tone and endings that turn towards marriage. Yet the man’s initial aim differs in each story. Smirnov wants payment on the promissory notes left by Popova’s late husband; Lomov wants Natalya Stepanovna’s consent to marriage. Thus the same outward progression—an increasingly bitter argument between a man and a woman—leads to different discoveries.

In The Bear, even before Smirnov appears, Popova vows to remain faithful to her dead husband and live in seclusion. She herself admits that he was unfaithful to her, yet makes mourning a lifelong rule. The creditor enters this closed world with a very specific demand: the late Nikolai Mikhailovich owed him 1,200 roubles for oats, and Smirnov has an interest payment due to the land bank the following day. Popova promises to settle the debt when her steward returns in two days’ time. This creates a conflict over timing: the debt is not disputed, but neither party can obtain what they want immediately.

In Chekhov’s The Proposal, the audience learns of Lomov’s intention before Natalya does. He arrives in a tailcoat and white gloves, asks her father for his daughter’s hand and receives Chubukov’s delighted consent. Left alone, Lomov considers marriage as a way to establish an orderly life; his description of his prospective bride lists her housekeeping skills and education rather than expressing any feeling he has experienced. When Natalya herself enters, the promised conversation is postponed. The playwright tells the audience the purpose of the visit in advance, so that each new quarrel measures the distance still separating Lomov from the proposal he has yet to voice in her presence.

Sums of money serve different purposes in these two plays. In The Bear, the two promissory notes and the interest payment due to the bank the next day explain Smirnov’s urgency. In The Proposal, Natalya values Oxen Meadows at three hundred roubles; later, the disputants name the prices of their dogs—125 and 85 roubles. These sums do not become a matter for bargaining: the characters demand recognition of their right to the land or of their dog’s superiority. In this way, Chekhov distinguishes an urgent financial obligation from a dispute over whose family is in the right.

Popova is still deciding whether to let someone new into her life; until halfway through the play, Natalya does not even know why her neighbour has come. The two heroines therefore cannot be said to follow the same path towards ‘recognising their love’. Neither their lines nor their positions in the plot support such a reading.

The literary scholar S. S. Vasilyeva describes The Bear and The Proposal as plays with mirror-image plot structures: in both, an argument governs the relationship between potential spouses, while the ending returns them to the marriage plot. This reading explains the kinship between the two one-act jokes. Examining their differences requires more precise criteria: when the reader learns of the suitor’s intention, who hears the marriage proposal, which argument precedes the declaration and what happens immediately after consent is given. Judged by these criteria, the outward similarity of the endings no longer implies an identical path towards them.

The same study interprets Popova’s mourning as a role she has chosen that prevents her from moving on with her life. This interpretation helps reveal the theatricality of her behaviour, but does not negate the grief presented in the text: the widow weeps before a photograph, recalls her husband’s infidelities and still speaks of her own faithfulness. There is no independent narrator to confirm Smirnov’s suspicion that she is pretending. It is therefore more circumspect to discuss the conflict between her own words and actions than to declare them proof of insincerity. This is an important limit on any psychological inference drawn from a short comedy.

Why do genre and early stage history matter when comparing the plays?

The circumstances of their composition help us avoid reading these short comedies through the lens of Chekhov’s later drama. According to the notes in the scholarly collected edition, Chekhov wrote The Bear in February 1888, after completing the novella The Steppe; he mentioned The Proposal in a letter dated 27 October of the same year. The newspaper Novoye Vremya published the first play on 30 August 1888 and the second on 3 May 1889. Yet The Proposal had already been prepared for the stage: the manuscript submitted to the censor is dated November 1888, and the Metropolitan Artistic Circle performed it in April 1889. The publication and performance dates differ, so it would be inaccurate to describe the second joke as a work that first appeared only after its newspaper publication.

Both plays are written around action that unfolds before the audience with almost no gaps in time: the characters enter, leave, argue and change their minds, while a third person tries to intervene. In The Bear, the stage directions carefully mark Smirnov’s entrance into the drawing room, the summons to Luka, the pistols being brought in and the sudden arrival of others at the end. In The Proposal, Lomov’s tailcoat alerts Chubukov to the unusual nature of the visit before its purpose is explained, while his fainting fit allows the father to conclude the marriage arrangements on the suitor’s behalf. This observation concerns the structure of the texts; it does not predict the pace or acting style of the new Moscow Art Theatre production.

The Moscow premiere of The Bear took place on 28 October 1888 at F. A. Korsh’s theatre. Chekhov attended the performance and, in a letter dated 2 November, noted the audience’s loud laughter while also criticising the performers for the monotony of their acting. This twofold assessment matters when reading the play: the author saw that the audience was laughing, yet still distinguished between comic effect and nuances in the characters’ behaviour. If Popova is played merely as a stubborn widow and Smirnov merely as a boor, the gradual shift in their aims is lost—the very shift that makes it worth returning to their lines here.

The Proposal, too, had a stage history in Moscow long before the present occasion. The scholarly commentary dates the performance at Goreva’s theatre to 3 September 1889; the newspaper had published the play four months earlier. In a review in Moskovskiye Vedomosti quoted by the commentators, a contemporary praised Chekhov’s talent for the stage and the performers’ acting. This is testimony about a particular production, rather than a definitive judgement on the play for all time. It reminds us that both of Chekhov’s jokes are written for the pauses, interruptions and shifts of intonation of live performance, which can easily be smoothed over in reading.

How does a financial debt turn the conversation in The Bear into a personal duel?

The argument becomes personal when Smirnov refuses to accept a delay and stays in Popova’s house, while she ceases to respond to him solely as a debtor. At first, he repeats his demand for immediate payment and declares that he will stay until he gets the money. His hostess demands that he stop shouting and leave her drawing room. The financial obligation gradually gives way to a dispute over who has the right to control the space of the house and the tone of the conversation.

What do objects and brief exchanges reveal?

In The Bear, the discussion of payment and the talk of animal feed take place almost simultaneously. Smirnov explains that the debt arose from the purchase of oats, while at the same moment Popova reminds Luka to give an extra portion to Toby, her late husband’s favourite horse. This does not prove that the hostess is indifferent to the creditor: she agrees to pay. Yet the simultaneous instructions show how differently the characters set their priorities. Smirnov is counting the hours until his own payment to the bank is due; Popova continues her familiar household ritual of remembrance. Both have very specific concerns, so their clash cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between ‘feeling and money’.

Popova has not only a publicly declared vow, but also a visible recipient for it: at the beginning of the play, she sits before a photograph of her late husband. She promises to remain faithful to the grave, although in the same speech she acknowledges his cruelty and infidelities. Alone, she addresses Nikolai Mikhailovich by name, alternately weeping and laughing through her tears. The scene offers no grounds for declaring her mourning a pretence. It reveals something more difficult: Popova herself upholds a rule that both preserves the memory of love and keeps her close to someone who hurt her. The argument with the creditor therefore touches an existing contradiction rather than creating one from nothing.

Smirnov says he has travelled seventy versts and has already called on other debtors without success. His stage monologue explains his irritation, but does not justify his attempt to take charge of someone else’s house. At first, he expects payment that day; then he orders his coachman to unharness the horses and declares that he will stay even for a year. He sits down despite the widow’s demand that he leave. This simple change of position—the guest making himself immovable in the room from which his hostess wants to eject him—intensifies the conflict without introducing another character.

The change can be heard in two of Popova’s replies. At the beginning, she explains that she cannot pay that day and will do so when her steward returns. Later, after Smirnov’s insulting remarks about her mourning and about women, she says she will not give him the money. The text turns inability into refusal, although neither the promissory notes nor the date of the steward’s return has changed. By this point, then, the dispute is already about dignity and control of the conversation. If the scene is retold solely as an attempt to collect a debt, this turning point remains invisible.

The title The Bear first receives a direct explanation in Popova’s speech: this is what she calls Smirnov at the height of the quarrel. Earlier, he has introduced himself as a landowner and retired artillery lieutenant—in other words, a man arriving with both a demand and social standing; after his hostess’s sharp rebuke, his attempt to insist on his rights turns into a dispute over an insult. The nickname expresses Popova’s view of her boorish guest. It does not turn his behaviour into an endearing animal trait or absolve him of responsibility for the shouting and threats explicitly shown in the scene.

The creditor launches an attack on women in general, holding forth on their faithfulness and sincerity; his hostess responds with an account of her own husband’s infidelity. Popova has already mentioned his unfaithfulness to Luka; to Smirnov, she reveals the details for the first time: after Nikolai Mikhailovich’s death, she found an entire drawer of love letters in his desk, while during his lifetime he would leave her alone for weeks. Her faithfulness remains a choice she has made, but the man before her forces her to defend it in a living confrontation rather than alone before a photograph.

Chekhov does not make Smirnov a judicious exposer of pretence. He himself readily lapses into generalisations, threatens, shouts and orders Luka to be quiet. His judgement that Popova’s mourning is a pose belongs to the character and should not be taken as the author’s diagnosis. The text shows something else: both characters are so certain of their preconceived judgements that they stop hearing the individual before them. By the time the hostess calls her guest a bear and he challenges her to a duel, the practical demand has all but disappeared from the conversation.

The turning point comes not with the insult, but after the challenge has been accepted. Smirnov challenges Popova to a duel, and she leaves to fetch her late husband’s pistols. While she is away, the guest remains with Luka, remarks that he has never before met a woman who would agree to such a duel, and acknowledges her attractiveness. This is his own change of purpose: the man who came to collect his money that day is now prepared to forgive the debt. Popova, meanwhile, still insists on the duel and asks him to explain how to hold the weapon.

The scene in which Smirnov teaches Popova to handle a revolver sustains both menace and comedy. Popova genuinely intends to go out into the garden; Smirnov promises to fire into the air, then admits that he is attracted to her. He offers her his hand in marriage, but she again insists on a duel. Only at the door, as Smirnov tries to leave, does Popova alternately send him away and stop him. Her inner choice is conveyed through a succession of contradictory commands rather than a calm declaration. A prolonged kiss interrupts this sequence without retrospectively explaining every angry outburst.

The final stage direction adds a detail that recalls the beginning of the play. Luka brings in people armed with makeshift weapons, expecting a fight, only to find the couple kissing. Popova orders that no oats be given to Toby, her late husband’s horse, for whom she had ordered extra feed at the beginning. Chekhov does not tell us what will happen to the debt or the prospective marriage. Yet this new instruction, touching on her husband’s memory, shows that her vow of unchanging mourning no longer governs her every action.

Why does Oxen Meadows derail the marriage proposal in The Proposal?

Lomov himself introduces the disputed land into the conversation, trying to lead up to his proposal through the history of the families’ friendship and their neighbouring estates. The moment he calls Oxen Meadows his own, Natalya interrupts him. For both of them, ownership of this small plot becomes a sign that their family is in the right, rather than merely a matter of estate management. This is precisely why his intention to marry does not stop Lomov from defending his property.

What does each participant in the first quarrel know?

It is useful to reread the opening scene of The Proposal with the unequal distribution of knowledge in mind. After speaking with Lomov, Chubukov knows about the marriage proposal and is delighted at the prospect of the families being united; Natalya sees a neighbour strangely dressed for an ordinary conversation; the audience knows more than she does and waits to see whether the guest can get to the point. Chekhov begins with the suitor’s own hesitation: he is nervous, asks for water and muddles his host’s first name and patronymic. Chubukov initially suspects that he is about to be asked for money and resolves to refuse, but on hearing about the proposal, immediately embraces him. These shifts in reaction show how unreliable first guesses can be, even for a close acquaintance of the family.

In his solitary monologue, Lomov lists his reasons for marrying: he is thirty-five, he needs an orderly life, and Natalya seems to him a capable housekeeper. He also speaks of palpitations, anxiety and disturbed sleep. This speech matters less as a medical assessment than as an initial measure of his expectations. Lomov hopes that marriage will bring order to his existence, yet proves to be someone who struggles to endure even the beginning of a conversation about it. When he later clutches his heart during the argument, Chekhov returns to the bodily theme already introduced. The reader need not decide how dangerous the illness is; it is enough to see how Lomov’s fear affects the rhythm of his attempt to explain himself and how far he can get.

Chubukov’s speech, too, changes before our eyes. At their first meeting, he showers Lomov with affectionate forms of address and embraces him on learning of the proposal. During the dispute over the Meadows, the same men begin discussing the failings of each other’s families and talking of legal action. Then, at his daughter’s request, the father brings back the guest he has just driven away. The desire to unite the families coexists with a readiness to defend the family’s claim at once. Chekhov gives Chubukov the role of a man who both opens the path to marriage and blocks it himself.

Lomov approaches his proposal through the neighbouring lands. He recalls the relations between their older relatives and only then says that his Oxen Meadows borders the Chubukovs’ birch grove. In this introduction, the boundary between the estates is meant to affirm the closeness of the families. Natalya hears a claim to the plot and interrupts before Lomov reaches his proposal. The same geographical fact serves the suitor as a bridge towards consent, and his hostess as a reason to test who has the last word. From this point on, everything he says about family ties is drawn into the dispute over ownership.

Natalya describes the Meadows as a small plot: five dessiatines, worth approximately three hundred roubles. Her remark does not diminish the land’s value to the family. On the contrary, it emphasises that the dispute is about recognition of ownership rights, even when she considers the monetary value modest. Lomov, too, declares that it is a matter of principle. Both set practical financial considerations aside while remaining certain of their own ownership. The text provides no impartial boundary plan against which either account can be checked: Lomov promises to show documents, Chubukov refers to a plan, and that is where the evidence available to the reader ends.

Even their accounts of how the dispute began differ. Lomov says that a female relative of his allowed the Chubukov family's peasants to use the meadow free of charge in gratitude for making bricks. Chubukov objects: the peasants paid nothing precisely because the land was already disputed. Both reconstruct a distant event to favour their present position. Natalya, meanwhile, appeals to the fact that her grandfather and great-grandfather considered the land theirs. Chekhov provides enough detail to make the stubbornness of all three understandable, but does not turn the scene into a land trial with a verdict. The question the play poses is why each is prepared to lose a future relative for the sake of asserting ‘mine’.

The language of the quarrel over land underlines the impasse. After lengthy explanations about a grandmother, bricks and long-standing use of the meadow, the speakers reduce their replies to repetitions of ‘mine’ and ‘ours’. These words no longer add evidence or clarify the boundary. They demand a verbal concession from the other person. New evidence from Lomov, therefore, even if he had managed to present it, would not necessarily have resolved the dramatic conflict: by this point, the opponents are also fighting to have their own voices acknowledged. This is a conclusion drawn from the structure of the dialogue, not a ruling on the land dispute.

Chubukov's involvement widens the quarrel. He has already welcomed Lomov as a desirable son-in-law, yet now supports his daughter and accuses his guest of a propensity for litigation. His neighbour responds with an attack on Chubukov's relatives; the speakers trade insults about their families, straying ever further from the meadow's boundary. Natalya threatens to send mowers onto the disputed plot, Lomov to take the matter to court. Neither the mowers nor the court enter the action: these are threats the characters make in the heat of the quarrel. Their purpose in the scene is to raise the cost of backing down for each person, making a straightforward conversation about marriage almost impossible.

After Lomov leaves, Chubukov tells his daughter that their neighbour came to propose. Natalya demands that he be brought back, while her father rushes between her and the guest he has just insulted. The suitor's return does not erase the first dispute. Natalya concedes the Oxen Meadows, although she previously spoke with complete certainty about their ownership; Lomov repeats that it is the principle that matters to him and once again begins his explanation about his relative. The heroine's words in this scene reveal her new aim: to restore the possibility of a proposal. They provide no historical evidence that the earlier dispute over ownership has been resolved.

Why does Chekhov need a second dispute — about Ugaday and Otkatay?

The second dispute serves to test the first attempt at reconciliation. Natalya already knows about the proposal and wants to hear it, but even this knowledge does not stop her from challenging Lomov's judgement. He praises his limping Ugaday; she considers her father's Otkatay the better dog. A private conversation about dogs quickly becomes a contest between their owners, followed by attacks on each other's abilities as hunters.

This repetition differs from the first quarrel in one important detail: Natalya and Chubukov now know of Lomov's intention to marry. Both are nevertheless drawn into the argument, while Lomov complains ever more insistently of palpitations, pain and numbness. His physical complaints begin even before he meets Natalya, in a monologue about his anxiety over marriage. It would therefore be misleading to attribute his final collapse to a single sudden insult, or to diagnose him from his lines. Chekhov gradually intensifies an established trait of the character until Lomov faints.

In ‘The Proposal’, the dispute about dogs continues the quarrel over land, but the participants change what they are trying to prove. Comparing Ugaday and Otkatay, the characters cite their purchase prices — 125 and 85 roubles — and discuss age, breed, jaw structure and an incident during a hunt. These details emerge in the argument, but do not allow the reader to judge independently which dog is better. The criteria themselves shift as the conversation progresses: Lomov cites an episode from a hunt, Chubukov explains that his dog fell behind because the huntsman struck it, and Natalya returns to its physique. The participants have not even agreed on a basis for comparison; each selects an argument that suits them.

In the stage directions of ‘The Proposal’, physical symptoms interrupt the conversation. Lomov clutches his heart, says that his leg has gone numb and, just before fainting, asks where his shoulder is. Natalya and Chubukov call for a doctor only when he falls. Even this does not end the conflict: after the kiss, she returns to comparing the dogs, although only moments earlier she feared for Lomov's life.

How does Chekhov bring the dispute to its conclusion?

Luka in ‘The Bear’ and Chubukov in ‘The Proposal’ do not stop the quarrels: the old servant calls for help when Popova brings out the pistols, while Natalya's father joins the arguments about land and dogs himself. Those who arrive with an axe, a rake and a pitchfork find their mistress and Smirnov kissing. In a single stage direction, Chekhov brings together the threat the servants expected to avert and the change that has already taken place.

Chubukov learns of the intended proposal in the first scene, when Lomov asks for his daughter's hand. But this knowledge does not make him a skilful mediator. He welcomes Lomov, then becomes embroiled in the land dispute, throws him out and only after his departure tells his daughter the purpose of the visit. In the second quarrel, about dogs, the father again joins the altercation and himself fears that the guest has died. After Lomov faints, Chubukov hastens to join the young couple's hands, blesses them and demands an end to the agonising conversation. He seals their agreement with a set phrase and a gesture before the suitor has time to repeat his request calmly to Natalya.

What difference did the author's revisions make?

The revision history confirms that the tone of the ending deserves attention. The scholarly commentary on ‘The Proposal’ notes that, before its newspaper publication in 1889, Chekhov removed some of Lomov's and Natalya's conciliatory lines from the final scenes, along with Chubukov's attempts to reason with them. The abrupt transition from agreement to another argument in the published text therefore owes something to more than an actor's delivery. Yet the text still gives the characters a few seconds of happiness after the kiss; saying that Chekhov denied them any feeling at all would be as inaccurate as promising them lasting peace.

The history of ‘The Bear’ reveals a different kind of revision. In 1888, the theatre censor considered the tone of the entire work coarse; several lines were subsequently cut, and the author never restored them, as the scholarly commentary notes. In 1896, while preparing the collection ‘Plays’, Chekhov also divided the original five scenes into eleven, leaving the course of events almost unchanged. These facts do not justify treating every word of the original manuscript as part of the current text. They help define the comparison more precisely: we are reading published versions of the plays, in which the sequence of confrontations and the changes to the dialogue already form part of the author's work.

Who declares their love, and who accepts?

In ‘The Bear’, Smirnov declares his love and proposes marriage, while Popova's response is conveyed through actions and hesitation. In ‘The Proposal’, Lomov first asks Chubukov for Natalya's hand; when the argument drives the suitor to faint, her father conveys his daughter's acceptance and joins the young couple's hands. The different sequences of words and gestures prevent us from describing both endings in the same way, as sudden mutual declarations of love.

In ‘The Bear’, Smirnov first remarks on Popova's attractiveness in an aside, then tries to tell her himself. He changes his mind about the duel, puts down the revolver, prepares to leave and nevertheless returns to the conversation. As he proposes, he lists his income and merits, as though the creditor were seeking persuasive arguments for a new agreement. Yet bewilderment accompanies this: he is angry with himself for his sudden feelings and remembers the payment due tomorrow. His declaration of love does not erase the original reason for his visit, making the character's transformation both comic and incomplete.

Popova does not answer Smirnov with a calm ‘yes’. She demands a duel, then repeatedly alternates between sending him away and stopping him. Her final line still echoes her challenge. The kiss is a fact of the stage action; the text shows no subsequent marriage. There is also a detail less suited to a romantic retelling: in the midst of his declaration, Smirnov seizes Popova's hand, and the stage direction notes her pain. The ending therefore cannot be presented as proof that all the preceding aggression was harmless play. Chekhov preserves the sharpness of the confrontation even as he changes its direction.

In ‘The Proposal’, Lomov voices his request for marriage only in Chubukov's presence. Natalya learns of it from her father after the guest has left and demands his return; when he faints, she fears for him. Chubukov is the first to announce his daughter's acceptance, which she confirms after Lomov regains consciousness. At that moment, the suitor still has little understanding of what is happening, but then says that he is happy. The text provides sufficient grounds to consider the proposal accepted. Yet Chekhov gives Lomov and Natalya no direct declaration of love comparable to Smirnov's speech.

The difference also concerns who has the last word. In ‘The Bear’, after the kiss, Popova gives an order about oats for Toby: the final line once again belongs to the mistress of the house. In ‘The Proposal’, Natalya returns to the argument about dogs, Lomov objects, and Chubukov tries to drown out the young couple by calling for champagne. Agreement has been reached, but the earlier quarrel continues. Comparing the spoken words with the actions on stage allows us to distinguish the fact of the denouement from assumptions about the characters' future happiness.

What exactly does Chekhov leave unresolved after the declaration?

In ‘The Bear’, Chekhov ends the action with Smirnov and Popova's kiss, leaving the repayment of the debt and the couple's future unresolved. In ‘The Proposal’, Natalya and Lomov agree to marry, but immediately resume their argument about Ugaday and Otkatay. These final scenes offer no basis for judging the characters' subsequent lives. The difference lies in the sequence of events: Smirnov changes the original purpose of his visit, while Chubukov secures acceptance of Lomov's proposal after two conversations have broken down.

The Moscow Art Theatre, where a production based on the two plays is being prepared, is included on the route of the ‘Theatre Capital’ tour. On the tour, you can continue the discussion of how Moscow directors have approached Russian drama.

Sources

1. A. P. Chekhov. ‘The Bear’ — Play Text
2. A. P. Chekhov. ‘The Proposal’ — Play Text
3. Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. ‘Love, Debts and Haymaking’
4. A. P. Chekhov. ‘The Proposal’: Notes from the Scholarly Edition
5. A. P. Chekhov. ‘The Bear’: Notes from the Scholarly Edition
6. S. S. Vasilyeva. ‘The Bear’ and ‘The Proposal’: Mirror Images of Plot and Character Structures
7. M. O. Goryacheva. ‘I knew him well...’: letters from N. N. Solovtsov to A. P. Chekhov
8. Radius Tour Bureau tour catalogue