LETTERS OF ANTON CHEKHOV 
 TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 UBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DAU.AS 
 ATUCTTA • SAJ< FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Uuttso 
 
 LONDON • BOM BAT • CALCVTTA 
 MELBOVaXB 
 
 THE MACMILUO? CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 LETTERS 
 OF ANTON CHEKHOV 
 
 TO HIS 
 FAMILY AND FRIENDS 
 
 WITH BIOGR.\PHICAL SKETCH 
 
 TR.A.NSL.4TED BY 
 
 CONSTANCE GARNETT 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1920 
 
 A II rights reserved
 
 COPYKIGHT, 1920, 
 
 BT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and printed. Published, February, 1920
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 Of the eighteen hundred and ninety letters 
 published by Chekhov's family I have chosen for 
 translation these letters and passages from letters 
 which best to illustrate Chekhov's life, character and 
 opinions. The brief memoir is abridged and 
 adapted from the biographical sketch by his brother 
 Mihail. Chekhov's letters to his wife after his mar- 
 riage have not as yet been published.
 
 \
 
 BIOGKAPIIICAL SKETCH 
 
 In 1841 a serf belonging to a Russian nobleman pur- 
 chased iiis freedom and the freedom of his family 
 for 3,500 roubles, i)eing at the rate of 700 roubles 
 a soul, with one daughter, Ahixandra, thrown in 
 for nothing. The grandson of this serf was Anton 
 Chekhov, the author; the son of the nobleman 
 was Tcherlkov, the Tolstoyan and friend of 
 Tolstoy. 
 
 There is in this nothing striking to a Russian, 
 but to the English student it is sufficiently signif- 
 icant for several reasons. It illustrates how recent 
 a growth was l\u) (jduealed middle-class in pre- 
 revohitionary Russia, and it sliows, what is pi^rhaps 
 more significant, the homogeneity of the; Russian 
 people, and their capacity for comphitely changing 
 their whole way of life. 
 
 Clielvhov's fath(;r started life as a slave, but the 
 son of this slave was even more sensitives to the 
 Arts, more innately civilized and in lov(i wilh the 
 things of tlie min<l than the son of the slave- 
 owner. (Jiekhov's fath(;r, l\iv(d 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 l\m violin. A few years after his freedom 
 had been purchased he scuttled at Taganrog, a town 
 on the Sea of Azov, where he afterwards opened a 
 
 ^'Colonial Stores." 
 
 I
 
 2 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 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 time. The father was severe, and in excep- 
 tional cases even went so far as to chastise his 
 children, but they all lived on warm and affectionate 
 terms. Everyone got up early, the boys went to 
 the high school, and when they returned learned 
 their lessons. All of them had their hobbies. The 
 eldest, Alexandr, would construct an electric battery, 
 Nikolay used to draw, Ivan to bind books, while 
 Anton was always writing stories. In the evening, 
 when their father came home from the shop, there 
 was choral singing or a duet. 
 
 Pavel Yegorovitch trained his children into a 
 regular choir, taught them to sing music at sight, 
 and play on the violin, while at one time they had 
 a music teacher for the piano too. There was also 
 a French governess who came to teach the children 
 languages. Every Saturday the whole family went 
 to the evening service, and on their return sang
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 3 
 
 hymns and burned incense. On Sunday morning 
 they went to early mass, after which they all sang 
 hymns in chorus at home. Anton had to learn the 
 whole church service by heart and sing it over with 
 his brothers. 
 
 The chief characteristic distinguishing the Chekhov 
 family from their neighbours was their habit of sing- 
 ing and having religious services at home. 
 
 Though the boys had often to take their father's 
 place in the shop, they had leisure enough to enjoy 
 themselves. They sometimes went for whole days 
 to the sea fishing, played Russian tennis, and went 
 for excursions to their grandfather's in the country. 
 Anton was a sturdy, lively boy, extremely intelligent, 
 and inexhaustible in jokes and enterprises of all 
 kinds. He used to get up lectures and performances, 
 and was always acting and mimicking. As chil- 
 dren, the brothers got up a performance of Gogol's 
 "Inspector General," in which Anton took the part 
 of Gorodnitchy. One of Anton's favourite im- 
 provisations was a scene in which the Governor of 
 the town attended church parade at a festival and 
 stood in the centre of the church, on a rug sur- 
 rounded by foreign consuls. Anton, dressed in his 
 high-school uniform, with his grandfather's old sabre 
 coming to his shoulder, used to act the part of the 
 Governor with extraordinary subtlety and carry out 
 a review of imaginary Cossacks. Often the children 
 would gather round their mother or their old nurse 
 to hear stories. 
 
 Chekhov's story "Happiness" was written under 
 the influence of one of his nurse's tales, which were 
 always of the mysterious, of the extraordinary, of the 
 terrible, and poetical.
 
 4 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Their mother, on the other hand, told the children 
 stories of real life, describing how she had travelled 
 all over Russia as a little girl, how the Allies had 
 bombarded Taganrog during the Crimean War, and 
 how hard life had been for the peasants in the 
 days of serfdom. She instilled into her children a 
 hatred of brutality and a feeling of regard for all 
 who were in an inferior position, and for birds and 
 animals. 
 
 Chekhov in later years used to say: "Our talents 
 we got from our father, but our soul from our 
 mother." 
 
 In 1875 the two elder boys went to Moscow. 
 
 After their departure the business went from bad 
 to worse, and the family sank into poverty. 
 
 In 1876 Pavel Yegorovitch closed his shop, and 
 went to join his sons in Moscow. While earning 
 their own living, one was a student at the University, 
 and the other a student at the School of Sculpture 
 and Painting. The house was sold by auction, one 
 of the creditors took all the furniture, and Chekhov's 
 mother was left with nothing. Some months 
 afterwards she went to rejoin her husband in Mos- 
 cow, taking the younger children with her, while 
 Anton, who was then sixteen, lived on in solitude 
 at Taganrog for three whole years, earning his own 
 living, and paying for his education at the high 
 school. 
 
 He lived in the house that had been his father's, 
 in the family of one Selivanov, the creditor who 
 had bought it, and gave lessons to the latter's 
 nephew, a Cossack. He went with his pupil to the 
 latter's house in the country, and learned to ride 
 and shoot. During the last two years he was very
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 5 
 
 fond of the society of the high-school girls, and used 
 to tell his brothers that he had had the most delight- 
 ful flirtations. 
 
 At the same time he went frequently to the theatre 
 and was very fond of French melodramas, so that 
 he was by no means crushed by his early struggle 
 for existence. In 1879 he went to Moscow to enter 
 the University, bringing with him two school-fel- 
 lows who boarded with his family. He found his 
 father had just succeeded in getting work away 
 from home, so that from the first day of his arrival 
 he found himself head of the family, every member 
 of which had to work for their common livelihood. 
 Even little Mihail used to copy out lectures for 
 students, and so made a little money. It was the 
 absolute necessity of earning money to pay for his 
 fees at the University and to help in supporting the 
 household that forced Anton to write. That winter 
 he wrote his first published story, "A Letter to a 
 Learned Neighbour." All the members of the 
 family were closely bound together round one com- 
 mon centre — Anton. "What will Anton say?" 
 was always their uppermost thought on every oc- 
 casion. 
 
 Ivan soon became the master of the parish school 
 at Voskresensk, a little town in the Moscow province. 
 Living was cheap there, so the other members of 
 the family spent the summer there; they were joined 
 by Anton when he had taken his degree, and the 
 Chekhovs soon had a large circle of friends in the 
 neighbourhood. Every day the company met, went 
 long walks, played croquet, discussed politics, read 
 aloud, and went into raptures over Shtchedrin. 
 Here Chekhov gained an insight into military society
 
 6 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 which he afterwards turned to account in his play 
 "The Three Sisters." 
 
 One day a young doctor called Uspensky came 
 in from Zvenigorod, a small town fourteen miles 
 away. "Look here," he said to Chekhov, "I am 
 going away for a holiday and can't find anyone to 
 take my place. . . . You take the job on. My 
 Pelageya will cook for you, and there is a guitar 
 there. ..." 
 
 Voskresensk and Zvenigorod played an important 
 part in Chekhov's life as a writer; a whole series of 
 his tales is founded on his experiences there, besides 
 which it was his first introduction to the society of 
 literary and artistic people. Three or four miles 
 from Voskresensk was the estate of a landowner, A. 
 S. Kiselyov, whose wife was the daughter of Begi- 
 tchev, the director of the Moscow Imperial Theatre. 
 The Chekhovs made the acquaintance of the Kise- 
 lyovs, and spent three summers in succession on their 
 estate, Babkino. 
 
 The Kiselyovs were musical and cultivated peo- 
 ple, and intimate friends of Dargomyzhsky, Tchay- 
 kovsky the composer, and the Italian actor 
 SalVini. Madame Kiselyov was passionately fond 
 of fishing, and would spend hours at a time sitting 
 on the river bank with Anton, fishing and talking 
 about literature. She was herself a writer. 
 Chekhov was always playing with the Kiselyov 
 children and running about the old park with them. 
 The people he met, the huntsman, the gardener, 
 the carpenters, the sick women who came to him 
 for treatment, and the place itself, river, forests, 
 nightingales — all provided Chekhov with subjects to 
 write about and put him in the mood for writing.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 7 
 
 He always got up early and began writing by seven 
 o'clock in the morning. After lunch the whole party 
 set off to look for mushrooms in the woods. Anton 
 was fond of looking for mushrooms, and said it 
 stimulated the imagination. At this time he was al- 
 ways talking nonsense. 
 
 Levitan, the painter, lived in the neighbourhood, 
 and Chekhov and he dressed up, blacked their faces 
 and put on turbans. Levitan then rode off on a 
 donkey through the fields, where Anton suddenly 
 sprang out of the bushes with a gun and began firing 
 blank cartridges at him. 
 
 In 1886 Chekhov suffered for the second time 
 from an attack of spitting blood. There is no doubt 
 that consumption was developing, but apparently he 
 refused to believe this himself. He went on being 
 as gay as ever, though he slept badly and often 
 had terrible dreams. It was one of these dreams 
 that suggested the subject of his story "The Black 
 Monk." 
 
 That year he began to write for the Novoye Vremya^ 
 which made a special feature of his work. Under 
 the influence of letters from Grigorovitch, who was 
 the first person to appreciate his talent, Chekhov be- 
 gan to take his writing more seriously. 
 
 In 1887 he visited the south of Russia and stayed 
 at the Holy Mountains, which gave him the subjects 
 of two of his stories, "Easter Eve" and "Uprooted." 
 In the autumn of that year he was asked by Korsh, a 
 theatrical manager who knew him as a humorous 
 writer, to write something for his theatre. Chekhov 
 sat down and wrote "Ivanov" in a fortnight, send- 
 ing off every act for rehearsal as it was com- 
 pleted.
 
 8 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 By this time he had won a certain amount of 
 recognition, everyone was talking of him, and there 
 was consequently great curiosity about his new play. 
 The performance was, however, only partially a suc- 
 cess; the audience, divided into two parties, hissed 
 vigorously and clapped noisily. For a long time 
 afterwards the newspapers were full of discussions of 
 the character and personality of the hero, while the 
 novelty of the dramatic method attracted great atten- 
 tion. 
 
 In January, 1889, the play was performed at the 
 Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg and the con- 
 troversy broke out again. 
 
 'Tvanov" was the turning-point in Chekhov's 
 mental development, and literary career. He took 
 up his position definitely as a writer, though his brass 
 plate continued to hang on the door. Shortly after 
 writing "Ivanov," he wrote a one-act play called 
 "The Bear." The following season Solovtsev, who 
 had taken the chief character in "The Bear," opened 
 a theatre of his own in Moscow, which was not at first 
 a success. He appealed to Chekhov to save him with 
 a play for Christmas, which was only ten days off. 
 Chekhov set to work and wrote an act every day. 
 The play was produced in time, but the author was 
 never satisfied with it, and after a short, very suc- 
 cessful run took it off the stage. Several years later 
 he completely remodelled it and produced it as 
 "Uncle Vanya" at the Art Theatre in Moscow. At 
 this time he was writing a long novel, of which 
 he often dreamed aloud, and which he liked to 
 talk about. He w^as for several years writing at 
 this novel, but no doubt finally destroyed it, as 
 no trace of it could be found after his death.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 9 
 
 He wanted it to embody his views on life, opin- 
 ions which he expressed in a letter to Plestcheyev in 
 these words: 
 
 "I am not a Liberal, not a Conservative. ... I 
 should have liked to have been a free artist and noth- 
 ing more — and I regret that God has not given 
 me the strength to be one. I hate lying and vio- 
 lence in all their forms — the most absolute free- 
 dom, freedom from force and fraud in whatever 
 form the two latter may be expressed, that is 
 the programme I would hold to if I were a great 
 artist." 
 
 At this time he was always gay and insisted 
 on having people round him while he worked. 
 His little house in Moscow, which "looked like a 
 chest of drawers," was a centre to which people, and 
 especially young people, flocked in swarms. Up- 
 stairs they played the piano, a hired one, while down- 
 stairs he sat writing through it all. "I positively 
 can't live without visitors," he wrote to Suvorin; 
 "when I am alone, for some reason I am frightened." 
 This gay life which seemed so full of promise was, 
 however, interrupted by violent fits of coughing. 
 He tried to persuade other people, and perhaps him- 
 self, that it was not serious, and he would not consent 
 to be properly examined. He was sometimes so 
 weak from haemorrhage that he could see no one, but 
 as soon as the attack was over his mood changed, the 
 doors were thrown open, visitors arrived, there was 
 music again, and Chekhov was once more in the wild- 
 est spirits. 
 
 The summers of those two years, 1888 and 1889, 
 he spent with his family in a summer villa at Luka, 
 in the province of Harkov. He was in ecstasies be-
 
 10 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 forehand over the deep, broad river, full of fish and 
 crayfish, the pond full of carp, the woods, the old 
 garden, and the abundance of young ladies. His ex- 
 pectations were fulfilled in every particular, and he 
 had all the fishing and musical society he could wish 
 for. Soon after his arrival Plestcheyev came to 
 stay with him on a month's visit. 
 
 He was an old man in feeble health, but attractive 
 to everyone. Young ladies in particular were im- 
 mediately fascinated by him. He used to compose 
 his works aloud, sometimes shouting at the top of his 
 voice, so that Chekhov would run in and ask him if 
 he wanted anything. Then the old man would give 
 a sweet and guilty smile and go on with his work. 
 Chekhov was in constant anxiety about the old man's 
 health, as he was very fond of cakes and pastry, and 
 Chekhov's mother used to regale him on them to 
 such an extent that Anton was constantly having to 
 give him medicine. Afterwards Suvorin, the editor 
 of Novoye Vremya, came to stay. Chekhov and he 
 used to paddle in a canoe, hollowed out of a tree, to 
 an old mill, where they would spend hours fishing 
 and talking about literature. 
 
 Both the grandsons of serfs, both cultivated and 
 talented men, they were greatly attracted by each 
 other. Their friendship lasted for several years, 
 and on account of Suvorin's reactionary opinions, ex- 
 posed Chekhov to a great deal of criticism in Russia. 
 Chekhov's feelings for Suvorin began to change at 
 the time of the Dreyfus case, but he never broke en- 
 tirely with him. Suvorin's feelings for Chekhov re- 
 mained unchanged. 
 
 In the spring of 1889 his brother Nikolay, the 
 artist, fell ill with consumption, and his illness oc-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 11 
 
 cupied Anton entirely, and completely prevented his 
 working. That summer Nikolay died, and it was 
 under the influence of this, his first great sorrow, that 
 Chekhov wrote "A Dreary Story." For several 
 months after the death of his brother he was ex- 
 tremely restless and depressed. 
 
 In 1890 his younger brother Mihail was taking 
 his degree in law at Moscow, and studying treatises 
 on the management of prisons. Chekhov got hold 
 of them, became intensely interested in prisons, and 
 resolved to visit the penal settlement of Sahalin. He 
 made up his mind to go to the Far East so unex- 
 pectedly that it was difficult for his family to believe 
 that he was in earnest. 
 
 He was afraid that after Kennan's revelations 
 about the penal system in Siberia, he would, as a 
 writer, be refused permission to visit the prisons in 
 Sahalin, and therefore tried to get a free pass from 
 the head of the prison administration, Galkin-Vrass- 
 koy. When this proved fruitless he set off in April, 
 1890, with no credentials but his card as a newspaper 
 correspondent. 
 
 The Siberian railway did not then exist, and only 
 after great hardships, being held up by floods and 
 by the impassable state of the roads, Chekhov suc- 
 ceeded in reaching Sahalin on the 11th of July, hav- 
 ing driven nearly 3,000 miles. He stayed three 
 months on the island, traversed it from north to 
 south, made a census of the population, talked to 
 every one of the ten thousand convicts, and made a 
 careful study of the convict system. Apparently the 
 chief reason for all this was the consciousness 
 that "We have destroyed millions of men in prisons. 
 ... It is not the superintendents of the prisons
 
 12 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 who are to blame, but all of us." In Russia it 
 was not possible to be a "free artist and nothing 
 more." 
 
 Chekhov left Sahalin in October and returned to 
 Europe by way of India and the Suez Canal. He 
 wanted to visit Japan, but the steamer was not 
 allowed to put in at the port on account of 
 cholera. 
 
 In the Indian Ocean he used to bathe by diving, 
 off the forecastle deck when the steamer was going 
 at full speed, and catching a rope which was let 
 down from the stern. Once while he was doing this 
 he saw a shark and a shoal of pilot fish close to 
 him in the water, as he describes in his story 
 "Gusev." 
 
 The fruits of this journey were a series of articles 
 in Russkaya Myssl on the island of Sahalin, and two 
 short stories, "Gusev" and "In Exile." His articles 
 on Sahalin were looked on with a favourable eye in 
 Petersburg, and, who knows, it is possible that the 
 reforms which followed in regard to penal servitude 
 and exile would not have taken place but for their 
 influence. 
 
 After about a month in Moscow, Chekhov went to 
 Petersburg to see Suvorin. The majority of his 
 Petersburg friends and admirers met him with feel- 
 ings of envy and ill-will. People gave dinners in his 
 honour and praised him to the skies, but at the same 
 time they were ready to "tear him to pieces." Even 
 in Moscow such people did not give him a moment 
 for work or rest. He was so prostrated by the feel- 
 ing of hostility surrounding him that he accepted 
 an invitation from Suvorin to go abroad with him. 
 When Chekhov had completed arrangements for
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 13 
 
 equipping the Sahalin schools with the necessary 
 books, they set off for the South of Europe. Vienna 
 delighted him, and Venice surpassed all his expec- 
 tations and threw him into a state of childlike 
 ecstasy. 
 
 Everything fascinated him — and then there was 
 a change in the weather and a steady downpour of 
 rain. Chekhov's spirits drooped. Venice was damp 
 and seemed horrible, and he longed to escape from it. 
 
 He had had just such a change of mood in Singa- 
 pore, which interested him immensely and sud- 
 denly filled him with such misery that he wanted to 
 cry. 
 
 After Venice Chekhov did not get the pleasure he 
 expected from any Italian town. Florence did not 
 attract him; the sun was not shining. Rome gave 
 him the impression of a provincial town. He was 
 feeling exhausted, and to add to his depression he 
 had got into debt, and had the prospect of spending 
 the summer without any money at all. 
 
 TravelUng with Suvorin, who did not stint him- 
 self, drew him into spending more than he intended, 
 and he owed Suvorin a sum which was further in- 
 creased at Monte Carlo by Chekhov's losing nine hun- 
 dred roubles at roulette. But this loss was a bless- 
 ing to him in so far as, for some reason, it made him 
 feel satisfied with himself. At the end of April, 
 1891, after a stay in Paris, Chekhov returned to Mos- 
 cow. Except at Vienna and for the first days in 
 Venice and at Nice, it had rained the whole time. 
 On his return he had to work extremely hard to pay 
 for his two tours. His brother Mihail was at this 
 time inspector of taxes at Alexino, and Chekhov and 
 his household spent the summer not far from that
 
 14 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 town in the province of Kaluga, so as to be near him. 
 They took a house dating from the days of Catherine. 
 Chekhov's mother had to sit down and rest halfway 
 when she crossed the hall, the rooms were so large. 
 He liked the place with its endless avenues of lime- 
 trees and poetical river, while fishing and gathering 
 mushrooms soothed him and put him in the mood for 
 work. Here he went on with his story "The Duel," 
 which he had begun before going abroad. From the 
 windows there was the view of an old house which 
 Chekhov described in "An Artist's Story," and which 
 he was very eager to buy. Indeed from this time he 
 began thinking of buying a country place of his own, 
 not in Little Russia, but in Central Russia. Peters- 
 burg seemed to him more and more idle, cold and 
 egoistic, and he had lost all faith in his Petersburg 
 acquaintances. On the other hand, Moscow no 
 longer seemed to him as before "like a cook," and he 
 grew to love it. He grew fond of its climate, its 
 people and its bells. He always delighted in bells. 
 Sometimes in earlier days he had gathered together 
 a party of friends and gone with them to Kamenny 
 Bridge to listen to the Easter bells. After eagerly 
 listening to them he would set off to wander from 
 church to church, and with his legs giving way under 
 him from fatigue would, only when Easter night 
 was over, make his way homewards. Meanwhile 
 his father, who was fond of staying till the end 
 of the service, would return from the parish church, 
 and all the brothers would sing "Christ is risen" 
 in chorus, and then they all sat down to break 
 their fast. Chekhov never spent an Easter night in 
 bed. 
 
 Meanwhile in the spring of 1892 there began to 

 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 15 
 
 be fears about the crops. These apprehensions were 
 soon confirmed. An unfortunate summer was fol- 
 lowed by a hard autumn and winter, in which many 
 districts were famine-stricken. Side by side with 
 the Government relief of the starving population 
 there was a widespread movement for organizing 
 relief, in which various societies and private persons 
 took part. Chekhov naturally w^as drawn into this 
 movement. The provinces of Nizhni-Novogorod 
 and Voronezh were in the greatest distress, and in 
 the former of these two provinces, Yegorov, an old 
 friend of Chekhov's Voskresensk days, was a district 
 captain (Zemsky Natchalnik). Chekhov wrote to 
 Yegorov, got up a subscription fund among his ac- 
 quaintance, and finally set off himself for Nizhni- 
 Novogorod. As the starving peasants were selling 
 their horses and cattle for next to nothing, or even 
 slaughtering them for food, it was feared that as 
 spring came on there would be no beasts to plough 
 with, so that the coming year threatened to be one 
 of famine also. 
 
 Chekhov organized a scheme for buying up the 
 horses and feeding them till the spring at the expense 
 of a relief fund, and then, as soon as field labour was 
 possible, distributing them among the peasants who 
 were without horses. 
 
 After visiting the province of Nizhni-Novogorod, 
 Chekhov went with Suvorin to Voronezh. But this 
 expedition was not a successful one. He was re- 
 volted by the ceremonious dinners with which he was 
 welcomed as an author, while the whole province was 
 suffering from famine. Moreover travelling with 
 Suvorin tied him down and hindered his independent 
 action. Chekhov longed for intense personal ac- 
 
 t
 
 16 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 tivity such as he displayed later in his campaign 
 against the cholera. 
 
 In the winter of the same year his long-cherished 
 dream was realized: he bought himself an estate. 
 It was in the province of Moscow, near the hamlet 
 of Melihovo. As an estate it had nothing to rec- 
 ommend it but an old, badly laid out homestead, 
 wastes of land, and a forest that had been felled. 
 It had been bought on the spur of the moment, 
 simply because it had happened to turn up. 
 Chekhov had never been to the place before he bought 
 it, and only visited it when all the formalities had been 
 completed. One could hardly turn round near the 
 house for the mass of hurdles and fences. More- 
 over the Chekhovs moved into it in the winter when 
 it was under snow, and all boundaries being obliter- 
 ated, it was impossible to tell what was theirs and 
 what was not. But in spite of all that, Chekhov's 
 first impression was favourable, and he never showed 
 a sign of being disappointed. He was delighted by 
 the approach of spring and the fresh surprises that 
 were continually being revealed by the melting snow. 
 Suddenly it would appear that a whole haystack be- 
 longed to him which he had supposed to be a neigh- 
 bour's, then an avenue of lime-trees came to light 
 which they had not distinguished before under 
 the snow. Everything that was amiss in the 
 place, everything he did not like, was at once 
 abolished or altered. But in spite of all the 
 defects of the house and its surroundings, and 
 the appalling road from the station (nearly 
 nine miles) and the lack of rooms, so many 
 visitors came that there was nowhere to put 
 them, and beds had sometimes to be made up in the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 17 
 
 passages. Chekhov's household at this time con- 
 sisted of his father and mother, his sister, and his 
 younger brother Mihail. These were all permanent 
 inmates of Melihovo. 
 
 As soon as the snow had disappeared the various 
 duties in the house and on the land were assigned: 
 Chekhov's sister undertook the flower-beds and the 
 kitchen garden, his younger brother undertook the 
 field work. Chekhov himself planted the trees and 
 looked after them. His father worked from morning 
 till night weeding the paths in the garden and mak- 
 ing new ones. 
 
 Everything attracted the new landowner: plant- 
 ing the bulbs and watching the flight of rooks 
 and starlings, sowing the clover, and the goose 
 hatching out her goslings. By four o'clock in 
 the morning Chekhov was up and about. After 
 drinking his coffee he would go out into the gar- 
 den and would spend a long time scrutinizing 
 every fruit-tree and every rose-bush, now cutting 
 off a branch, now training a shoot, or he would 
 squat on his heels by a stump and gaze at some- 
 thing on the ground. It turned out that there 
 was more land than they needed (639 acres), 
 and they farmed it themselves, with no bailiff 
 or steward, assisted only by two labourers, Frol 
 and Ivan. 
 
 At eleven o'clock Chekhov, who got through a 
 good deal of writing in the morning, would go into 
 the dining-room and look significantly at the clock. 
 His mother would jump up from her seat and her 
 sewing-machine and begin to bustle about, crying: 
 "Oh dear! Antosha wants his dinner!" 
 
 When the table was laid there were so manv home-
 
 18 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 made and other dainties prepared by his mother that 
 there would hardly be space on the table for them. 
 There was not room to sit at the table either. Be- 
 sides the five permanent members of the family there 
 were invariably outsiders as well. After dinner 
 Chekhov used to go off to his bedroom and lock him- 
 self in to "read." Between his after-dinner nap 
 and tea-time he wrote again. The time between tea 
 and supper (at seven o'clock in the evening) was 
 devoted to walks and outdoor work. At ten o'clock 
 they went to bed. Lights were put out and all was 
 stillness in the house; the only sound was a subdued 
 singing and monotonous recitation. This was Pavel 
 Yegorovitch repeating the evening service in his 
 room: he was religious and liked to say his prayers 
 aloud. 
 
 From the first day that Chekhov moved to Melihovo 
 the sick began flocking to him from twenty miles 
 around. They came on foot or were brought in carts, 
 and often he was fetched to patients at a distance. 
 Sometimes from early in the morning peasant women 
 and children were standing before his door waiting. 
 He would go out, listen to them and sound them, and 
 would never let one go away without advice and medi- 
 cine. His expenditure on drugs was considerable, as 
 he had to keep a regular store of them. Once some 
 wayfarers brought Chekhov a man they had picked 
 up by the roadside in the middle of the night, stabbed 
 in the stomach with a pitchfork. The peasant 
 was carried into his study and put down in the 
 middle of the floor, and Chekhov spent a long 
 time looking after him, examining his wounds 
 and bandaging them up. But what was hardest 
 for Chekhov was visiting the sick at their own
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 19 
 
 homes: sometimes there was a journey of several 
 hours, and in this way the time essential for writing 
 was wasted. 
 
 Tlie first winter at Melihovo was cold; it lasted 
 late and food was short. Easter came in the snow. 
 There was a church at Melihovo in which a service 
 was held only once a year, at Easter. Visitors from 
 Moscow were staying with Chekhov. The family got 
 up a choir among themselves and sang all the Easter 
 matins and mass. Pavel Yegorovitch conducted as 
 usual. It was out of the ordinary and touching, and 
 the peasants were delighted: it warmed their hearts 
 to their new neighbours. 
 
 Then the thaw came. The roads became appal- 
 ling. There were only three broken-down horses on 
 the estate and not a wisp of hay. The horses had to 
 be fed on rye straw chopped up with an axe 
 and sprinkled with flour. One of the horses was 
 vicious and there was no getting it out of the yard. 
 Another was stolen in the fields and a dead horse left 
 in its place. And so for a long time there was only 
 one poor spiritless beast to drive which was nick- 
 named Anna Petrovna. This Anna Petrovna con- 
 trived to trot to the station, to take Chekhov to 
 his patients, to haul logs and to eat nothing but 
 straw sprinkled with flour. But Chekhov and 
 his family did not lose heart. Always affectionate, 
 gay and plucky, he cheered the others, work 
 went ahead, and in less than three months every- 
 thing in the place was changed: the house was 
 furnished with crockery; there was the ring of 
 carpenters' axes; six horses were bought, and 
 all the field work for the spring had been 
 completed in good time and in accordance with the
 
 20 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 rules of agricultural science. They had no experi- 
 ence at all, but bought masses of books on the man- 
 agement of the land, and ever)^ question, however 
 small, was debated in common. 
 
 Their first successes delighted Chekhov. He had 
 thirty acres under rye, thirty under oats, and fully 
 thirty under hay. Marvels were being done in the 
 kitchen garden: tomatoes and artichokes did well in 
 the open air. A dry spring and summer ruined the 
 oats and the rye; the peasants cut the hay in return 
 for half the crop, and Chekhov's half seemed a 
 small stack; only in the kitchen garden things went 
 well. 
 
 The position of Melihovo on the highroad and the 
 news that Chekhov the author had settled there inevi- 
 tably led to new acquaintances. Doctors and mem- 
 bers of the local Zemstvos began visiting Chekhov; 
 acquaintance was made with the officials of the dis- 
 trict, and Chekhov was elected a member of the 
 Serpuhov Sanitary Council. 
 
 At that time cholera was raging in the South of 
 Russia. Every day it came nearer and nearer to the 
 province of Moscow, and everywhere it found favour- 
 able conditions among the population weakened by 
 the famine of autumn and winter. It was essential 
 to take immediate measures for meeting the 
 cholera, and the Zemstvo of Serpuhov worked its 
 hardest. Chekhov as a doctor and a member of 
 the Sanitaiy Council was asked to take charge of 
 a section. He immediately gave his services for 
 nothing. He had to drive about among the manu- 
 facturers of the district persuading them to take 
 adequate measures to combat the cholera. Owing 
 to his efforts the whole section containing twenty-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 21 
 
 five villages and hamlets was covered with a net- 
 work of the necessary institutions. For several 
 months Chekhov scarcely got out of his chaise. 
 During that time he had to drive all over his sec- 
 tion, receive patients at home, and do his literary 
 work. He returned home shattered and exhausted, 
 but always behaved as though he were doing some- 
 thing trivial; he cracked little jokes and made 
 everyone laugh as before, and carried on conversa- 
 tions with his dachshund, Quinine, about her sup- 
 posed sufferings. 
 
 By early autumn the place had become unrecog- 
 nizable. The outhouses had been rebuilt, unneces- 
 sary fences had been removed, rose-trees had been 
 planted, a flower-bed had been laid out; in the 
 fields before the gates Chekhov was planning to dig 
 a big new pond. With what interest he watched 
 each day the progress of the work upon it! He 
 planted trees round it and dropped into it tiny 
 carp and perch which he brought with him in a jar 
 from Moscow. The pond became later on more like 
 an ichthyological station than a pond, as there was 
 no kind of fish in Russia, except the pike, of which 
 Chekhov had not representatives in this pond. He 
 liked sitting on the dam on its bank and watching 
 with ecstasy shoals of little fish coming suddenly 
 to the surface and then hiding in its depths. An 
 excellent well had been dug in Melihovo before this. 
 Chekhov had been very anxious that it should be 
 in Little Russian style with a crane. But the posi- 
 tion did not allow of this, and it was made with a 
 big wheel painted yellow like the wells at Russian 
 railway stations. The question where to dig this 
 well and whether the water in it would be good
 
 22 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 greatly interested Chekhov. He wanted exact in- 
 formation and a theory based on good grounds, see- 
 ing that nine-tenths of Russia uses water out of wells, 
 and has done so since time immemorial; but when- 
 ever he questioned the well-sinkers who came to him, 
 he received the same vague answer: "Who can tell? 
 It's in God's hands. Can you find out beforehand 
 what the water will be like?" 
 
 But the well, like the pond, was a great success, 
 and the water turned out to be excellent. 
 
 He began seriously planning to build a new house 
 and farm buildings. Creative activity was his pas- 
 sion. He was never satisfied with what he had 
 ready-made; he longed to make something new. 
 He planted little trees, raised pines and fir-trees 
 from seed, looked after them as though they were 
 his children, and, like Colonel Vershinin in his 
 "Three Sisters," dreamed as he looked at them of 
 what they would be like in three or four hundred 
 years. 
 
 The winter of 1893 was a severe one with a great 
 deal of snow. The snow was so high under the 
 windows that the hares who ran into the garden stood 
 on their hind-legs and looked into the window of 
 Chekhov's study. The swept paths in the garden 
 were like deep trenches. By then Chekhov had fin- 
 ished his work in connection with the cholera and 
 he began to live the life of a hermit. His sister 
 found employment in Moscow; only his father and 
 mother were left with him in the house, and the 
 hours seemed very long. They went to bed even 
 earlier than in the summer, but Chekhov would 
 wake up at one in the morning, sit down to his work 
 and then go back to bed and sleep again. At six
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 23 
 
 o'clock in the morning all the household was up. 
 Chekhov wrote a great deal that winter. But as soon 
 as visitors arrived, life was completely transformed. 
 There was singing, playing on the piano, laughter. 
 Chekhov's mother did her utmost to load the tables 
 with dainties; his father with a mysterious air 
 would produce various specially prepared cordials 
 and liqueurs from some hidden recess; and then it 
 seemed that Melihovo had something of its own, 
 peculiar to it, which could be found in no other 
 country estate. Chekhov was always particularly 
 pleased at the visits of Miss Mizinov and of Pota- 
 penko. He was particularly fond of them, and his 
 whole family rejoiced at their arrival. They stayed 
 up long after midnight on such days, and Chekhov 
 wrote only by snatches. And every time he wrote 
 five or six lines, he would get up again and go back to 
 his visitors. 
 
 "I have written sixty kopecks' worth," he would 
 say with a smile. 
 
 Braga's "Serenade" was the fashion at that time, 
 and Chekhov was found of hearing Potapenko play it 
 on the violin while Miss Mizinov sang it. 
 
 Having been a student at the Moscow University, 
 Chekhov liked to celebrate St. Tatyana's Day. He 
 never missed making a holiday of it when he lived 
 in Moscow. That winter, for the first time, he 
 chanced to be in Petersburg on the 12th of January. 
 He did not forget "St. Tatyana," and assembled all 
 his literary friends on that day in a Petersburg 
 restaurant. They made speeches and kept the holi- 
 day, and this festivity initiated by him was so suc- 
 cessful that the authors went on meeting regularly 
 afterwards.
 
 24 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Though Mehhovo was his permanent home. 
 Chekhov often paid visits to Moscow and Peters- 
 burg. He frequently stayed at hotels, and there he 
 sometimes had difficulties over his passport. As a 
 landowner he had no need of credentials from the 
 police in the Serpuhov district, and found his Uni- 
 versity diploma sufficient. In Petersburg and Mos- 
 cow, under the old passport regulations they would 
 not give him a passport because he resided 
 permanently in the provinces. Misunderstandings 
 arose, sometimes developing into disagreeable in- 
 cidents and compelling Chekhov to return home 
 earlier than he had intended. Someone suggested 
 to Chekhov that he should enter the Government 
 service and immediately retire from it, as retired of- 
 ficials used at that time to receive a permanent pass- 
 port from the department in which they had served. 
 Chekhov sent a petition to the Department of 
 Medicine for a post to be assigned to him, and 
 received an appointment as an extra junior medical 
 clerk in that Department, and soon afterwards sent 
 in his resignation, after which he had no more 
 trouble. 
 
 Chekhov spent the whole spring of 1893 at Meli- 
 hovo, planted roses, looked after his fruit-trees, and 
 was enthusiastic over country life. That summer 
 Melihovo was especially crowded with visitors. 
 Chekhov was visited not only by his friends, but also 
 by people whose acquaintance he neither sought nor 
 desired. People were sleeping on sofas and several 
 in a room; some even spent the night in the passage. 
 Young ladies, authors, local doctors, members of the 
 Zemstvo, distant relations with their sons — all these 
 people flitted through Melihovo. Life was a con-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 25 
 
 tinual whirl, everyone was gay; this rush of visitors 
 and the everlasting readiness of Chekhov's mother 
 to regale them with food and drink seemed like a 
 return to the good old times of country life in the 
 past. Chekhov was the centre on which all attention 
 was concentrated. Everyone sought him, lived in 
 him, and caught up every word he uttered. When 
 he was with friends he liked taking walks or making 
 expeditions to the neighbouring monastei^. The 
 chaise, the cart, and the racing droshky were brought 
 out. Chekhov put on his white tunic, buckled a 
 strap round his waist, and got on the racing droshky. 
 A young lady would sit sideways behind him, hold- 
 ing on to the strap. The white tunic and strap used 
 to make Chekhov call himself an Hussar. The party 
 would set off; the "Hussar" in the racing droshky 
 would lead the way, and then came the cart and the 
 chaise full of visitors. 
 
 The numbers of guests necessitated more build- 
 ing, as the house would not contain them all. In- 
 stead of a farm, new buildings close to the house 
 itself were begun. Some of the farm buildings were 
 pulled down, others were put up after Chekhov's own 
 plans. A new cattle yard made its appearance, and 
 by it a hut with a well and a hurdle fence in the 
 Little Russian style, a bathhouse, a barn, and finally 
 Chekhov's dream — a lodge. It was a little house 
 with three tiny rooms, in one of which a bedstead 
 was put with difficulty, and in another a writing-table. 
 At first this lodge was intended only for visitors, but 
 afterwards Chekhov moved into it and there he WTOte 
 his "Seagull." This little lodge was built among 
 the fruit-bushes, and to reach it one had to pass 
 through the orchard. In spring, when the apples
 
 26 , LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and cherries were in blossom, it was pleasant to live 
 in this lodge, but in winter it was so buried in the 
 snow that pathways had to be cut to it through drifts 
 as high as a man. 
 
 Chekhov suffered terribly about this time from 
 his cough. It troubled him particularly in the 
 morning. But he made light of it. He was afraid 
 of worrying his family. His younger brother once 
 saw his handkerchief spattered with blood, and 
 asked what it meant. Chekhov seemed disconcerted 
 and said: 
 
 "Oh, nothing; it is no matter. . . . Don't tell 
 Masha and Mother." 
 
 ' The cough was the reason for Chekhov's going in 
 1894 to the Crimea. He stayed in Yalta, though he 
 evidently did not like it and longed to be home. 
 
 Chekhov's activity in the campaign against the 
 cholera resulted in his being elected a member of 
 the Zemstvo. He was keenly interested in every- 
 thing to do with the new roads to be constructed, 
 and the new hospitals and schools it was intended 
 to open. Besides this public work the neighbour- 
 hood was indebted to him for the making of a high- 
 road from the station of Lopasnya to Melihovo, and 
 for the building of schools at Talezh, Novoselka, and 
 Melihovo. He made the plans for these schools 
 himself, bought the material, and superintended the 
 building of them. When he talked about them his 
 eyes kindled, and it was evident that if he had had 
 the means he would have built, not three, but a 
 multitude. 
 
 At the opening of the school at Novoselka, the 
 peasants brought him the ikon and offered him bread 
 and salt. Chekhov was much embarrassed in re-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 27 
 
 spending to their gratitude, but his face and his 
 shining eyes showed that he was pleased. Besides 
 the schools he built a fire-station for the village and 
 a belfry for the church, and ordered a cross made 
 of looking-glass for the cupola, the flash of which in 
 the sun or moonlight was visible more than eight 
 miles away. 
 
 Chekhov spent the year 1894 at Melihovo, began 
 writing "The Seagull," and did a great deal of work. 
 He paid a visit to Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana, and 
 returned enchanted with the old man and his family. 
 Chekhov was already changing; he looked haggard, 
 older, sallower. He coughed, he was tortured by 
 intestinal trouble. Evidently he was now aware of 
 the gravity of his illness, but, as before, made no com- 
 plaint and tried to hide it from others. 
 
 In 1896 "The Seagull" was performed at the 
 Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg. It was a 
 fiasco. The actors did not know their parts; in the 
 theatre there was "a strained condition of boredom 
 and bewilderment." The notices in the press were 
 prejudiced and stupid. Not wishing to see or meet 
 anyone, Chekhov kept out of sight after the per- 
 formance, and by next morning was in the train on 
 his way back to Melihovo. The subsequent per- 
 formances of "The Seagull," when the actors under- 
 stood it, were successful. 
 
 Chekhov had collected a large number of books, 
 and in 1896 he resolved to present them to the pub- 
 lic library in his native town of Taganrog. Whole 
 bales of books were sent by Chekhov from Peters- 
 burg and Moscow, and lordanov, the mayor of 
 Taganrog, sent him lists of the books needed. At 
 the same time, at Chekhov's suggestion, something
 
 28 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 like an Information Bureau was instituted in con- 
 nection with the Taganrog Library. There were to 
 be catalogues of all the important commercial firms, 
 all the existing regulations and government enact- 
 ments on all current questions, everything, in fact, 
 which might be of immediate service to a reader in 
 any practical difficulty. The library at Taganrog 
 has now developed into a fine educational institu- 
 tion, and is lodged in a special building designed 
 and equipped for it and dedicated to the memory of 
 Chekhov. 
 
 Chekhov took an active interest in the census of 
 the people in 1896. It will be remembered that he 
 had made a census of the whole convict population 
 of the island of Sahalin on his own initiative and 
 at his own expense in 1890. Now he was taking 
 part in a census again. He studied peasant life in all 
 its aspects ; he was on intimate terms with his peasant 
 neighbours, to whom he was now indispensable as a 
 doctor and a friend always ready to give them good 
 counsel. 
 
 Just before the census was completed Chekhov 
 was taken ill with influenza, but that did not pre- 
 vent his carrying out his duties. In spite of head- 
 ache, he went from hut to hut and village to village, 
 and then had to work at putting together his ma- 
 terials. He was absolutelv alone in his work. The 
 Zemsky Natchalniks, upon whom the government re- 
 lied principally to carry out the census, were inert, 
 and for the most part the work was left to private 
 initiative. 
 
 In February, 1897, Chekhov was completely 
 engrossed by a project of building a ''People's 
 Palace" in Moscow. "People's Palaces" had not
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 29 
 
 been thought of; the common people spent their 
 leisure in drink-shops. The "People's Palace" in 
 Moscow was designed on broad principles; there 
 was to be a library, a reading-room, lecture-rooms, 
 a museum, a theatre. It was proposed to run it 
 by a company of shareholders wath a capital of half 
 a million roubles. Owing to various causes in no 
 way connected with Chekhov, this scheme came to 
 nothing. 
 
 In March he paid a visit to Moscow, where Suvorin 
 was expecting him. He had hardly sat down to din- 
 ner at The Hermitage when he had a sudden haemor- 
 rhage from the lungs. He was taken to a private 
 hospital, where he remained till the 10th of April. 
 When his sister, who knew nothing of his illness, 
 arrived in Moscow, she was met by her brother Ivan, 
 who gave her a card of admission to visit the invalid 
 at the hospital. On the card were the words: 
 "Please don't tell father or mother." His sister 
 went to the hospital. There casting a casual glance 
 at a little table, she saw on it a diagram of the lungs, 
 in which the upper part of the left lung was marked 
 with a red pencil. She guessed at once that this 
 was what was affected in Chekhov's case. This 
 and the sight of her brother alarmed her. Chekhov, 
 who had always been so gay, so full of spirits and 
 vitality, looked terribly ill; he was forbidden to 
 move or to talk, and had hardly the strength to do 
 so. 
 
 He was declared to be suffering from tuberculosis 
 of the lungs, and it was essential to try and Avard 
 it off at all costs, and to escape the unwholesome 
 northern spring. He recognized himself that this 
 was essential.
 
 30 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 When he left the hospital he returned to Melihovo 
 and prepared to go abroad. He went first to Biar- 
 ritz, but there he was met by bad weather. A fash- 
 ionable, extravagant way of living did not suit his 
 tastes, and although he was delighted with the sea and 
 the life led (especially by the children) on the beach, 
 he soon moved on to Nice. Here he stayed for a 
 considerable time at the Pension Russe in the Rue 
 Gounod. He seemed to be fully satisfied with the 
 life there. He liked the warmth and the people he 
 met, M. Kovalevsky, V. M. Sobolesky, V. T. Nemiro- 
 vitch-Dantchenko, the artist V. T. Yakobi and I. N. 
 Potapenko. Prince A. I. Sumbatov arrived at Nice 
 too, and Chekhov used sometimes to go with him to 
 Monte Carlo to roulette. 
 
 Chekhov followed all that he had left behind in 
 Russia with keen attention: he was anxious about 
 the Chronicle of Surgery, which he had more than 
 once saved from ruin, made arrangements about Mel- 
 ihovo, and so on. 
 
 He spent the autumn and winter in Nice, and in 
 February, 1898, meant to go to Africa. He wanted 
 to visit Algiers and Tunis, but Kovalevsky, with 
 whom he meant to travel, fell ill, and he had to give 
 up the project. He contemplated a visit to Corsica, 
 but did not carry out that plan either, as he was taken 
 seriously ill himself. A wretched dentist used con- 
 taminated forceps in extracting a tooth, and Chekhov 
 was attacked by periostitis in a malignant form. In 
 his own words, "he was in such pain that he climbed 
 up the wall." 
 
 As soon as the spring had come he felt an irresisti- 
 ble yearning for Russia. He was weary of enforced 
 idleness; he missed the snow and the Russian coun-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 31 
 
 try, and at the same time he was depressed at having 
 gained no weight in spite of the climate, good nourish- 
 ment, and idleness. 
 
 While he was at Nice France was in the throes 
 of the Dreyfus affair. Chekhov began studying the 
 Dreyfus and Zola cases from shorthand notes, and 
 becoming convinced of the innocence of both, wrote 
 a heated letter to Suvorin, which led to a coolness be- 
 tween them. 
 
 He spent March, 1898, in Paris. He sent three 
 hundred and nineteen volumes of French literature 
 from Paris to the public library at Taganrog. 
 
 The lateness of the spring in Russia forced 
 Chekhov to remain in Paris till May, when he re- 
 turned to Melihovo. Melihovo became gay and 
 lively on his arrival. Visitors began coming again; 
 he was as hospitable as ever, but he was quieter, no 
 longer jested as in the past, and perhaps owing to his 
 illness talked little. But he still took as much pleas- 
 ure in his roses. 
 
 After a comparatively good summer there came 
 days of continual rain, and on the 14th of Septem- 
 ber Chekhov went away to Yalta. He had to choose 
 between Nice and Yalta. He did not want to go 
 abroad, and preferred the Crimea, reckoning that he 
 might possibly seize an opportunity to pay a brief 
 visit to Moscow, where his plays were to appear at 
 the Art Theatre. His choice did not disappoint him. 
 That autumn in Yalta was splendid; he felt well 
 there, and the progress of his disease led him to set- 
 tle in Yalta permanently. 
 
 Chekhov obtained a piece of land at Autka, and 
 the same autumn began building. He spent whole 
 days superintending the building. Stone and plaster
 
 32 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 was brought, Turks and Tatars dug the ground and 
 laid the foundation, while he planted little trees and 
 watched with fatherly anxiety every new shoot on 
 them. Every stone, every tree there is eloquent of 
 Chekhov's creative energy. That same autumn he 
 bought the little property of Kutchuka. It was 
 twenty-four miles from Yalta, and attracted him by 
 its wildness and primitive beauty. To reach it one 
 had to drive along the road at a giddy height. He 
 began once more dreaming and drawing plans. The 
 possible future began to take a different shape to 
 him now, and he was already dreaming of moving 
 from Melihovo, farming and gardening and living 
 there as in the country. He wanted to have hens, 
 cows, a horse and donkeys, and, of course, all of this 
 would have been quite possible and might have been 
 realized if he had not been slowly dying. His dreams 
 remained dreams, and Kutchuka stands uninhabited 
 to this day. 
 
 The winter of 1898 was extremely severe in the 
 Crimea. The cold, the snow, the stormy sea, and 
 the complete lack of people akin to him in spirit 
 and of "interesting women" wearied Chekhov; he 
 began to be depressed. He was irresistibly drawn 
 to the north, and began to fancy that if he moved 
 for the winter to Moscow, where his plays were be- 
 ino; acted with such success and where evervthinor was 
 SO full of interest for him, it would be no worse for 
 his health than staying in Yalta, and he began dream- 
 ing of buying a house in Moscow. He wanted at 
 one moment to get something small and snug in the 
 neighbourhood of Kursk Station, where it might be 
 possible to stay the three winter months in every 
 comfort; but when such a house was found his
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 33 
 
 mood changed and he resigned himself to life at 
 Yalta. 
 
 The January and February of 1899 were particu- 
 larly irksome to Chekhov: he suffered from an in- 
 testinal trouble which poisoned his existence. More- 
 over consumptive patients from all over Russia be- 
 gan appealing to him to assist them to come to Yalta. 
 These invalids were almost always poor, and on 
 reaching Yalta mostly ended their lives in miserable 
 conditions, pining for their native place. Chekhov 
 exerted himself on behalf of everyone, printed ap- 
 peals in the papers, collected money, and did his ut- 
 most to alleviate their condition. 
 
 After the unfavourable winter came an exquisite 
 warm spring, and on the 12th of April Chekhov was 
 in Moscow and by May in Melihovo. His father 
 had died the previous October, and with his death 
 a great link with the place was broken. The con- 
 sciousness of having to go away early in the autumn 
 gradually brought Chekhov to decide to sell the 
 place. 
 
 On the 25th of August he went back to his ow;n 
 villa at Yalta, and soon afterwards Melihovo was sold, 
 and his mother and sister joined him. During the 
 last four and a half years of his life Chekhov's health 
 grew rapidly worse. His chief interest was centred 
 in Moscow, in the Art Theatre, which had just been 
 started, and the greater part of his dramatic work was 
 done during this period. 
 
 Chekhov was ill all the winter of 1900, and only 
 felt better towards the spring. During those long 
 winter months he wrote "In the Ravine." The de- 
 testable spring of that year affected his mood and 
 his health even more. Snow fell on the 5th of
 
 34 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 March, and this had a shattering effect on him. In 
 April he was again very ill. An attack of intestinal 
 trouble prevented him from eating, drinking, or 
 working. As soon as it was over Chekhov, home- 
 sick for the north, set off for Moscow, but there he 
 was met by severe weather. Returning in August 
 to Yalta, he wrote "The Three Sisters." 
 
 He spent the autumn in Moscow, and at the be- 
 ginning of December went to the French Riviera, set- 
 tled in Nice, and dreamed again of a visit to Africa, 
 but went instead to Rome. Here, as usual, he met 
 with severe weather. Early in February he re- 
 turned to Yalta. That year there was a soft, sunny 
 spring. Chekhov spent whole days in the open air, 
 engaged in his favourite occupations ; he planted and 
 pruned trees, looked after his garden, ordered all 
 sorts of seeds, and watched them coming up. At 
 the same time he was working on behalf of the in- 
 valids coming to Yalta, who appealed to him for help, 
 and also completing the library he had founded at 
 Taganrog, and planning to open a picture gallery 
 there. 
 
 In May, 1901, Chekhov went to Moscow and was 
 thoroughly examined by a physician, who urged him 
 to go at once to Switzerland or to take a koumiss cure. 
 Chekhov preferred the latter. 
 
 On the 25th of May he married Olga Knipper, one 
 of the leading actresses at the Art Theatre, and with 
 her went off to the province of Ufa for the koumiss 
 cure. On the way they had to wait twenty-four hours 
 for a steamer, in very unpleasant surroundings, at a 
 place called Pyany Bor ("Drunken Market"), in the 
 province of Vyatka. 
 
 In the autumn of 1901 Tolstoy was staying, for
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 35 
 
 the sake of his heahh, at Gaspra. Chekhov was 
 very fond of him and frequently visited him. Alto- 
 gether that autumn was an eventful one for him: 
 Kuprin, Bunin and Gorky visited the Crimea; the 
 writer Elpatyevsky settled there also, and Chekhov 
 felt fairly well. Tolstoy's illness was the centre of 
 general attention, and Chekhov was very uneasy about 
 him. 
 
 In 1902 there was suddenly a change for the 
 worse: violent haemorrhage exhausted him till the be- 
 ginning of February; he was for over a month con- 
 fined to his study. It was at this time that the 
 incident of Gorky's election to the Academy and sub- 
 sequent expulsion from it led Chekhov to write a 
 letter to the Royal President of the Academy asking 
 that his own name should be struck off the list of 
 Academicians. 
 
 Chekhov had hardly recovered when his wife was 
 taken seriously ill. When she was a little better 
 he made a tour by the Volga and the Kama as far 
 as Perm. On his return he settled with his wife 
 in a summer villa not far from Moscow; he spent 
 July there and returned home to Yalta in August. 
 But the longing for a life of movement and culture, 
 the desire to be nearer to the theatre, drew him to 
 the north again, and in September he was back in 
 Moscow. Here he was not left in peace for one 
 minute; swarms of visitors jostled each other from 
 morning till night. Such a life exhausted him; he 
 ran away from it to Yalta in December, but did not 
 escape it there. His cough was worse; every day 
 he had a high temperature, and these symptoms were 
 followed by an attack of pleurisy. He did not get 
 up all through the Christmas holidays; he still had
 
 36 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 an agonizing cough, and it was in this enforced 
 idleness that he thought out his play "The Cherry 
 Orchard." 
 
 It is quite possible that if Chekhov had taken care 
 of himself his disease would not have developed so 
 rapidly or proved fatal. The feverish energy of his 
 temperament, his readiness to respond to every im- 
 pression, and his thirst for activity, drove him from 
 south to north and back again, regardless of his 
 health and of the climate. Like all invalids, he 
 ought to have gone on living in the same place, at 
 Nice or at Yalta, until he was better, but he lived 
 exactly as though he had been in good health. When 
 he arrived in the north he was always excited and 
 absorbed by what was going on, and this exhilara- 
 tion he mistook for an improvement in his health; 
 but he had only to return to Yalta for the reaction 
 to set in, and it would seem to him at once that his 
 case was hopeless, that the Crimea had no beneficial 
 effect on consumptives, and that the climate was 
 wretched. 
 
 The spring of 1903 passed fairly favourably. He 
 recovered sufficiently to go to Moscow and even to 
 Petersburg. On returning from Petersburg he be- 
 gan preparing to go to Switzerland. But his state of 
 health was such that his doctor in Moscow advised 
 him to give up the idea of Switzerland and even of 
 Yalta, and to stay somewhere not very far from Mos- 
 cow. He followed this advice and settled at Nar. 
 Now that it was proposed that he should stay the 
 winter in the north, all that he had created in Yalta 
 — his house and his garden — seemed unnecessary 
 and objectless. In the end he returned to Yalta and 
 set to work on "The Cherry Orchard."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 37 
 
 In October, 1903, the play was finished and he 
 set off to produce it himself in Moscow. He spent 
 days at a time in the Art Theatre, producing his 
 "Cherry Orchard," and incidentally supervising the 
 setting and performance of the plays of other 
 authors. He gave advice and criticized, was excited 
 and enthusiastic. 
 
 On the 17th of January, 1904, "The Cherry 
 Orchard" was produced for the first time. The first 
 performance was the occasion of the celebration of 
 the twenty-fifth anniversary of Chekhov's literar}^ ac- 
 tivity. A great number of addresses were read and 
 speeches were made. Chekhov was many times 
 called before the curtain, and this expression of uni- 
 versal sympathy exhausted him to such a degree that 
 the very day after the performance he began to think 
 with relief of going back to Yalta, where he spent the 
 following spring. 
 
 His health was completely shattered, and every- 
 one who saw him secretly thought the end was not 
 far off; but the nearer Chekhov was to the end, the 
 less he seemed to realize it. Ill as he was, at the 
 beginning of May he set off for Moscow. He was 
 terribly ill all the way on the journey, and on ar- 
 rival took to his bed at once. He was laid up till 
 June. 
 
 On the 3rd of June he set off with his wife for a 
 cure abroad to the Black Forest, and settled in a 
 little spa called Badenweiler. He was dying, al- 
 though he wrote to everyone that he had almost re- 
 covered, and that health was coming back to him 
 not by ounces but by hundredweights. He was 
 dying, but he spent the time dreaming of going to 
 the Italian lakes and returning to Yalta by sea
 
 38 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 from Trieste, and was already making inquiries 
 about the steamers and the times they stopped at 
 Odessa. 
 
 He died on the 2nd of July. 
 
 His body was taken to Moscow and buried in 
 the Novodyevitchy Monastery, beside his father's 
 tomb.
 
 LETTERS 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Taganrog, 
 
 July 1, 1876. 
 
 Dear Brother Misha, 
 
 I got your letter when I was fearfully bored 
 and was sitting at the gate yawning, and so you 
 can judge how welcome that immense letter was. 
 Your writing is good, and in the whole letter I have 
 not found one mistake in spelling. But one thing 
 I don't like: why do you style yourself "your worth- 
 less and insignificant brother"? You recognize 
 your insignificance? . . . Recognize it before 
 God; perhaps, too, in the presence of beauty, intel- 
 ligence, nature, but not before men. Among men 
 you must be conscious of your dignity. Why, you 
 are not a rascal, you are an honest man, aren't you? 
 Well, respect yourself as an honest man and know 
 that an honest man is not something worthless. 
 Don't confound "being humble" with "recognizing 
 one's worthlessness." . . . 
 
 It is a good thing that you read. Acquire the 
 habit of doing so. In time you will come to value 
 that habit. Madame Beecher-Stowe has wrung tears 
 from your eyes? I read her once, and six months 
 ago read her again with the object of studying her 
 — and after reading I had an unpleasant sensation 
 which mortals feel after eating too many raisins or 
 
 39
 
 40 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 currants. . . . Read "Don Quixote." It is a fine 
 thing. It is by Cervantes, who is said to be almost 
 on a level with Shakespeare. I advise my brothers 
 to read — if they haven't already done so — Turgenev's 
 "Hamlet and Don Quixote." You won't under- 
 stand it, my dear. If you want to read a book of 
 travel that won't bore you, read Gontcharov's "The 
 Frigate Pallada." 
 
 ... I am going to bring with me a boarder who 
 will pay twenty roubles a month and live under our 
 general supervision. Though even twenty roubles 
 is not enough if one considers the price of food in 
 Moscow and mother's weakness for feeding boarders 
 with righteous zeal.* 
 
 To HIS Cousin, Mihail Chekhov. 
 
 Taganrog, 
 
 May 10, 1877. 
 
 ... If I send letters to my mother, care of you, 
 please give them to her when you are alone with 
 her; there are things in life which one can confide 
 in one person only, whom one trusts. It is because 
 of this that I write to my mother without the knowl- 
 edge of the others, for whom my secrets are quite 
 uninteresting, or, rather, unnecessary. . . . My 
 second request is of more importance. Please go 
 on comforting my mother, who is both physically 
 and morally broken. She has found in you not 
 merely a nephew but a great deal more and better 
 than a nephew. My mother's character is such that 
 the moral support of others is a great help to her. 
 
 * This letter was written by Chekhov when he was in the fifth 
 class of the Taganrog high school.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 41 
 
 It is a silly request, isn't it? But you will under- 
 stand, especially as I have said "moral," i.e., spiritual 
 support. There is no one in this wicked world 
 dearer to us than our mother, and so you will greatly 
 oblige your humble servant by comforting his worn- 
 out and weary mother. . . . 
 
 To HIS Uncle, M. G. Chekhov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 1885. 
 
 ... I could not come to see you last summer 
 because I took the place of a district doctor friend 
 of mine who went away for his holiday, but this year 
 I hope to travel and therefore to see you. Last De- 
 cember I had an attack of spitting blood, and decided 
 to take some money from the Literary Fund and go 
 abroad for my health. I am a little better now, but 
 I still think that I shall have to go away. And when- 
 ever I go abroad, or to the Crimea, or to the Cauca- 
 sus, I will go through Taganrog. 
 
 ... I am sorry I cannot join you in being of 
 service to my native Taganrog. ... I am sure 
 that if my work had been there I should have been 
 calmer, more cheerful, in better health, but evidently 
 it is my fate to remain in Moscow\ My home and 
 my career are here. I have work of two sorts. As 
 a doctor I should have grown slack in Taganrog and 
 forgotten my medicine, but in Moscow a doctor has 
 no time to go to the club and play cards. As a writer 
 I am no use except in Moscow or Petersburg. 
 
 My medical work is progressing little by little. 
 I go on steadily treating patients. Every day I have 
 to spend more than a rouble on cabs. I have a lot
 
 42 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 of friends and therefore many patients. Half of 
 them I have to treat for nothing, but the other half 
 pay me three or five roubles a visit. ... I need 
 hardly say I have not made a fortune yet, and it will 
 be a long time before I do, but I live tolerably and 
 need nothing. So long as I am alive and well the 
 position of the family is secure. I have bought new 
 furniture, hired a good piano, keep two servants, 
 give little evening parties with music and singing. 
 I have no debts and do not want to borrow. Till 
 quite recently we used to run an account at the butch- 
 er's and grocer's, but now I have stopped even that, 
 and we pay cash for everything. What will come 
 later, there is no knowing ; as it is we have nothing to 
 complain of. . . . 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October, 1885. 
 
 . . . You advise me to go to Petersburg, and say 
 that Petersburg is not China. I know it is not, 
 and as you are aware, I have long realized the neces- 
 sity of going there; but what am I to do? Owing 
 to the fact that we are a large family, I never have 
 a ten-rouble note to spare, and to go there, even 
 if I did it in the most uncomfortable and beggarly 
 way, would cost at least fifty roubles. How am I 
 to get the money? I can't squeeze it out of my 
 family and don't think I ought to. If I were to 
 cut down our two courses at dinner to one, I should 
 begin to pine away from pangs of conscience. . . . 
 Allah only knows how difficult it is for me to keep 
 my balance, and how easy it would be for me to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 43 
 
 slip and lose my equilibrium. I fancy that if next 
 month I should earn twenty or thirty roubles less, 
 my balance would be gone, and I should be in diffi- 
 culties. I am awfully apprehensive about money 
 matters and, owing to this quite uncommercial 
 cowardice in pecuniary affairs, I avoid loans and 
 payments on account. I am not difficult to move. 
 If I had money I should fly from one city to another 
 endlessly. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 21, 1886. 
 
 . . . Thank you for the flattering things you say 
 about my work and for having published my story 
 so soon. You can judge yourself how refreshing, 
 even inspiring, the kind attention of an experienced 
 and gifted writer like yourself has been to me. 
 
 I agree with what you say about the end of my 
 story which you have cut out; thank you for the help- 
 ful advice. I have been writing for the last six years, 
 but you are the first person who has taken the trouble 
 to advise and explain. 
 
 ... I do not write very much — not more than 
 two or three short stories weekly. 
 
 To D. V. Grigorovitch. 
 
 Moscow, 
 March 28, 1886. 
 
 Your letter, my kind, fervently beloved bringer 
 of good tidings, struck me like a flash of lightning. 
 I almost burst into tears, I was overwhelmed, and 
 now I feel it has left a deep trace in my soul ! May
 
 44 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 God show the same tender kindness to you in your 
 age as you have shown me in my youth! I can 
 find neither words nor deeds to thank you. You 
 know with what eyes ordinary people look at the 
 elect such as you, and so you can judge what your 
 letter means for my self-esteem. It is better than 
 any diploma, and for a writer who is just beginning 
 it is payment both for the present and the future. I 
 am almost dazed. I have no power to judge whether 
 I deserve this high reward. I only repeat that it has 
 overwhelmed me. 
 
 If I have a gift which one ought to respect, I 
 confess before the pure candour of your heart that 
 hitherto I have not respected it. I felt that I had 
 a gift, but I had got into the habit of thinking that 
 it was insignificant. Purely external causes are 
 sufficient to make one unjust to oneself, suspicious, 
 and morbidly sensitive. And as I realize now I 
 have always had plenty of such causes. All my 
 friends and relatives have always taken a condescend- 
 ing tone to my writing, and never ceased urging 
 me in a friendly way not to give up real work for 
 the sake of scribbling. I have hundreds of friends 
 in Moscow, and among them a dozen or two writ- 
 ers, but I cannot recall a single one who reads me 
 or considers me an artist. In Moscow there is a 
 so-called Literary Circle : talented people and medioc- 
 rities of all ages and colours gather once a week in 
 a private room of a restaurant and exercise their 
 tongues. If I went there and read them a single 
 passage of your letter, they would laugh in my face. 
 In the course of the five years that I have been 
 knocking about from one newspaper office to another 
 I have had time to assimilate the general view of
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 45 
 
 my literary insignificance. I soon got used to 
 looking clown upon my work, and so it has gone 
 from bad to worse. That is the first reason. The 
 second is that I am a doctor, and am up to my ears 
 in medical work, so that the proverb about trying to 
 catch two hares has given to no one more sleepless 
 nights than me. 
 
 I am writing all this to you in order to excuse 
 this grievous sin a little before you. Hitherto my 
 attitude to my literary work has been frivolous, heed- 
 less, casual. I don't remember a single story over 
 which I have spent more than twenty-four hours, 
 and "The Huntsman," which you liked, I wrote in 
 the bathing-shed! I wrote my stories as reporters 
 write their notes about fires, mechanically, half-un- 
 consciously, taking no thought of the reader or my- 
 self. ... I wrote and did all I could not to waste 
 upon the story the scenes and images dear to me 
 which — God knows why — I have treasured and kept 
 carefully hidden. 
 
 The first impulse to self-criticism was given me 
 by a very kind and, to the best of my belief, sincere 
 letter from Suvorin. I began to think of writing 
 something decent, but I still had no faith in my 
 being any good as a waiter. And then, unexpected 
 and undreamed of, came your letter. Forgive the 
 comparison: it had on me the effect of a Governor's 
 order to clear out of the town within twenty-four 
 hours — i.e., I suddenly felt an imperative need to 
 hurr}% to make haste and get out of where I have 
 stuck. . . . 
 
 I agree with you in everj^thing. When I saw 
 "The Witch" in print I felt myself the cynicism of 
 the points to which you call my attention. They
 
 46 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 would not have been there had I written this story 
 in three or four days instead of in one. 
 
 I shall put an end to working against time, but 
 cannot do so just yet. ... It is impossible to get 
 out of the rut I have got into. I have nothing 
 against going hungry, as I have done in the past, 
 but it is not a question of myself. ... I give to 
 literature my spare time, two or three hours a day 
 and a bit of the night, that is, time which is of no 
 use except for short things. In the summer, when 
 I have more time and have fewer expenses, I will 
 start on some serious work. 
 
 I cannot put my real name on the book because 
 it is too late: the design for the cover is ready and 
 the book printed.* Many of my Petersburg friends 
 advised me, even before you did, not to spoil the 
 book by a pseudonym, but I did not listen to them, 
 probably out of vanity. I dislike my book very 
 much. It's a hotch-potch, a disorderly medley of the 
 poor stuff I wrote as a student, plucked by the censor 
 and by the editors of comic papers. I am sure that 
 many people will be disappointed when they read 
 it. Had I known that I had readers and that you 
 were watching me, I would not have published this 
 book. 
 
 I rest all my hopes on the future. I am only 
 twenty-six. Perhaps I shall succeed in doing some- 
 thing, though time flies fast. 
 
 Forgive my long letter and do not blame a man 
 because, for the first time in his life, he has made 
 bold to treat himself to the pleasure of writing to 
 Grigorovitch. 
 
 Send me your photograph, if possible. I am so 
 
 * "Motley Tales" is meant.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 47 
 
 overwhelmed with your kindness that I feel as though 
 I should like to write a whole ream to you. God 
 grant you health and happiness, and believe in the 
 sincerity of your deeply respectful and grateful 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 April 6, 1886. 
 
 ... I am ill. Spitting of blood and weakness. 
 I am not writing anything. ... If I don't sit down 
 to write to-morrow, you must forgive me — I shall 
 not send you a story for the Easter number. I ought 
 to go to the South but I have no money. ... I am 
 afraid to submit myself to be sounded by my col- 
 leagues. I am inclined to think it is not so much 
 my lungs as my throat that is at fault. ... I have 
 no fever. 
 
 To Madame M. V. Kiselyov. 
 
 Babkino, 
 June, 1886. 
 
 LOVE UNRIPPLED* 
 
 (a novel) 
 
 Part I. 
 
 It was noon. . . . The setting sun with its 
 crimson, fiery rays gilded the tops of pines, oaks, 
 and fir-trees. ... It was still; onlv in the air the 
 birds were singing, and in the distance a hungry 
 
 * Parody of a feminine novel.
 
 48 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 wolf howled mournfully. . . . The driver turned 
 round and said: 
 
 "More snow has fallen, sir," 
 
 "What?" 
 
 *T say, more snow has fallen." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Vladimir Sergeitch Tabatchin, who is the hero of 
 our story, looked for the last time at the sun and 
 expired. 
 
 ****** 
 
 A week passed. . . . Birds and corncrakes 
 hovered, whistling, over a newly-made grave. The 
 sun was shining. A young widow, bathed in tears, 
 was standing by, and in her grief sopping her whole 
 handkerchief. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 September 21, 1886. 
 
 ... It is not much fun to be a great writer. To 
 begin with, it's a dreary life. Work from morning 
 till night and not much to show for it. Money is as 
 scarce as cats' tears. I don't know how it is with 
 Zola and Shtchedrin, but in my flat it is cold and 
 smoky. . . . They give me cigarettes, as before, 
 on holidays only. Impossible cigarettes! Hard, 
 damp, sausage-like. Before I begin to smoke I light 
 the lamp, dry the cigarette over it, and only then I 
 begin on it; the lamp smokes, the cigarette splutters 
 and turns brown, I bum my fingers ... it is enough 
 to make one shoot oneself! 
 
 ... I am more or less ill, and am gradually turn- 
 ing into a dried dragon-fly.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 49 
 
 ... I go about as festive as though it were my 
 birthday, but to judge from the critical glances of 
 the lady cashier at the Budilnik, I am not dressed 
 in the height of fashion, and my clothes are not 
 brand-new. I go in buses, not in cabs. 
 
 But being a writer has its good points. In the 
 first place, my book, I hear, is going rather well; 
 secondly, in October I shall have money; thirdly, I 
 am beginning to reap laurels: at the refreshment bars 
 people point at me with their fingers, they pay me 
 little attentions and treat me to sandwiches. Korsh 
 caught me in his theatre and straight away presented 
 me wdth a free pass. . . . My medical colleagues 
 sigh when they meet me, begin to talk of literature 
 and assure me that they are sick of medicine. And 
 so on. . . . 
 
 September 29. 
 
 . . . Life is grey, there are no happy people to 
 be seen. . . . Life is a nasty business for everyone. 
 When I am serious I begin to think that people who 
 have an aversion for death are illogical. So far as 
 I understand the order of things, life consists of 
 nothing but horrors, squabbles, and trivialities mixed 
 together or alternating! 
 
 December 3. 
 
 This morning an individual sent by Prince Urusov 
 turned up and asked me for a short story for a sport- 
 ing magazine edited by the said Prince. I refused, 
 of course, as I now refuse all who come with sup- 
 plications to the foot of my pedestal. In Russia 
 there are now two unattainable heights: Mount El- 
 borus and myself.
 
 50 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 The Prince's envoy was deeply disappointed by 
 my refusal, nearly died of grief, and finally begged 
 me to recommend him some writers who are 
 versed in sport. I thought a little, and very oppor- 
 tunely remembered a lady writer who dreams of 
 glory and has for the last year been ill with envy of 
 my literary fame. In short, I gave him your ad- 
 dress. . . . You might write a story "The 
 Wounded Doe" — you remember, how the huntsmen 
 wound a doe; she looks at them with human eyes, 
 and no one can bring himself to kill her. It's not a 
 bad subject, but dangerous because it is difficult to 
 avoid sentimentality — you must write it like a re- 
 port, without pathetic phrases, and begin like this: 
 "On such and such a date the huntsmen in the 
 Daraganov forest wounded a young doe. . . ." 
 And if you drop a tear you will strip the subject 
 of its severity and of everything worth attention in 
 it. 
 
 December 13. 
 
 . . . With your permission I steal out of your 
 last two letters to my sister two descriptions of na- 
 ture for my stories. It is curious that you have quite 
 a masculine way of writing. In every line (except 
 when dealing with children) you are a man! This, 
 of course, ought to Hatter your vanity, for speaking 
 generally, men are a thousand times better than 
 women, and superior to them. 
 
 In Petersburg I was resting — i.e., for days together 
 I was rushing about town paying calls and listening 
 to compliments which my soul abhors. Alas and 
 alack! In Petersburg I am becoming fashionable 
 like Nana. While Korolenko, who is serious, is
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 51 
 
 hardly known to the editors, my twaddle is being 
 read by all Petersburg. Even the senator G. reads 
 me. ... It is gratifying, but my literary feeling is 
 wounded. I feel ashamed of the public which runs 
 after lap-dogs simply because it fails to notice 
 elephants, and I am deeply convinced that 
 not a soul will know me when I begin to work in 
 earnest. 
 
 To HIS Brother Nikolay. 
 
 Moscow, 
 1886. 
 
 . . . You have often complained to me that 
 people "don't understand you"! Goethe and New- 
 ton did not complain of that. . . . Only Christ 
 complained of it, but He was speaking of His doc- 
 trine and not of Himself. . . . People understand 
 you perfectly well. And if you do not understand 
 yourself, it is not their fault. 
 
 I assure you as a brother and as a friend I under- 
 stand you and feel for you with all my heart. I 
 know your good qualities as I know my five fingers; 
 I value and deeply respect them. If you like, to 
 prove that I understand you, I can enumerate those 
 qualities. I think you are kind to the point of soft- 
 ness, magnanimous, unselfish, ready to share your 
 last farthing; you have no envy nor hatred; you are 
 simple-hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are 
 trustful, without spite or guile, and do not remember 
 evil. . . . You have a gift from above such as other 
 people have not: you have talent. This talent 
 places you above millions of men, for on earth only 
 one out of two millions is an artist. Your talent sets
 
 52 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even 
 then, people would respect you, for to talent all things 
 are forgiven. 
 
 You have only one failing, and the falseness of 
 your position, and your unhappiness and your 
 catarrh of the bowels are all due to it. That is your 
 utter lack of culture. Forgive me, please, but 
 Veritas magis amicitice. . . . You see, life has its 
 conditions. In order to feel comfortable among 
 educated people, to be at home and happy with them, 
 one must be cultured to a certain extent. Talent 
 has brought you into such a circle, you belong to it, 
 but . . . you are drawn away from it. and you 
 vacillate between cultured people and the lodgers 
 vis-d-vis. 
 
 Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the 
 following conditions: 
 
 1. They respect human personality, and therefore 
 they are always kind, gentle, polite, and ready to give 
 in to others. They do not make a row because of a 
 hammer or a lost piece of india-rubber; if they live 
 with anyone they do not regard it as a favour and, go- 
 ing away, they do not say "nobody can live with you." 
 They forgive noise and cold and dried-up meat and 
 witticisms and the presence of strangers in their 
 homes. 
 
 2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats 
 alone. Their heart aches for what the eye does not 
 see. . . . They sit up at night in order to help 
 P. . . ., to pay for brothers at the University, and 
 to buv clothes for their mother. 
 
 3. They respect the property of others, and there- 
 for pay their debts. 
 
 4. They are sincere, and dread lying like fire.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 53 
 
 They don't lie even in small things. A lie is insult- 
 ing to the listener and puts him in a lower position 
 in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose, 
 they behave in the street as they do at home, they 
 do not show off before their humbler comrades. 
 They are not given to babbling and forcing their 
 uninvited confidences on others. Out of respect 
 for other people's ears they more often keep silent 
 than talk. 
 
 5. They do not disparage themselves to rouse com- 
 passion. They do not play on the strings of other 
 people's hearts so that they may sigh and make much 
 of them. They do not say "I am misunderstood," 
 or 'T have become second-rate," because all this is 
 striving after cheap effect, is vulgar, stale, 
 false. . . . 
 
 6. They have no shallow vanity. They do not 
 care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities, 
 shaking hands with the drunken P.,* listening 
 to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, 
 being renowned in the taverns. ... If they do a 
 pennyworth they do not strut about as though they 
 had done a hundred roubles' worth, and do not brag 
 of having the entry where others are not ad- 
 mitted. . . . The truly talented always keep in 
 obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from 
 advertisement. . . . Even Krylov has said that 
 an empty barrel echoes more loudly than a full 
 one. 
 
 7. If they have a talent they respect it. They 
 sacrifice to it rest, women, wine, vanity. . . . They 
 are proud of their talent. . . . Besides, they are 
 fastidious. 
 
 * Probably Palmin, a minor poet. — Translator's Note.
 
 54 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 8. They develop the aesthetic feeling in them- 
 selves. They cannot go to sleep in their clothes, 
 see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad 
 air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook 
 their meals over an oil stove. They seek as far as 
 possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct. 
 . . . What they want in a woman is not a bed-fel- 
 low . . . they do not ask for the cleverness which 
 shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, 
 if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, the 
 capacity for motherhood. . . . They do not swdll 
 vodka at all hours of the day and night, do not sniff 
 at cupboards, for they are not pigs and know they 
 are not. They drink only when they are free, on 
 occasion. . . . For they want mens sana in cor- 
 pore sano. 
 
 And so on. This is what cultured people are like. 
 In order to be cultured and not to stand below the 
 level of your surroundings it is not enough to have 
 read "The Pickwick Papers" and learnt a mono- 
 logue from "Faust." . . . 
 
 What is needed is constant work, day and night, 
 constant reading, study, will. . . . Every hour is 
 precious for it. . . . Come to us, smash the vodka 
 bottle, lie down and read. . . . Turgenev, if you 
 like, whom you have not read. 
 
 You must drop your vanity, you are not a child 
 
 . . . you will soon be thirty. It is time ! 
 
 I expect you. . . . We all expect you. 
 * * * * ^ *
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 55 
 
 To Madame M. V. Kiselyov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 January 14, 1887. 
 
 . . . Even your praise of "On the Road" has not 
 softened my anger as an author, and I hasten to 
 avenge myself for "Mire." Be on your guard, and 
 catch hold of the back of a chair that you may not 
 faint. Well, I begin. 
 
 One meets every critical article with a silent bow 
 even if it is abusive and unjust — such is the literary 
 etiquette. It is not the thing to answer, and all 
 who do answer are justly blamed for excessive 
 vanity. But since your criticism has the nature of 
 "an evening conversation on the steps of the Bab- 
 kino lodge" . . . and as, without touching on the 
 literary aspects of the story, it raises general ques- 
 tions of principle, I shall not be sinning against the 
 etiquette if I allow myself to continue our conver- 
 sation. 
 
 In the first place, I, like you, do not like litera- 
 ture of the kind we are discussing. As a reader and 
 "a private resident" I am glad to avoid it, but if you 
 ask my honest and sincere opinion about it, I shall 
 say that it is still an open question whether it has a 
 right to exist, and no one has yet settled it. . . . 
 Neither you nor I, nor all the critics in the w^orld, 
 have any trustworthy data that would give them the 
 right to reject such literature. I do not know which 
 are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, 
 and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not 
 afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were 
 morally far more stable than we are, or the modem 
 writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their
 
 56 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 souls and in life. I do not know which has bad 
 taste — the Greeks who were not ashamed to describe 
 love as it really is in beautiful nature, or the readers 
 of Gaboriau, Marlitz, Pierre Bobo.* Like the 
 problems of non-resistance to evil, of free will, etc., 
 this question can only be settled in the future. We 
 can only refer to it, but are not competent to decide 
 it. Reference to Turgenev and Tolstoy — who 
 avoided the "muck heap" — does not throw light on 
 the question. Their fastidiousness does not prove 
 anything; why, before them there was a generation 
 of writers who regarded as dirty not only accounts of 
 "the dregs and scum," but even descriptions of peas- 
 ants and of officials below the rank of titular coun- 
 cillor. Besides, one period, however brilliant, does 
 not entitle us to draw conclusions in favour of 
 this or that literary tendency. Reference to the 
 demoralizing effects of the literary tendency we are 
 discussing does not decide the question either. 
 Everything in this world is relative and approximate. 
 There are people who can be demoralized even by 
 children's books, and who read with particular pleas- 
 ure the piquant passages in the Psalms and in 
 Solomon's Proverbs, while there are others who be- 
 come only the purer from closer knowledge of the 
 filthy side of life. Political and social writers, 
 lawyers, and doctors who are initiated into all the 
 mysteries of human sinfulness are not reputed to be 
 immoral; realistic writers are often more moral than 
 archimandrites. And, finally, no literature can 
 outdo real life in its cynicism, a wineglassful won't 
 make a man drunk when he has already emptied a 
 barrel. 
 
 * P. D. Boborykin.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 57 
 
 2. That the world swarms with "dregs and 
 scum" is perfectly true. Human nature is imper- 
 fect, and it would therefore be strange to see none 
 but righteous ones on earth. But to think that the 
 duty of literature is to unearth the pearl from the 
 refuse heap means to reject literature itseil. '"Ar- 
 tistic" literature is only "art" in so far as it paints 
 life as it really is. Its vocation is to be ai)soiutely 
 true and honest. To narrow down its function to 
 the particular task of finding "pearls" is as deadly 
 for it as it would be to make Levitan draw a tree 
 without including the dirty bark and the yellow 
 leaves. I agree that "pearls" are a good thing, but 
 then a writer is not a confectioner, not a provider of 
 cosmetics, not an entertainer; he is a man bound, 
 under contract, by his sense of duty and his con- 
 science; having put his hand to the plough he 
 mustn't turn back, and, however distasteful, he must 
 conquer his squeamishness and soil his imagination 
 with the dirt of life. He is just like any ordinary 
 reporter. What would you say if a newspaper cor- 
 respondent out of a feeling of fastidiousness or from 
 a wish to please his readers would describe only 
 honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous rail- 
 wav contractors? 
 
 To a chemist nothing on earth is unclean. A 
 writer must be as objective as a chemist, he must 
 lay aside his personal subjective standpoint and 
 must understand that muck heaps play a very respect- 
 able part in a landscape, and that the evil passions 
 are as inherent in life as the good ones. 
 
 3. Writers are the children of their age, and there- 
 fore, like everybody else, must submit to the external 
 conditions of the life of the community. Thus, they
 
 58 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 must be perfectly decent. This is the only thing 
 we have a right to ask of realistic writers. But you 
 say nothing against the form and executions of 
 "Mire." . . . And so I suppose I have been 
 decent. 
 
 4. I confess I seldom commune with my con- 
 science when I write. This is due to habit and the 
 brevity of my work. And so when I express this 
 or that opinion about literature, I do not take myself 
 into account. 
 
 5. You write: "If I were the editor I would have 
 returned this feuilleton to you for your own good." 
 Why not go further? Why not muzzle the editors 
 themselves who publish such stories? Why not 
 send a reprimand to the Headquarters of the Press 
 Department for not suppressing immoral news- 
 papers? 
 
 The fate of literature would be sad indeed if it 
 weis at the mercy of individual views. That is the 
 firf t thing. Secondly, there is no police which could 
 coxisider itself competent in literary matters. I 
 agree that one can't dispense with the reins and the 
 whip altogether, for knaves find their way even into 
 literature, but no thinking will discover a better 
 police for literature than the critics and the author's 
 own conscience. People have been trying to discover 
 such a police since the creation of the world, but 
 they have found nothing better. 
 
 Here you would like me to lose one hundred and 
 fifteen roubles and be put to shame by the editor; 
 others, your father among them, are delighted with 
 the story. Some send insulting letters to Suvorin, 
 pouring abuse on the paper and on me, etc. Who, 
 then, is right? Who is the true judge?
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 59 
 
 6. Further you write, "Leave such writing to 
 spiritless and unlucky scribblers such as Okrects, 
 Pince-Nez,* or Aloe.f 
 
 Allah forgive you if you were sincere when you 
 wrote those words! A condescending and contemp- 
 tuous tone towards humble people simply because 
 they are humble does no credit to the heart. In liter- 
 ature the lower ranks are as necessar}^ as in the army 
 —this is what the head says, and the heart ought to 
 say still more. 
 
 Ouo'h! I have wearied you with my drawn-out 
 reflections. Had I known my criticism would turn 
 out so long I would not have written it. Please for- 
 give me ! . . . 
 
 You have read my "On the Road." Well, how do 
 you like my courage? I write of "intellectual" sub- 
 jects and am not afraid. In Petersburg I excite a 
 regular furore. A short time ago I discoursed upon 
 non-resistance to evil, and also surprised the public. 
 On New Year's Day all the papers presented me with 
 a compliment, and in the December number of the 
 Russkoye Bogatstvo^ in which Tolstoy writes, there 
 is an article thirty-two pages long by Obolensky en- 
 titled "Chekhov and Korolenko." The fellow goes 
 into raptures over me and proves that I am more of 
 an artist than Korolenko. He is probably talking 
 rot, but, anyway, I am beginning to be conscious of 
 one merit of mine: I am the only writer who, without 
 ever publishing anything in the thick monthlies, has 
 merely on the strength of writing newspaper rubbish 
 won the attention of the lop-eared critics — ^there has 
 been no instance of this before. ... At the end 
 
 * The pseudonym of Madame Kisselyov. 
 
 t The pseudonym of Chekhov's brother Alexandr.
 
 60 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 of 1886 I felt as though I were a bone thrown to the 
 dogs. 
 
 ... I have written a play* on four sheets of 
 paper. It will take fifteen to twenty minutes to act. 
 ... It is much better to write small things than 
 big ones: they are unpretentious and successful. 
 . . . What more would you have? I wrote my 
 play in an hour and five minutes. I began another, 
 but have not finished it, for I have no time. 
 
 To HIS Uncle, M. G. Chekhov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 January 18, 1887. 
 
 . . . During the holidays I was so overwhelmed 
 with work that on Mother's name-day I was almost 
 dropping with exhaustion. 
 
 I must tell you that in Petersburg I am now the 
 most fashionable writer. One can see that from 
 papers and magazines, which at the end of 1886 were 
 taken up with me, bandied my name about, and 
 praised me beyond my deserts. The result of this 
 growth of my literary reputation is that I get a num- 
 ber of orders and invitations — and this is followed by 
 work at high pressure and exhaustion. My work is 
 nervous, disturbing, and involving strain. It is pub- 
 lic and responsible, which makes it doubly hard. 
 Every newspaper report about me agitates both me 
 and my family. . . . My stories are read at pub- 
 lic recitations, wherever I go people point at me, I 
 am overwhelmed with acquaintances, and so on, and 
 so on. I have not a day of peace, and feel as though 
 I were on thorns everv moment. 
 
 * "Calchas," later called "Swansong."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 61 
 
 . . . Volodya ^ is right. ... It is true that a 
 man cannot possess the world, but a man can be 
 called "the lord of the world." Tell Volodya that 
 out of gratitude, reverence, or admiration of the 
 virtues of the best men — those qualities which make 
 a man exceptional and akin to the Deity — peoples 
 and historians have a right to call their elect as they 
 like, without being afraid of insulting God's greatness 
 or of raising a man to God. The fact is we exalt, 
 not a man as such, but his good qualities, just that di- 
 vine principle which he has succeeded in developing 
 in himself to a high degree. Thus remarkable kings 
 are called "great," though bodily they may not be 
 taller than I. I. Loboda; the Pope is called "Holi- 
 ness," the patriarch used to be called "Ecumenical," 
 although he was not in relations with any planet but 
 the earth; Prince Vladimir was called "the lord of 
 the world," though he ruled only a small strip of 
 ground, princes are called "serene" and "illus- 
 trious," though a Swedish match is a thousand times 
 brighter than they are — and so on. In using these 
 expressions we do not lie or exaggerate, but simply 
 express our delight, just as a mother does not lie when 
 she calls her child "my golden one." It is the feel- 
 ing of beauty that speaks in us, and beauty cannot 
 endure what is commonplace and trivial; it induces 
 us to make comparisons which Volodya may, with his 
 intellect, pull to pieces, but which he will understand 
 with his heart. For instance, it is usual to com- 
 pare black eyes with the night, blue with the azure 
 of the sky, curls with waves, etc., and even the 
 Bible likes these comparisons; for instance, "Thy 
 
 * He had apparently criticized the name Vladimir, which 
 means "lord of the world.'' — Translators Note.
 
 62 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 womb is more spacious than heaven," or "The 
 Sun of righteousness arises," "The rock of faith," 
 etc. The feehng of beauty in man knows no 
 limits or bounds. Tliis is why a Russian prince 
 may be called "the lord of the world"; and my 
 friend Volodya may have the same name, for 
 names are given to people, not for their merits, 
 but in honour and commemoration of remarkable 
 men of the past. ... If your young scholar does 
 not agree with me, I have one more argument which 
 will be sure to appeal to him: in exalting peo- 
 ple even to God we do not sin against love, but, 
 on the contrary, we express it. One must not 
 humihate people — that is the chief thing. Bet- 
 ter say to man "My angel" than hurl "Fool" at 
 his head — though men are more like fools than they 
 are like angels. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Taganrog, 
 
 April 2, 1887. 
 
 The journey from Moscow to Serpuhov was dull. 
 My fellow-travellers were practical persons of strong 
 character who did nothing but talk of the prices of 
 flour. . . . 
 
 ... At twelve o'clock we were at Kursk. An 
 liour of waiting, a glass of vodka, a tidy-up and a 
 wash, and cabbage soup. Change to another train. 
 The carriage was crammed full. Immediately after 
 Kursk I made friends with my neighbours: a land- 
 owner from Harkov, as jocose as Sasha K. ; a lady 
 who had just had an operation in Petersburg; a 
 police captain; an officer from Little Russia; and a
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 63 
 
 general in military uniform. We settled social 
 questions. The general's arguments were sound, 
 short, and liberal; the police captain was the type 
 of an old battered sinner of an hussar yearning for 
 amorous adventures. He had the affectations of a 
 governor: he opened his mouth long before he began 
 to speak, and having said a word he gave a long 
 growl like a dog, "er-r-r." The lady was injecting 
 morphia, and sent the men to fetch her ice at the 
 stations. 
 
 At Belgrade I had cabbage soup. We got to 
 Harkov at nine o'clock. A touching parting from 
 the police captain, the general and the others. . . . 
 I woke up at Slavyansk and sent you a postcard. A 
 new lot of passengers got in: a landowner and a 
 railway inspector. We talked of railways. The in- 
 spector told us how the Sevastopol railway stole 
 three hundred carriages from the Azov line and 
 painted them its own colour.* 
 
 . . . Twelve o'clock. Lovely weather. There 
 is a scent of the steppe and one hears the birds sing. 
 I see my old friends the ravens flying over the 
 steppe. 
 
 The barrows, the water-towers, the buildings — 
 everything is familiar and well-remembered. At the 
 station I have a helping of remarkably good and rich 
 sorrel soup. Then I walk along the platform. 
 Young ladies. At an upper window at the far end 
 of the station sits a young girl (or a married lady, 
 goodness knows which) in a white blouse, beautiful 
 and languid, t I look at her, she looks at me. . . . 
 I put on my glasses, she does the same. . . . Oh, 
 
 * See the story "Cold Blood." 
 t See the story "Two Beauties."
 
 64 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 lovely vision! I caught a catarrh of the heart and 
 continued my journey. The weather is devilishly, 
 revoltingly fine. Little Russians, oxen, ravens, 
 white huts, rivers, the line of the Donets railway with 
 one telegraph wire, daughters of landowners and 
 farmers, red dogs, the trees — ^it all flits by like a 
 dream. ... It is hot. The inspector begins to 
 bore me. The rissoles and pies, half of which I have 
 not got through, begin to smell bitter. ... I shove 
 them under somebody else's seat, together with the 
 remains of the vodka. 
 
 ... I arrive at Taganrog. ... It gives one 
 the impression of Herculaneum and Pompeii; there 
 are no people, and instead of mummies there are 
 sleepy drishpaks^ and melon-shaped heads. All the 
 houses look flattened out, and as though they had 
 long needed replastering, the roofs want painting, the 
 shutters are closed. . . . 
 
 At eight o'clock in the evening my uncle, his 
 family, Irina, the dogs, the rats that live in the store- 
 room, the rabbits were fast asleep. There was noth- 
 ing for it but to go to bed too. I sleep on the draw- 
 ing-room sofa. The sofa has not increased in 
 length, and is as short as it was before, and so when 
 I go to bed I have either to stick up my legs in an 
 unseemly way or to let them hang down to the floor. 
 I think of Procrustes and his bed. . . . 
 
 April 6. 
 
 I wake up at five. The sky is grey. There is a 
 cold, unpleasant wind that reminds one of Moscow. 
 It is dull. I wait for the church bells and go to late 
 
 * Uneducated young men in the jargon of Taganrog.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 65 
 
 Mass. In the cathedral it is all very charming, 
 decorous, and not boring. The choir sings well, not 
 at all in a plebeian style, and the congregation en- 
 tirely consists of young ladies in olive-green dresses 
 and chocolate-coloured jackets. . . . 
 
 April 8, 9, and 10. 
 
 Frightfully dull. It is cold and grey. . . . 
 During all my stay in Taganrog I could only do 
 justice to the following things: remarkably good ring 
 rolls sold at the market, the Santurninsky wine, fresh 
 caviare, excellent crabs and uncle's genuine hospital- 
 ity. Everything else is poor and not to be envied. 
 The young ladies here are not bad, but it takes some 
 time to get used to them. They are abrupt in their 
 movements, frivolous in their attitude to men, run 
 away from their parents with actors, laugh loudly, 
 easily fall in love, whistle to dogs, drink wine, 
 
 On Saturday I continued my journey. At the 
 Moskaya station the air is lovely and fresh, caviare 
 is seventy kopecks a pound. At Rostdov I had two 
 hours to wait, at Taganrog twenty. I spent the night 
 at an acquaintance's. The devil only knows what I 
 haven't spent a night on: on beds with bugs, on 
 sofas, settees, boxes. Last night I spent in a long 
 and narrow parlour on a sofa under a looking- 
 glass. ... 
 
 April 25. 
 
 . . . Yesterday was the wedding — a real Cossack 
 wedding with music, feminine bleating, and revolting 
 drunkenness. . . . The bride is sixteen. They 
 were married in the cathedral. I acted as best man,
 
 66 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and was dressed in somebody else's evening suit with 
 fearfully wide trousers, and not a single stud on my 
 shirt. In Moscow such a best man would have been 
 kicked out, but here I looked smarter than any- 
 one. 
 
 I saw many rich and eligible young ladies. The 
 choice is enormous, but I was so drunk all the time 
 that I took bottles for young ladies and young ladies 
 for bottles. Probably owing to my drunken condi- 
 tion the local ladies found me witty and satirical! 
 The young ladies here are regular sheep, if one gets 
 up from her place and walks out of the room all the 
 others follow her. One of them, the boldest and 
 the most brainy, wishing to show that she is not a 
 stranger to social polish and subtlety, kept slapping 
 me on the hand and saying, "Oh, you wretch!" 
 though her face still retained its scared expression. 
 I taught her to say to her partners, "How naive you 
 are! 
 
 The bride and bridegroom, probably because of 
 the local custom of kissing every minute, kissed with 
 such gusto that their lips made a loud smack, and 
 it gave me a taste of sugary raisins in my mouth and 
 a spasm in my left calf. The inflammation of 
 the vein in my left leg got worse through their 
 kisses. 
 
 ... At Zvyerevo I shall have to wait from nine 
 in the evening till five in the morning. Last time 
 I spent the night there in a second-class railway-car- 
 riage on the siding. I went out of the carriage in 
 the night and outside I found veritable marvels: the 
 moon, the limitless steppe, the barrows, the wilder- 
 ness; deathly stillness, and the carriages and the 
 railway lines sharply standing out from the dusk.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 67 
 
 It seemed as though the world were dead. ... It 
 was a picture one would not forget for ages and 
 
 ages. 
 
 Ragozina Balka, 
 April 30, 1887. 
 
 It is April 30. The evening is warm. There are 
 storm-clouds about, and so one cannot see a thing. 
 The air is close and there is a smell of grass. 
 
 I am staying in the Ragozina Balka at K.'s. 
 There is a small house with a thatched roof, and 
 barns made of flat stone. There are three rooms, 
 with earthen floors, crooked ceilings, and windows 
 that lift up and down instead of opening outwards. 
 . . . The walls are covered with rifles, pistols, 
 sabres and whips. The chest of drawers and the 
 window-sills are littered with cartridges, instruments 
 for mending rifles, tins of gunpowder, and bags of 
 shot. The furniture is lame and the veneer is com- 
 ing off it. I have to sleep on a consumptive sofa, 
 very hard, and not upholstered . . . Ash-trays and 
 all such luxuries are not to be found within a radius 
 of ten versts. . . . The first necessaries are con- 
 spicuous by their absence, and one has in all weathers 
 to slip out to the ravine, and one is warned to make 
 sure there is not a viper or some other creature under 
 the bushes. 
 
 The population consists of old K., his wife, Pyotr, 
 a Cossack officer with broad red stripes on his trousers, 
 Alyosha, Hahko (that is, Alexandr), Zoika, Ninka, 
 the shepherd Nikita and the cook Akulina. There 
 are immense numbers of dogs who are furiously spite- 
 ful and don't let anyone pass them by day or by night. 
 I have to go about under escort, or there will be one
 
 68 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 writer less in Russia. . . . The most cursed of 
 the dogs is Muhtar, an old cur on whose face dirty 
 tow hangs instead of wool. He hates me and 
 rushes at me with a roar every time I go out of the 
 house. 
 
 Now about food. In the morning there is tea, 
 eggs, ham and bacon fat. At midday, soup with 
 goose, roast goose with pickled sloes, or a turkey, 
 roast chicken, milk pudding, and sour milk. No 
 vodka or pepper allowed. At five o'clock they make 
 on a camp fire in the wood a porridge of millet and 
 bacon fat. In the evening there is tea, ham, and 
 all that has been left over from dinner. 
 
 The entertainments are: shooting bustards, mak- 
 ing bonfires, going to Ivanovka, shooting at a mark, 
 setting the dogs at one another, preparing gunpowder 
 paste for fireworks, talking politics, building turrets 
 of stone, etc. 
 
 The chief occupation is scientific farming, intro- 
 duced by the youthful Cossack, who bought five 
 roubles' worth of works on agriculture. The most 
 important part of this farming consists of wholesale 
 slaughter, which does not cease for a single moment 
 in the day. They kill sparrows, swallows, bumble- 
 bees, ants, magpies, crows — to prevent them eating 
 bees; to prevent the bees from spoiling the blossom 
 on the fruit-trees they kill bees, and to prevent the 
 fruit-trees from exhausting the ground they cut down 
 the fruit-trees. One gets thus a regular circle which, 
 though somewhat original, is based on the latest data 
 of science. 
 
 We retire at nine in the evening. Sleep is dis- 
 turbed, for Belonozhkas and Muhtars howl in the 
 yard and Tseter furiously barks in answer to them
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 69 
 
 from under my sofa. I am awakened by shooting: 
 my hosts shoot with rifles from the windows at some 
 animal which does damage to their crops. To leave 
 the house at night one has to call the Cossack, for 
 otherwise the dogs would tear one to bits. 
 
 The weather is fine. The grass is tall and in blos- 
 som. I watch bees and men among whom I feel my- 
 self something like a Mikluha-Maklay. Last night 
 there was a beautiful thunderstorm. 
 
 . . . The coal mines are not far off. To-morrow 
 morning early I am going on a one-horse droshky to 
 Ivanovka (twenty-three versts) to fetch my letters 
 from the post. 
 
 . . . We eat turkeys' eggs. Turkeys lay eggs in 
 the wood on last year's leaves. They kill hens, 
 geese, pigs, etc., by shooting here. The shooting is 
 incessant. 
 
 Taganrog, 
 
 May 11. 
 
 . . . From K.'s I went to the Holy Mountains. 
 ... I came to Slavyansk on a dark evening. 
 The cabmen refuse to take me to the Holy Mountains 
 at night, and advise me to spend the night at Slav- 
 yansk, which I did very willingly, for I felt broken 
 and lame with pain. . . . The town is something 
 like Gogol's Mirgorod; there is a hairdresser and a 
 watchmaker, so that one may hope that in another 
 thousand years there will be a telephone. The walls 
 and fences are pasted with the advertisements of a 
 menagerie. . . . On green and dusty streets walk 
 pigs, cows, and other domestic creatures. The 
 houses look cordial and friendly, rather like kindly 
 grandmothers; the pavements are soft, the streets
 
 70 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 are wide, there is a smell of lilac and acacia in the 
 air; from the distance come the singing of a night- 
 ingale, the croaking of frogs, barking, and sounds of 
 a harmonium, of a woman screeching. ... I 
 stopped in Kulikov's hotel, where I took a room for 
 seventy-five kopecks. After sleeping on wooden 
 sofas and washtubs it was a voluptuous sight to see 
 a bed with a mattress, a washstand. . . . Fragrant 
 breezes came in at the wide-open window and green 
 branches thrust themselves in. It was a glorious 
 morning. It was a holiday (May 6th) and the bells 
 were ringing in the cathedral. People were coming 
 out from mass. I saw police officers, justices of the 
 peace, military superintendents, and other principal- 
 ities and powers come out of the church. I bought 
 two kopecks' worth of sunflower seeds, and hired for 
 six roubles a carriage on springs to take me to the 
 Holy Mountains and back (in two days' time). I 
 drove out of the town through little streets literally 
 drowned in the green of cherry, apricot, and apple 
 trees. The birds sang unceasingly. Little Rus- 
 sians whom I met took off their caps, taking me 
 probably for Turgenev; my driver jumped every 
 minute off the box to put the harness to rights, or 
 to crack his whip at the boys who ran after the 
 carriage. . . . There were strings of pilgrims 
 along the road. On all sides there were white hills, 
 big and small. The horizon was bluish-white, the 
 rye was tall, oak copses were met with here and there 
 — the only things lacking were crocodiles and rattle- 
 snakes. 
 
 I came to the Holy Mountains at twelve o'clock. 
 It is a remarkably beautiful and unique place. The 
 monastery stands on the bank of the river Donets at
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 71 
 
 the foot of a huge white rock covered with gardens, 
 oaks, and ancient pines crowded together and over- 
 hanging, one above another. It seems as if the trees 
 had not enough room on the rock, and as if some 
 force were driving them upwards. . . . The pines 
 literally hang in the air and look as though they 
 might fall any minute. Cuckoos and nightingales 
 sing night and day. 
 
 The monks, very pleasant people, gave me a very 
 unpleasant room with a pancake-like mattress. I 
 spent two nights at the monastery and gathered a 
 mass of impressions. While I was there some fifteen 
 thousand pilgrims assembled because of St. Nicolas' 
 Day; eight-ninths of them were old women. I did 
 not know before that there were so many old women 
 in the world ; had I known, I would have shot myself 
 long ago. About the monks, my acquaintance with 
 them and how I gave medical advice to the monks and 
 the old women, I will write to the Novoye Vremya 
 and tell you when we meet. The services are end- 
 less: at midnight they ring for matins, at five for 
 early mass, at nine for late mass, at three for the 
 song of praise, at five for vespers, at six for the 
 special prayers. Before every service one hears in 
 the corridors the weeping sound of a bell, and a monk 
 runs along crying in the voice of a creditor who im- 
 plores his debtor to pay him at least five kopecks for 
 a rouble: 
 
 "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us ! Please 
 come to matins!" 
 
 It is awkward to stay in one's room, and so one 
 gets up and goes out. I have chosen a spot on the 
 bank of the Donets, where I sit during all the 
 services.
 
 72 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I have bought an ikon for Auntie.* The food is. 
 provided gratis by the monastery for all the fifteen 
 thousand: cabbage soup with dried fresh-water fish 
 and porridge. Both are good, and so is the rye 
 bread. 
 
 The church bells are wonderful. The choir is not 
 up to much. I took part in a religious procession 
 on boats. 
 
 To V. G. KOROLENKO. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 17, 1887. 
 
 ... I am extremely glad to have met you. I 
 say it sincerely and with all my heart. In the first 
 place, I deeply value and love your talent; it is dear 
 to me for many reasons. In the second, it seems to 
 me that if you and I live in this world another ten 
 or twenty years we shall be bound to find points of 
 contact. Of all the Russians now successfully writ- 
 ing I am the lightest and most frivolous ; I am looked 
 upon doubtfully; to speak the language of the poets, 
 I have loved my pure Muse but I have not respected 
 her; I have been unfaithful to her and often took her 
 to places that were not fit for her to go to. But you 
 are serious, strong, and faithful. The difference be- 
 tween us is great, as vou see, but nevertheless when I 
 read you, and now when I have met you, I think that 
 we have something in common. I don't know if I 
 am right, but I like to think it. 
 
 * His mother's sister. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 73 
 
 To HIS Brother Alexandr. 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 20, 1887. 
 
 Well, the first performance* is over. I will tell 
 you all about it in detail. To begin with, Korsh 
 promised me ten rehearsals, but gave me only four, 
 of which only two could be called rehearsals, for the 
 other two were tournaments in which messieurs les 
 artistes exercised themselves in altercation and abuse. 
 Davydov and Glama were the only two who knew 
 their parts; the others trusted to the prompter and 
 their own inner conviction. 
 
 Act One. — I am behind the stage in a small box 
 that looks like a prison cell. My family is in a 
 box of the benoire and is trembling. Contrary to my 
 expectations, I am cool and am conscious of no agita- 
 tion. The actors are nervous and excited, and cross 
 themselves. The curtain goes up . . . the actor 
 whose benefit night it is comes on. His uncertainty, 
 the way that he forgets his part, and the wreath 
 that is presented to him make the play unrecog- 
 nizable to me from the first sentences. Kiselevsky, 
 of whom I had great hopes, did not deliver a single 
 phrase correctly — literally not a single one. He 
 said things of his own composition. In spite of 
 this and of the stage manager's blunders, the first 
 act was a great success. There were many 
 calls. 
 
 Act Two. — A lot of people on the stage. Visitors. 
 They don't know their parts, make mistakes, talk 
 nonsense. Every word cuts me like a knife in my 
 back. But — Muse! — this act, too, was a success. 
 
 * "Ivanov." — Translator's Note.
 
 74 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 There were calls for all the actors, and I was called 
 before the curtain twice. Congratulations and suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Act Three. — The acting is not bad. Enormous 
 success. I had to come before the curtain three 
 times, and as I did so Davydov was shaking my 
 hand, and Glama, like Manilov, was pressing my 
 other hand to her heart. The triumph of talent and 
 virtue. 
 
 Act Four, Scene One. — It does not go badly. 
 Calls before the curtain again. Then a long, weari- 
 some interval. The audience, not used to leaving 
 their seats and going to the refreshment bar between 
 two scenes, murmur. The curtain goes up. Fine: 
 through the arch one can see the supper table (the 
 wedding). The band plays flourishes. The 
 groomsmen come out : they are drunk, and so you see 
 they think they must behave like clowns and cut 
 capers. The horseplay and pot-house atmosphere 
 reduce me to despair. Then Kiselevsky comes out: 
 it is a poetical, moving passage, but my Kiselevsky 
 does not know his part, is drunk as a cobbler, and a 
 short poetical dialogue is transformed into something 
 tedious and disgusting: the public is perplexed. 
 At the end of the play the hero dies because he can- 
 not get over the insult he has received. The audi- 
 ence, grown cold and tired, does not understand this 
 death (the actors insisted on it; I have another ver- 
 sion). There are calls for the actors and for me. 
 During one of the calls I hear sounds of open hissing, 
 drowned by the clapping and stamping. 
 
 On the whole I feel tired and annoyed. It was 
 sickening though the play had considerable sue- 
 
 V/C5S» • • •
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 75 
 
 Theatre-goers say that they had never seen such 
 a ferment in a theatre, such universal clapping and 
 hissing, nor heard such discussions among the audi- 
 ence as they saw and heard at my play. And it has 
 never happened before at Korsh's that the author has 
 been called after the second act. 
 
 November 24. 
 
 ... It has all subsided at last, and I sit as before 
 at my writing-table and compose stories with un- 
 troubled spirit. You can't think what it was like! 
 ... I have already told you that at the first per- 
 formance there was such excitement in the audience 
 and on the stage as the prompter, who has served at 
 the theatre for thirty-two years, had never seen. 
 They made an uproar, shouted, clapped and hissed; 
 at the refreshment bar it almost came to fighting, and 
 in the gallery the students wanted to throw someone 
 out and two persons were removed by the police. 
 The excitement was general. . . . 
 
 . . . The actors were in a state of nervous tension. 
 All that I wrote to you and Maslov about their acting 
 and attitude to their work must not, of course, go 
 any further. There is much one has to excuse and 
 understand. ... It turned out that the actress 
 who was doing the chief part in my play had 
 a daughter lying dangerously ill — how could she 
 feel like acting? Kurepin did well to praise the 
 actors. 
 
 The next day after the performance there was a 
 review by Pyotr Kitcheyev in the Moskovsky Listok. 
 He calls my play impudently cynical and immoral 
 rubbish. The Moskovskiya Vyedomosd praised it. 
 
 ... If you read the play you will not understand
 
 76 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 the excitement I have described to you ; you will find 
 nothing special in it. Nikolay, Shehtel, and Levitan 
 — all of them painters — assure me that on the stage 
 it is so original that it is quite strange to look at. In 
 readins: one does not notice it. 
 
 To D. V. Grigorovitch. 
 
 Moscow, 
 1887. 
 
 I have just read "Karelin's Dream," and I am 
 very much interested to know how far the dream you 
 describe really is a dream. I think your descrip- 
 tion of the workings of the brain and of the general 
 feeling of a person who is asleep is physiologically 
 correct and remarkably artistic. I remember I read 
 two or three years ago a French story, in which the 
 author described the daughter of a minister, and prob- 
 ably without himself suspecting it, gave a correct 
 medical description of hysteria. I thought at the 
 time that an artist's instinct may sometimes be worth 
 the brains of a scientist, that both have the same pur- 
 pose, the same nature, and that perhaps in time, as 
 their methods become perfect, they are destined to 
 become one vast prodigious force which now it is 
 difficult even to imagine. . . . "Karelin's Dream" 
 has suggested to me similar thoughts, and to-day I 
 willingly believe Buckle, who saw in Hamlet's 
 musings on the dust of Alexander the Great, Shakes- 
 peare's knowledge of the law of the transmutation of 
 substance — i.e., the power of the artist to run ahead 
 of the men of science. . . . Sleep is a subjective 
 phenomenon, and the inner aspect of it one can only 
 observe in oneself. But since the process of dream-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 77 
 
 ing is the same in all men, every reader can, I think, 
 judge Karelin by his own standards, and every critic 
 is bound to be subjective. From my own personal 
 experience this is how I can formulate my im- 
 pression. 
 
 In the first place the sensation of cold is given 
 by you with remarkable subtlety. When at night 
 the quilt falls off I begin to dream of huge slipper}'^ 
 stones, of cold autumnal water, naked banks — and 
 all this dim, misty, without a patch of blue sky; sad 
 and dejected like one who has lost his way, I look 
 at the stones and feel that for some reason I cannot 
 avoid crossing a deep river; I see then small tugs 
 that drag huge barges, floating beams. . . . All 
 this is infinitely grey, damp, and dismal. When 
 I run from the river I come across the fallen ceme- 
 tery gates, funerals, my school-teachers. . . . And 
 all the time I am cold through and through with 
 that oppressive nightmare-like cold which is im- 
 possible in waking life, and which is only felt 
 by those who are asleep. The first pages of 
 "Karelin's Dream" vividly brought it to my 
 memory — especially the first half of page five, 
 where you speak of the cold and loneliness of the 
 grave. 
 
 I think that had I been born in Petersburg and 
 constantlv lived there, I should alwavs dream of the 
 banks of the Neva, the Senate Square, the massive 
 monuments. 
 
 When I feel cold in my sleep I dream of people. 
 . . . I happened to have read a criticism in which 
 the reviewer blames you for introducing a man who 
 is "almost a minister," and thus spoiling the gener- 
 ally dignified tone of the story. I don't agree with
 
 78 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 him. What spoils the tone is not the people but 
 your characterization of them, which in some places 
 interrupts the picture of the dream. One does 
 dream of people, and always of unpleasant ones. 
 ... I, for instance, when I feel cold, always 
 dream of my teacher of scripture, a learned priest of 
 imposing appearance, who insulted my mother when 
 I was a little boy ; I dream of vindictive, implacable, 
 intriguing people, smiling with spiteful glee — such 
 as one can never see in waking life. The laughter 
 at the carriage window is a characteristic symptom of 
 Karelin's nightmare. When in dreams one feels the 
 presence of some evil will, the inevitable ruin brought 
 about by some outside force, one always hears some- 
 thing like such laughter. . . . One dreams of peo- 
 ple one loves, too, but they generally appear to suffer 
 together with the dreamer. 
 
 But when my body gets accustomed to the cold, 
 or one of my family covers me up, the sensation of 
 cold, of loneliness, and of an oppressive evil will, 
 gradually disappears. . . . With the returning 
 warmth I begin to feel that I walk on soft carpets 
 or on grass, I see sunshine, women, children. . . . 
 The pictures change gradually, but more rapidly than 
 they do in waking life, so that on awaking it is difficult 
 to remember the transitions from one scene to an- 
 other. . . . This abruptness is well brought out in 
 your story, and increases the impression of the 
 dream. 
 
 Another natural fact you have noticed is also 
 extremely striking: dreamers express their moods in 
 outbursts of an acute kind, with childish genuineness, 
 like Karelin. Everyone knows that people weep and 
 cry out in their sleep much more often than they do
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 79 
 
 in waking life. This is probably due to the lack of 
 inhibition in sleep and of the impulses which make 
 us conceal things. 
 
 Forgive me, I so like your story that I am ready to 
 write you a dozen sheets, though I know I can tell 
 you nothing new or good. ... I restrain myself 
 and am silent, fearing to bore you and to say some- 
 thing silly. 
 
 I will say once more that your story is magnificent. 
 The public finds it "vague," but to a writer who gloats 
 over every line such vagueness is more transparent 
 than holy water. . . . Hard as I tried I could detect 
 only two small blots, even those are rather far- 
 fetched ! 
 
 (1) I think that at the beginning of the story the 
 feeling of cold is soon blunted in the reader and be- 
 comes habitual, owing to the frequent repetition of 
 the word "cold," and (2), the word "glossy" is re- 
 peated too often. 
 
 There is nothing else I could find, and I feel that 
 as one is always feeling the need of refreshing models, 
 "Karelin's Dream" is a splendid event in my exist- 
 ence as an author. This is why I could not contain 
 myself and ventured to put before you some of my 
 thoughts and impressions. 
 
 There is little good I can say about myself. I 
 write not what I want to be writing, and I have not 
 enough energy or solitude to write as you advised me. 
 . . . There are many good subjects jostling in my 
 head — and that is all. I am sustained by hopes of 
 the future, and watch the present slip fruitlessly 
 away. 
 
 Forgive this long letter, and accept the sincere 
 good wishes of your devoted ^^ Chekhov.
 
 80 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To V. G. KOROLENKO. 
 
 Moscow, 
 January 9, 1888. 
 
 Following your friendly advice I began writing a 
 story^ for the Syeverny Vyestnik. To begin with 
 I have attempted to describe the steppe, the people 
 who live there, and what I have experienced in the 
 steppe. It is a good subject, and I enjoy writing 
 about it, but unfortunately from lack of practice in 
 writing long things, and from fear of making it too 
 rambling, I fall into the opposite extreme: each page 
 turns out a compact whole like a short story, the 
 pictures accumulate, are crowded, and, getting in 
 each other's way, spoil the impression as a whole. 
 As a result one gets, not a picture in which all the de- 
 tails are merged into one whole like stars in the 
 heavens, but a mere diagram, a dry record of im- 
 pressions. A writer — you, for instance — will 
 understand me, but the reader will be bored and 
 curse. 
 
 . . . Your "Sokolinets" is, I think, the most re- 
 markable novel that has appeared of late. It is writ- 
 ten like a good musical composition, in accordance 
 with all the rules which an artist instinctively 
 divines. Altogether in the whole of your book 
 you are such a great artist, such a force, that even 
 your worst failings, which would have been the 
 ruin of any other writer, pass unnoticed. For 
 instance, in the whole of vour book there is an ob- 
 stinate exclusion of women, and I have only just 
 noticed it. 
 
 * "The Steppe."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 81 
 
 To A. N. Pleshtcheyev. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 5, 1888. 
 
 ... I am longing to read Korolenko's story. 
 He is my favourite of contemporary writers. His 
 colours are rich and vivid, his style is irreproachable, 
 though in places rather elaborate, his images are 
 noble. Leontyev* is good too. He is not so mature 
 and picturesque, but he is warmer than Korolenko, 
 more peaceful and feminine. . . . But, Allah 
 kerim, why do they both specialize? The first will 
 not part with his convicts, and the second feeds his 
 readers with nothing but officers. ... I under- 
 stand speciahzation in art such as genre, land- 
 scape, history, but I cannot admit of such special- 
 ties as convicts, officers, priests. . . . This is 
 not specialization but partiality. In Petersburg 
 you do not care for Korolenko, and here in Mos- 
 cow we do not read Shtcheglov, but I fully believe 
 in the future of both of them. Ah, if only we had 
 decent critics! 
 
 February 9. 
 
 . . . You say you liked Dymovf as a subject. 
 Life creates such characters as the dare-devil Dymov 
 not to be dissenters nor tramps, but downright 
 revolutionaries. . . . There never will be a revo- 
 lution in Russia, and Dymov will end by taking 
 to drink or getting into prison. He is a superfluous 
 man. 
 
 * I. L. Shtcheglov. 
 
 t One of the characters in "The Steppe." — Translator's Note.
 
 82 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 March 6. 
 
 It is devilishly cold, but the poor birds are already 
 flying to Russia! They are driven by homesickness 
 and love for their native land. If poets knew how 
 many millions of birds fall victims to their longing 
 and love for their homes, how many of them freeze 
 on the way, what agonies they endure on getting home 
 in March and at the beginning of April, they would 
 have sung their praises long ago! . . . Put your- 
 self in the place of a corncrake who does not fly but 
 walks all the way, or of a wild goose who gives him- 
 self up to man to escape being frozen. . . . Life is 
 hard in this world! 
 
 To I. L. Shtcheglov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 April 18, 1888. 
 
 ... In any case I am more often merry than sad, 
 though if one comes to think of it I am bound hand 
 and foot. . . . You, my dear man, have a flat, but 
 I have a whole house which, though a poor specimen, 
 is still a house, and one of two storeys, too! You 
 have a wife who will forgive your having no money, 
 and I have a whole organization which will collapse 
 if I don't earn a sufficient number of roubles a month 
 — collapse and fall on my shoulders like a heavy 
 stone. 
 
 May 3. 
 
 ... I have just sent a story* to the Syeverny 
 Vyestnik. I feel a little ashamed of it. It is fright- 
 fully dull, and there is so much discussion and 
 preaching in it that it is mawkish. I didn't hke 
 
 * "The Lights."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 83 
 
 to send it, but had to, for I need money as I do 
 air. ... 
 
 I have had a letter from Leman. He tells me that 
 "we" (that is all of you Petersburg people) "have 
 agreed to print advertisements about each other's 
 work on our books," invites me to join, and warns 
 me that among the elect may be included only such 
 persons as have a "certain degree of solidarity with 
 us." I wrote to say that I agreed, and asked him 
 how does he know with whom I have solidarity and 
 with whom I have not? How fond of stuffiness you 
 are in Petersburg! Don't you feel stifled with such 
 words as "solidarity," "unity of young writers," 
 "common interests," and so on? Sohdarity and all 
 the rest of it I admit on the stock-exchange, in 
 politics, in religious affairs, etc., but solidarity among 
 young writers is impossible and unnecessary. . . . 
 We cannot feel and think in the same way, our 
 aims are different, or we have no aims whatever, 
 we know each other little or not at all, and so 
 there is nothing on to which this solidarity could 
 be securely hooked. . . . And is there any need 
 for it? No, in order to help a colleague, to re- 
 spect his personality and his work, to refrain from 
 gossiping about him, envying him, telling him 
 lies and being hypocritical, one does not need so 
 much to be a young writer as simply a man. . . . 
 Let US' be ordinary people, let us treat everybody 
 alike, and then we shall not need any artificially 
 worked up solidarity. Insistent desire for par- 
 ticular, professional, clique solidarity such as you 
 want, will give rise to unconscious spying on 
 one another, suspiciousness, control, and, with- 
 out wishing to do so, we shall become something
 
 84 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 like Jesuits in relation to one another. ... I, 
 dear Jean, have no solidarity with you, but I 
 promise you as a literary man perfect freedom 
 so long as you live; that is, you may write where 
 and how you wish, you may think like Koreisha* if 
 you like, betray your convictions and tendencies 
 a thousand times, etc., etc., and my human rela- 
 tions with you will not alter one jot, and I will always 
 publish advertisements of your books on the wrappers 
 of mine. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Sumy, Madame Lintvaryov's 
 Estate, 
 
 May 30, 1888, 
 
 ... I am staying on the bank of the Psyol, in 
 the lodge of an old signorial estate. I took the place 
 without seeing it, trusting to luck, and have not 
 regretted it so far. The river is wide and deep, with 
 plenty of islands, of fish and of crayfish. The banks 
 are beautiful, well-covered with grass and trees. 
 And best of all, there is so much space that I feel 
 as if for my one hundred roubles I have obtained 
 a right to live on an expanse of which one can see 
 no end. Nature and life here is built on the pat- 
 tern now so old-fashioned and rejected by magazine 
 editors. Nightingales sing night and day, dogs 
 bark in the distance, there are old neglected gardens, 
 sad and poetical estates shut up and deserted where 
 live the souls of beautiful women; old footmen, 
 relics of serfdom, on the brink of the grave; young 
 ladies longing for the most conventional love. In 
 addition to all these things, not far from me there 
 
 * A well-known religious fanatic in Moscow.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 85 
 
 is even such a hackneyed cliche as a water-mill (with 
 sixteen wheels) , with a miller, and his daughter who 
 always sits at the window, apparently waiting for 
 someone. All that I see and hear now seems 
 familiar to me from old novels and fairy-tales. The 
 only thing that has something new about it is a 
 mysterious bird, which sits somewhere far away in 
 the reeds, and night and day makes a noise that 
 sounds partly like a blow on an empty barrel and 
 partly like the mooing of a cow shut up in a barn. 
 Every Little Russian has seen this bird in the course 
 of his life, but everyone describes it differently, which 
 means that no one has seen it. . . . Everv day I 
 row to the mill, and in the evening I go to the 
 islands to fish with fishing maniacs from the Hari- 
 tovenko factory. Our conversations are some- 
 times interesting. On the eve of Whit Sunday all 
 the maniacs will spend the night on the islands and 
 fish all night; I, too. There are some splendid 
 types. 
 
 My hosts have turned out to be very nice and hos- 
 pitable people. It is a family worth studying. It 
 consists of six members. The old mother, a very 
 kind, rather flabby woman who has had suffering 
 enough in her life; she reads Schopenhauer and goes 
 to church to hear the Song of Praise; she conscienti- 
 ously studies every number of the Vyestnik Evropi 
 and Syeverny Vyestnik, and knows writers I have not 
 dreamed of; attaches much importance to the fact 
 that once the painter Makovsky stayed in her lodge 
 and now a young writer is staying there; talking to 
 Pleshtcheyev she feels a holy thrill all over and re- 
 joices every minute that it has been "vouchsafed" to 
 her to see the great poet.
 
 86 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Her eldest daughter, a woman doctor — the pride 
 of the whole family and "a saint" as the peasants 
 call her — really is remarkable. She has a tumour 
 on the brain, and in consequence of it she is totally 
 blind, has epileptic fits and constant headaches. 
 She knows what awaits her, and stoically with 
 amazing coolness speaks of her approaching death. 
 In the course of my medical practice I have grown 
 used to seeing people who were soon going to die, 
 and I have always felt strange when people whose 
 death was at hand talked, smiled, or wept in my pres- 
 ence ; but here, when I see on the verandah this blind 
 woman who laughs, jokes, or hears my stories read 
 to her, what begins to seem strange to me is not that 
 she is dying, but that we do not feel our own death, 
 and write stories as though we were never going to 
 die. 
 
 The second daughter, also a woman doctor, is a 
 gentle, shy, infinitely kind creature, loving to every- 
 one. Patients are a regular torture to her, and she 
 is scrupulous to morbidity with them. At consulta- 
 tions we always disagree: I bring good tidings where 
 she sees death, and I double the doses which she pre- 
 scribes. But where death is obvious and inevitable 
 my lady doctor feels quite in an unprofessional way. 
 I was receiving patients with her one day at a 
 medical centre; a young Little Russian woman came 
 with a malignant tumour of the glands in her neck 
 and at the back of her head. The tumour had 
 spread so far that no treatment could be thought 
 of. And because the woman was at present feeling 
 no pain, but would in another six months die in ter- 
 rible agony, the doctor looked at her in such a guilty 
 way as though she were asking forgiveness for being
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 87 
 
 well, and ashamed that medical science was help- 
 less. She takes a zealous part in managing the house 
 and estate, and understands every detail of it. She 
 knows all about horses even. When the side horse 
 does not pull or gets restless, she knows how to help 
 matters and instructs the coachman. I believe she 
 has never hurt anyone, and it seems to me that she 
 has not been happy for a single instant and never 
 will be. 
 
 The third daughter, who has finished her studies 
 at Bezstuzhevka, is a vigorous, sunburnt young 
 girl with a loud voice. Her laugh can be heard a 
 mile away. She is a passionate Little Russian 
 patriot. She has built a school on the estate at her 
 own expense, and teaches the children Krylov's 
 fables translated into Little Russian. She goes to 
 Shevtchenko's grave as a Turk goes to Mecca. She 
 does not cut her hair, wears stays and a bustle, looks 
 after the housekeeping, is fond of laughing and sing- 
 ing. 
 
 The eldest son is a quiet, modest, intelligent, hard- 
 working young man with no talents; he has no pre- 
 tensions, and is apparently content with what life 
 has given him. He has been dismissed from the 
 University* just before taking his degree, but he 
 does not boast of it. He speaks little. He loves 
 farming and the land and lives in harmony with the 
 peasants. 
 
 The second son is a young man mad over Tchai- 
 kovsky's being a genius. He dreams of living ac- 
 cording to Tolstoy. 
 
 •X- * * * * * 
 
 * On political grounds, of course, is understood. — Translator's 
 Note.
 
 88 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Pleshtcheyev is staying with us. They all look 
 upon him as a demi-god, consider themselves happy 
 if he bestows attention on somebody's junket, bring 
 him flowers, invite him everywhere, and so on. . . . 
 And he "listens and eats," and smokes his cigars 
 which give his admirers a headache. He is slow to 
 move, with the indolence of old age, but this does not 
 prevent the fair sex from taking him about in boats, 
 driving with him to the neighbouring estates, and 
 singing songs to him. Here he is by way of being 
 the same thing as in Petersburg — i.e., an ikon which 
 is prayed to for being old and for having once hung 
 by the side of the miracle-working ikons. So far as 
 I am concerned I regard him — not to speak of his be- 
 ing a very good, warm-hearted and sincere man — as 
 a vessel full of traditions, interesting memories, and 
 good platitudes. 
 
 . . . What you say about "The Lights" is quite 
 just. You say that neither the conversation about 
 pessimism nor Kisotcha's story in any way help to 
 solve the question of pessimism. It seems to me 
 it is not for writers of fiction to solve such questions 
 as that of God, of pessimism, etc. The writer's 
 business is simply to describe who has been speak- 
 ing about God or about pessimism, how, and in 
 what circumstances. The artist must be not the 
 judge of his characters and of their conversations, 
 but merely an impartial witness. I have heard a 
 desultory conversation of two Russians about pes- 
 simism — a conversation which settles nothing — and 
 I must report that conversation as I heard it; it is 
 for the jury, that is, for the readers, to decide on the 
 valii« of it. My business is merely to be talented 
 — i.e., to know how to distinguish important state-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 89 
 
 ments from unimportant, how to throw hght on the 
 characters, and to speak their language. Shtche- 
 glov-Leontyev blames me for finishing the story with 
 the words, "There's no making out anything in this 
 world." He thinks a writer who is a good psy- 
 chologist ought to be able to make it out — that is 
 what he is a psychologist for. But I don't agree 
 with him. It is time that writers, especially those 
 who are artists, recognized that there is no making 
 out anything in this world, as once Socrates rec- 
 ognized it, and Voltaire, too. The mob thinks it 
 knows and understands everything; and the more 
 stupid it is the wider it imagines its outlook to be. 
 And if a writer whom the mob believes in has the 
 courage to say that he does not understand an}1;hing 
 of what he sees, that alone will be something 
 gained in the realm of thought and a great step in 
 advance. 
 
 To A. N. Pleshtcheyev. 
 
 Sumy, 
 June 28, 1888. 
 
 . . . We have been to the province of Poltava. 
 We went to the Smagins', and to Sorotchintsi. We 
 drove with a four-in-hand, in an ancestral, very com- 
 fortable carriage. We had no end of laughter, ad- 
 ventures, misunderstandings, halts, and meetings on 
 the way. ... If you had only seen the places 
 where we stayed the night and the villages stretching 
 eight or ten versts through which we drove! . . . 
 What weddings we met on the road, what lovely music 
 we heard in the evening stillness, and what a heavy 
 smell of fresh hay there was ! Really one might sell
 
 90 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 one's soul to the devil for the pleasure of looking at 
 the warm evening sky, the pools and the rivulets re- 
 flecting the sad, languid sunset. . . . 
 
 . . . The Smagins' estate is "great and fertile," 
 but old, neglected, and dead as last year's cob- 
 webs. The house has sunk, the doors won't shut, 
 the tiles in the stove squeeze one another out and 
 form angles, young suckers of cherries and plums 
 peep up between the cracks of the floors. In the 
 room where I slept a nightingale had made herself 
 a nest between the window and the shutter, and while 
 I was there little naked nightingales, looking like 
 undressed Jew babies, hatched out from the eggs. 
 Sedate storks live on the barn. At the beehouse 
 there is an old grandsire who remembers the King 
 Goroh* and Cleopatra of Egypt. 
 
 Everything is crumbling and decrepit, but poeti- 
 cal, sad, and beautiful in the extreme. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Feodosu, 
 July, 1888. 
 
 . . . The journey from Sumy to Harkov is fright- 
 fully dull. Going from Harkov to Simferopol one 
 might well die of boredom. The Crimean steppe is 
 depressing, monotonous, with no horizon, colourless 
 like Ivanenko's stories, and on the whole rather like 
 the tundra. . . . From Simferopol mountains be- 
 gin and, with them, beauty. Ravines, mountains, 
 ravines, mountains, poplars stick out from the ra- 
 vines, vineyards loom dark on the mountains — all 
 this is bathed in moonlight, is new and wild, and sets 
 
 * The equivalent of Old King Cole. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 91 
 
 one's imagination working in harmony with Gogol's 
 "Terrible Vengeance." Particularly fantastic are 
 the alternating precipices and tunnels when you 
 see now depths full of moonlight and now complete 
 sinister darkness. It is rather uncanny and delight- 
 ful. One feels it is something not Russian, some- 
 thing alien. I reached Sevastopol at night. The 
 town is beautiful in itself and beautiful because it 
 stands by a marvellous sea. The best in the sea is 
 its colour, and that one cannot describe. It is like 
 blue copperas. As to steamers and sailing vessels, 
 piers and harbours, what strikes one most of all is 
 the poverty of the Russians. Except the ^^popo- 
 vkas/' which look like Moscow merchants' wives, and 
 two or three decent steamers, there is nothing to 
 speak of in the bay. 
 
 ... In the morning it was deadly dull. Heat, 
 dust, thirst. ... In the harbour there was a 
 stench of ropes, and one caught glimpses of faces 
 burnt brick-red, sounds of a pulley, of the splash- 
 ing of dirty water, knocking, Tatar words, and all 
 sorts of uninteresting nonsense. You go up to a 
 steamer: men in rags, bathed in sweat and almost 
 baked by the sun, dizzy, with tatters on their backs 
 and shoulders, unload Portland cement; you stand 
 and look at them and the whole scene becomes so 
 remote, so alien, that one feels insufferably dull and 
 uninterested. It is entertaining to get on board 
 and set off, but it is rather a bore to sail and talk 
 to a crowd of passengers consisting of elements all 
 of which one knows by heart and is weary of already. 
 . . . Yalta is a mixture of something European 
 that reminds one of the views of Nice, with some- 
 thing cheap and shoddy. The box-like hotels in
 
 92 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 which unhappy consumptives are pining, the im- 
 pudent Tatar faces, the ladies' bustles with their very 
 undisguised expression of something very abomina- 
 ble, the faces of the idle rich, longing for cheap ad- 
 ventures, the smell of perfumery instead of the scent 
 of the cedars and the sea, the miserable dirty pier, 
 the melancholy lights far out at sea, the prattle of 
 young ladies and gentlemen who have crowded here 
 in order to admire nature of which they have no idea 
 — all this taken together produces such a depressing 
 effect and is so overwhelming that one begins to 
 blame oneself for being biassed and unfair. . . . 
 At five o'clock in the morning I arrived at Feodosia 
 — a greyish-brown, dismal, and dull-looking little 
 town. There is no grass, the trees are wretched, the 
 soil is coarse and hopelessly poor. Everything is 
 burnt up by the sun, and only the sea smiles — the 
 sea which has nothing to do with wretched little 
 towns or tourists. Sea bathing is so nice that when 
 I got into the water I began to laugh for no reason 
 at all. . . . 
 
 July 22. 
 
 . . . Yesterday we went to Shah-Mamai, Aivaz- 
 ovsky's estate, twenty-five versts from Feodosia. It 
 is a magnificent estate, rather like fairyland; such 
 estates may probably be seen in Persia. Aivaz- 
 ovsky* himself, a vigorous old man of seventy-five, 
 is a mixture of a good-natured Armenian and an 
 overfed bishop; he is full of dignity, has soft hands, 
 and offers them like a general. He is not very in- 
 telligent, but is a complex nature worthy of atten- 
 tion. He combines in himself a general, a bishop, 
 
 * The famous marine painter. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 9S 
 
 an artist, an Armenian, a naive old peasant, and an 
 Othello. He is married to a young and very beau- 
 tiful woman whom he rules with a rod of iron. He 
 is friendly with Sultans, Shahs, and Amirs. He col- 
 laborated with Glinka in Avriting "Ruslan and Liud- 
 mila." He was a friend of Pushkin, but has never 
 read him. He has not read a single book in his life.. 
 When it is suggested to him that he should read' 
 something he answers, "Why should I read when I 
 have opinions of my own?" I spent a whole day 
 in his house and had dinner there. The dinner was 
 fearfully long, with endless toasts. By the way, at 
 that dinner I was introduced to the lady doctor, wife 
 of the well-known professor. She is a fat, bulky 
 piece of flesh. If she were undressed and painted 
 green she would look just like a frog. After talking 
 to her I mentally scratched her off the list of women, 
 doctors. . . . 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 July 28, 1888. 
 
 On the Seas Black, Caspian, and of Life. 
 
 ... A wretched little cargo steamer, Dir, is rac- 
 ing full steam from Suhum to Poti. It is about mid- 
 night. The little cabin — the only one in the steamer 
 — is insufferably hot and stuffy. There is a smell 
 of burning, of rope, of fish and of the sea. One 
 hears the engine going "Boom-boom-boom." . . . 
 There are devils creaking up aloft and under the 
 floor. The darkness is swaying in the cabin and the 
 bed rocks up and down. . . . One's stomach's 
 whole attention is concentrated on the bed, and, as 
 though to find its level, it rolls the Seltzer water I 
 had drunk right up to my throat and then lets it
 
 94 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 down to my heels. Not to be sick over my clothes 
 in the dark I hastily put on my things and go out. 
 ... It is dark. My feet stumble against some 
 invisible iron bars, a rope; wherever you step there 
 are barrels, sacks, rags. There is coal dust under 
 foot. In the dark I knock against a kind of grat- 
 ing: it is a cage with wild goats which I saw in the 
 daytime. They are awake and anxiously listening 
 to the rocking of the boat. By the cage sit two Turks 
 who are not asleep either. ... I grope my way 
 up the stairs to the captain's bridge. ... A warm 
 but violent and unpleasant wind tries to blow away 
 my cap. . . . The steamer rocks. The mast in 
 front of the captain's bridge sways regularly and 
 leisurely like a metronome; I try to look away from 
 it, but my eyes will not obey me and, just like my 
 stomach, insist on following moving objects. . . . 
 The sky and the sea are dark, the shore is not in sight, 
 the deck looks a dark blur . . . there is not a single 
 light. 
 
 Behind me is a window ... I look into it and 
 see a man who looks attentively at something and 
 turns a wheel with an expression as though he were 
 playing the ninth symphony. . . . Next to me 
 stands the little stout captain in tan shoes. . . . 
 He talks to me of Caucasian emigrants, of the heat, 
 of winter storms, and at the same time looks in- 
 tently into the dark distance in the direction of the 
 shore. 
 
 "You seem to be going too much to the left 
 again," he says to someone; or, "There ought to be 
 lights here. ... Do you see them?" 
 
 "No, sir," someone answers from the dark. 
 
 "Climb up and look."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 95 
 
 A dark figure appears on the bridge and leisurely 
 climbs up. In a minute we hear: 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 I look to the left where the lights of the lighthouse 
 are supposed to be, borrow the captain's glasses, but 
 see nothing. . . . Half an hour passes, then an 
 hour. The mast sways regularly, the devils creak, 
 the wind makes dashes at my cap. ... It is not 
 pitch dark, but one feels uneasy. 
 
 Suddenly the captain dashes off somewhere to the 
 rear of the ship, crying, "You devil's doll!" 
 
 "To the left," he shouts anxiously at the top 
 of his voice. "To the left! ... To the right! 
 A-va-va-a!" 
 
 Incomprehensible words of command are heard. 
 The steamer starts, the devils give a creak. . . . 
 "A-va-va!" shouts the captain; at the bows a bell 
 is rung, on the black deck there are sounds of run- 
 ning, knocking, cries of anxiety. . . . The Dir 
 starts once more, puffs painfully, and apparently tries 
 to move backwards. 
 
 "What is it?" I ask, and feel something like a faint 
 terror. There is no answer. 
 
 "He'd like a collision, the devil's doll!" I hear the 
 captain's harsh shout. "To the left!" 
 
 Red lights appear in front, and suddenly among 
 the uproar is heard the whistling, not of the Dir, but 
 of some other steamer. . . . Now I understand it: 
 there is going to be a collision! The Dir puffs, 
 trembles, and does not move, as though waiting for 
 a signal to go down. . . . But just when I think 
 all is lost, the red lights appear on the left of us, and 
 the dark silhouette of a steamer can be dis- 
 cerned. ... A long black body sails past us,
 
 96 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 guiltily blinks its red eyes, and gives a guilty 
 whistle. . . . 
 
 "Oof! What steamer is it?" I ask the captain. 
 
 The captain looks at the silhouette through his 
 glasses and replies: 
 
 "It is the TweedieT 
 
 After a pause we begin to talk of the Vesta, which 
 collided with two steamers and went down. Under 
 the influence of this conversation the sea, the night 
 and the wind begin to seem hideous, created on pur- 
 pose for man's undoing, and I feel sorry as I look 
 at the fat little captain. . . . Something whispers 
 to me that this poor man, too, will sooner or later 
 sink to the bottom and be choked with salt water."* 
 
 I go back to my cabin. ... It is stuffy, and 
 there is a smell of cooking. My travelling compan- 
 ion, Suvorin-yi/5, is asleep already. ... I take off 
 all my clothes and go to bed. . . . The darkness 
 sways to and fro, the bed seems to breathe. . . . 
 Boom-boom-boom! Bathed in perspiration, breath- 
 less, and feeling an oppression all over with the rock- 
 ing, I ask myself, "What am I here for?" 
 
 I wake up. It is no longer dark. Wet all over, 
 with a nasty taste in my mouth, I dress and go out. 
 Everything is covered with dew. . . . The wild 
 goats look with human eyes through the grating of 
 their cao;e and seem to be asking "Whv are we here?" 
 The captain stands still as before and looks intently 
 into the distance. . . . 
 
 A mountainous shore stretches on the left. . . . 
 Elborus is seen from behind the mountains. 
 
 * Chekhov's presentiment about the captain was partly ful- 
 filled: that very autumn the Dir was wrecked on the shores of 
 
 Alupka.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 97 
 
 A blurred sun rises in the sky. . . . One can see 
 the green valley of Rion and the Bay of Poti by the 
 side of it. 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 Sumy, 
 August 12. 
 
 ... I have been to the Crimea. I spent twelve 
 days at Suvorin's in Feodosia, bathed, idled about; 
 I have been to Aivazovsky's estate. From Feodosia 
 I went by steamer to Batum. On the way I spent 
 half a day at Suhum — a charming little town buried 
 in luxuriant, un-Russian greenery, and one day 
 at the Monastery, at New Athos. It is so lovely there 
 at New Athos that there is no describing it: water- 
 falls, eucalyptuses, tea-plants, cypresses, olive-trees, 
 and, above all, sea and mountains, mountains, moun- 
 tains. From Athos and Suhum I went to Poti; the 
 River Rion, renowned for its valley and its sturgeons, 
 is close by. The vegetation is luxuriant. All the 
 streets are planted with poplars. Batum is a big 
 commercial and military, foreign-looking, cafe- 
 chantant sort of town; you feel in it at every step 
 that we have conquered the Turks. There is nothing 
 special about it (except a great number of brothels), 
 but the surrounding country is charming. Particu- 
 larly fine is the road to Kars and the swift river Tcho- 
 xaksu. 
 
 The road from Batum to Tiflis is poetical and 
 original; you look all the time out of window and 
 exclaim: there are mountains, tunnels, rocks, rivers, 
 waterfalls, big and little. But the road from 
 Tiflis to Baku is the abomination of desolation, 
 a bald plain, covered* wdth sand and created for
 
 98 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Persians, tarantulas, and phalangas to live in. 
 There is not a single tree, there is no grass . . . 
 dreary as hell. . . . Baku and the Caspian Sea are 
 such rotten places that I would not agree to live 
 there for a million. There are no roofs, there are no 
 trees either; Persian faces everywhere, fifty degrees 
 Reaumur of heat, a smell of kerosine, the naphtha- 
 soaked mud squelches under one's feet, the drinking 
 water is salt. 
 
 . . . You have seen the Caucasus. I believe you 
 have seen the Georgian Military Road, too. If you 
 have not been there yet, pawn your wives and chil- 
 dren and the Oskolki^ and go. I have never in my 
 life seen anything like it. It is not a road, but un- 
 broken poetry, a wonderful, fantastic story written 
 by the Demon in love with Tamara. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Sumy, 
 August 29, 1888. 
 
 . . . When as a boy I used to stay at my grand- 
 father's on Count Platov's estate, I had to sit from 
 sunrise to sunset by the thrashing machine and 
 write down the number of poods and pounds of corn 
 that had been thrashed; the whistling, the hissing, 
 and the bass note, like the sound of a whirling top, 
 that the machine makes at full speed, the creaking 
 of the wheels, the lazy tread of the oxen, the clouds 
 of dust, the grimy, perspiring faces of some three 
 score of men — all this has stamped itself upon my 
 memory like the Lord's Prayer. And now, too, I 
 
 * Oskolki, {i.e., "Chips," "Bits") the paper of which Leikin 
 was editor. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 99 
 
 have been spending hours at the thrashing and felt 
 intensely happy. When the thrashing engine is at 
 work it looks as though alive; it has a cunning, play- 
 ful expression, while the men and oxen look like 
 machines. In the district of Mirgorod few have 
 thrashing machines of their own, but everyone can 
 hire one. The engine goes about the whole prov- 
 ince drawn by six oxen and offers itself to all who can 
 pay for it. 
 
 Moscow, 
 September 11. 
 
 . . . You advise me not to hunt after two hares, 
 and not to think of medical work. I do not know 
 why one should not hunt two hares even in the literal 
 sense. ... I feel more confident and more satis- 
 fied with myself when I reflect that I have two pro- 
 fessions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife 
 and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of 
 one I spend the night with the other. Though it's 
 disorderly, it's not so dull, and besides neither of 
 them loses anything from my infidelity. If I did not 
 have my medical work I doubt if I could have given 
 my leisure and my spare thoughts to literature. 
 There is no discipline in me. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 27, 1888. 
 
 ... In conversation with my literary colleagues 
 I always insist that it is not the artist's business to 
 solve problems that require a specialist's knowledge. 
 It is a bad thing if a writer tackles a subject he does 
 not understand. We have specialists for dealing 
 with special questions: it is their business to judge
 
 100 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 of the commune, of the future of capitahsm, of the 
 evils of drunkenness, of boots, of the diseases of 
 women. An artist must only judge of what he un- 
 derstands, his field is just as limited as that of any 
 other specialist — I repeat this and insist on it al- 
 ways. That in his sphere there are no questions, 
 but only answers, can only be maintained by those 
 who have never written and have had no experience 
 of thinking in images. An artist observes, selects, 
 guesses, combines — and this in itself presupposes a 
 problem: unless he had set himself a problem from 
 the very first there would be nothing to conjecture 
 and nothing to select. To put it briefly, I will end 
 by using the language of psychiatry: if one denies 
 that creative work involves problems and purposes, 
 one must admit that an artist creates without pre- 
 meditation or intention, in a state of aberration; 
 therefore, if an author boasted to me of having written 
 a novel without a preconceived design, under a sud- 
 den inspiration, I should call him mad. 
 
 You are right in demanding that an artist should 
 take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you 
 confuse two things: solving a problem and stating 
 a problem correctly. It is only the second that is 
 obligatory for the artist. In "Anna Karenin" and 
 "Evgeny Onyegin" not a single problem is solved, 
 but they satisfy you completely because all the prob- 
 lems are correctly stated in them. It is the business 
 of the judge to put the right questions, but the an- 
 swers must be given by the jury according to their own 
 
 lights. 
 
 * * -jf * * * 
 
 . . . You say that the hero of my "Party" is a 
 character worth developing. Good Lord! I am not
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 101 
 
 a senseless brute, you know, I understand that. I 
 understand that I cut the throats of my characters 
 and spoil them, and that I waste good material. . . . 
 To tell you the truth, I would gladly have spent six 
 months over the "Party"; I like taking things easy, 
 and see no attraction in publishing at headlong 
 speed. I would willingly, with pleasure, with feel- 
 ing, in a leisurely way, describe the whole of my 
 hero, describe the state of his mind while his wife 
 was in labour, his trial, the horrid feeling he has 
 after he is acquitted; I would describe the midwife 
 and the doctors having tea in the middle of the night, 
 I would describe the rain. ... It would give me 
 nothing but pleasure because I like to rummage 
 about and dawdle. But what am I to do? I 
 begin a story on September 10th with the thought 
 that I must finish it by October 5th at the latest; 
 if I don't I shall fail the editor and be left without 
 money. I let myself go at the beginning and write 
 with an easy mind; but by the time I get to the 
 middle I begin to grow timid and to fear that my 
 story will be too long: I have to remember that the 
 Syeverny Vyestnik has not much money, and that 
 I am one of their expensive contributors. This is 
 why the beginning of my stories is always very 
 promising and looks as though I were starting on 
 a novel, the middle is huddled and timid, and the 
 end is, as in a short sketch, like fireworks. And 
 so in planning a story one is bound to think first 
 about its framework: from a crowd of leading or 
 subordinate characters one selects one person only — 
 wife or husband; one puts him on the canvas and 
 paints him alone, making him prominent, while the 
 others one scatters over the canvas like small coin,
 
 102 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and the result is something like the vault of heaven : 
 one big moon and a number of very small stars 
 around it. But the moon is not a success because 
 it can only be understood if the stars too are intel- 
 ligible, and the stars are not worked out. And so 
 what I produce is not literature, but something like 
 the patching of Trishka's coat. What am I to do? 
 I don't know, I don't know. I must trust to time 
 which heals all things. 
 
 To tell the truth again, I have not yet begun my 
 literary work, though I have received a literary 
 prize. Subjects for five stories and two novels are 
 languishing in my head. One of the novels was 
 thought of long ago, and some of the characters 
 have grown old without managing to be written. In 
 my head there is a whole army of people asking 
 to be let out and waiting for the word of com- 
 mand. All that I have written so far is rubbish in 
 comparison with what I should like to write and 
 should write with rapture. It is all the same to me 
 whether I write "The Party" or "The Lights," or 
 a vaudeville or a letter to a friend — it is all dull, 
 spiritless, mechanical, and I get annoyed with 
 critics who attach any importance to "The Lights," 
 for instance. I fancy that I deceive him with my 
 work just as I deceive many people with my face, 
 which looks serious or over-cheerful. I don't like 
 being successful; the subjects which sit in my head 
 are annoyed and jealous of what has already been 
 written. I am vexed that the rubbish has been done 
 and the good things lie about in the lumber-room 
 like old books. Of course, in thus lamenting I 
 rather exaggerate, and much of what I say is only 
 my fancy, but there is a part of the truth in it, a good
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 103 
 
 big part of it. What do I call good? The images 
 which seem best to me, which I love and jealously 
 guard lest 1 spend and spoil them for the sake of some 
 "Party" written against time. ... If my love is 
 mistaken, I am wrong, but then it may not be mis- 
 taken! I am either a fool and a conceited fellow 
 or I really am an organism capable of being a good 
 writer. All that I now write displeases and bores 
 me, but what sits in my head interests, excites and 
 moves me — from which I conclude that everybody 
 does the wrong thing and I alone know the secret of 
 doing the right one. Most likely all writers think 
 that. But the devil himself would break his neck 
 in these problems. 
 
 Money will not help me to decide what I am to do 
 and how I am to act. An extra thousand roubles 
 will not settle matters, and a hundred thousand is 
 a castle in the air. Besides, when I have monev — 
 it may be from lack of habit, I don't know — I be- 
 come extremely careless and idle; the sea seems only 
 knee-deep to me then. ... I need time and soli- 
 tude. 
 
 November, 1888. 
 
 In the November number of the Syeverny Vyestnik 
 there is an article by the poet Merezhkovsky about 
 your humble servant. It is a long article. I com- 
 mend to your attention the end of it; it is charac- 
 teristic. Merezhkovsky is still very young, a student 
 — of science I believe. Those who have assimilated 
 the wisdom of the scientific method and learned 
 to think scientifically experience many alluring 
 temptations. Archimedes wanted to turn the 
 earth round, and the present day hot-heads
 
 104 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 want by science to conceive the inconceivable, 
 to discover the physical laws of creative art, to 
 detect the laws and the formulae which are in- 
 stinctively felt by the artist and are followed by him 
 in creating music, novels, pictures, etc. Suck 
 formula3 probably exist in nature. We know that 
 A, B, C, do, re, mi, fa, sol, are found in nature., 
 and so are curves, straight lines, circles, squares^ 
 green, blue, and red. . . . We know that in certain 
 combinations all this produces a melody, or a poem 
 or a picture, just as simple chemical substances in 
 certain combinations produce a tree, or a stone, or 
 the sea; but all we know is that the combination 
 exists, while the law of it is hidden from us. Those 
 who are masters of the scientific method feel in their 
 souls that a piece of music and a tree have something 
 in common, that both are built up in accordance 
 with equally uniform and simple laws. Hence the 
 question: What are these laws? And hence the 
 temptation to work out a physiology of creative art 
 (like Boborykin), or in the case of younger and 
 more diffident writers, to base their arguments on 
 nature and on the laws of nature (Merezhkovsky) . 
 There probably is such a thing as the physiology of 
 creative art, but we must nip in the bud our dreams 
 of discovering it. If the critics take up a scientific 
 attitude no good will come of it: they will waste 
 a dozen years, write a lot of rubbish, make the 
 subject more obscure than ever — and nothing more. 
 It is always a good thing to think scientifically, but 
 the trouble is that scientific thinking about creative 
 art will be bound to degenerate in the end into search- 
 ino; for the "cells" or the "centres" which control 
 the creative faculty. Some stolid German will dis-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 105 
 
 cover these cells somewhere in the occipital lobes, 
 another German will agree with him, a third will dis- 
 agree, and a Russian will glance through the article 
 about the cells and reel off an essay about it to the 
 Syeverny Vyestnik. The Vyestnik Evropi will criti- 
 cize the essay, and for three years there will be in 
 Russia an epidemic of nonsense which will give 
 money and popularity to blockheads and do nothing 
 but irritate intelligent people. 
 
 For those who are obsessed with the scientific 
 method and to whom God has given the rare talent 
 of thinking scientifically, there is to my mind only 
 one way out — the philosophy of creative art. One 
 might collect together all the best works of art 
 that have been produced throughout the ages and, 
 with the help of the scientific method, discover the 
 common element in them which makes them like 
 one another and conditions their value. That 
 common element will be the law. There is a great 
 deal that works which are called immortal have in 
 common; if this common element were excluded 
 from each of them, a work would lose its charm 
 and its value. So that this universal something is 
 necessary, and is the conditio sine qua non of every 
 work that claims to be immortal. It is of more use 
 to young people to write critical articles than poetry. 
 Merezhkovsky writes smoothly and youthfully, but 
 at every page he loses heart, makes reservations 
 and concessions, and this means that he is not clear 
 upon the subject. He calls me a poet, he styles 
 my stories "novelli" and my heroes "failures" — 
 that is, he follows the beaten track. It is time to 
 give up these "failures," superfluous people, etc., 
 and to think of something original. Merezhkovsky
 
 106 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 calls my monk* who composes the songs of praise 
 a failure. But how is he a failure? God grant us 
 all a life like his: he believed in God, and he had 
 enough to eat and he had the gift of composing 
 poetry. ... To divide men into the successful and 
 the unsuccessful is to look at human nature from a 
 narrow, preconceived point of view. Are you a suc- 
 cess or not? Am I? Was Napoleon? Is your 
 servant Vassily? What is the criterion? One must 
 be a god to be able to tell successes from failures 
 without making a mistake. 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 7, 1888. 
 
 ... It is not the public that is to blame for our 
 theatres being so wretched. The public is always 
 and everywhere the same: intelligent and stupid, 
 sympathetic and pitiless according to mood. It has 
 always been a flock which needs good shepherds and 
 dogs, and it has always gone in the direction in which 
 the shepherds and the dogs drove it. You are in- 
 dignant that it laughs at flat witticisms and applauds 
 sounding phrases ; but then the very same stupid pub- 
 lic fills the house to hear "Othello," and, listening to 
 the opera "Evgeny Onyegin," weeps when Tatyana 
 writes her letter. 
 
 . . . The water-carrier has stolen from somewhere 
 a Siberian kitten with long white fur and black eyes, 
 and brought it to us. This kitten takes people for 
 mice: when it sees anyone it lies flat on its stomach, 
 stalks one's feet and rushes at them. This morning 
 as I was pacing up and down the room it several 
 times stalked me, and a la tigre pounced at mv boots. 
 * "Easter Eve." — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 107 
 
 I imagine the thought of being more terrible than 
 anyone in the house affords it the greatest de- 
 light. 
 
 November 11, 1888. 
 
 I finished to-day the story* for the Garshin 
 sbornik: it is such a load off my mind. In this story 
 I have told my own opinion — which is of no interest 
 to anyone — of such rare men as Garshin. I have 
 run to almost 2,000 lines. I speak at length about 
 prostitution, but settle nothing. Why do they write 
 nothing about prostitution in your paper? It is the 
 most fearful evil, you know. Our Sobolev street is 
 a regular slave-market. 
 
 November 15, 1888. 
 
 My "Party" has pleased the ladies. They sing 
 my praises wherever I go. It really isn't bad to be 
 a doctor and to understand what one is writing about. 
 The ladies say the description of the confinement is 
 true. In the story for the Garshin sbornik I have de- 
 scribed spiritual agony. 
 
 {No date), 1888. 
 
 . . . You say that writers are God's elect. I 
 will not contradict you. Shtcheglov calls me the 
 Potyomkin of literature, and so it is not for me to 
 speak of the thorny path, of disappointments, and 
 so on. I do not know whether I have ever suffered 
 more than shoemakers, mathematicians, or railway 
 guards do; I do not know who speaks through my 
 lips — God or someone worse. I will allow myself 
 to mention only one little drawback which I have 
 experienced and you probably know from experience 
 
 * "A Nervous Breakdown."
 
 108 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 also. It is this. You and I are fond of ordinary 
 people; but other people are fond of us because they 
 think we are not ordinary. Me, for instance, they 
 invite everywhere and regale me with food and drink 
 like a general at a wedding. My sister is indignant 
 that people on all sides invite her simply because 
 she is a writer's sister. No one wants to love the 
 ordinary people in us. Hence it follows that if in 
 the eyes of our friends we should appear to-morrow 
 as ordinary mortals, they will leave off loving us, 
 and will only pity us. And that is horrid. It is 
 horrid, too, that they like the very things in us which 
 we often dislike and despise in ourselves. It is hor- 
 rid that I was right when I wrote the story "The First- 
 Class Passenger," in which an engineer and a pro- 
 fessor talk about fame. 
 
 I am going away into the country. Hang them 
 all! You have Feodosia. By the way, about Feo- 
 dosia and the Tatars. The Tatars have been robbed 
 of their land, but no one thinks of their welfare. 
 There ought to be Tatar schools. Write and suggest 
 that the money which is being spent on the sausage 
 Dorpat University, where useless Germans are study- 
 ing, should be devoted to schools for Tatars, who 
 are of use to Russia. I would write about it myself, 
 but I don't know how to. 
 
 December 23, 1888. 
 
 . . . There are moments when I completely lose 
 heart. For whom and for what do I write? For 
 the public? But I don't see it, and believe in it 
 less than I do in spooks: it is uneducated, badly 
 brought up, and its best elements are unfair and 
 insincere to us. I cannot make out whether this
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 109 
 
 public wants me or not. Burenin says that it does 
 not, and that I waste my time on trifles ; the Academy 
 has given me a prize. The devil himself could not 
 make head or tail of it. Write for the sake of 
 money? But I never have any money, and not 
 being used to having it I am almost indifl"erent to 
 it. For the sake of money I work apathetically. 
 Write for the sake of praise? But praise merely 
 irritates me. Literary society, students, Plesh- 
 tcheyev, young ladies, etc., were enthusiastic in their 
 praises of my "Nervous Breakdown," but Grigoro- 
 vitch is the only one who has noticed the description 
 of the first snow. And so on, and so on. If we 
 had critics I should know that I provide material, 
 whether good or bad does not matter — that to men 
 who devote themselves to the study of life I am 
 as necessary as a star is to an astronomer. And 
 then I would take trouble over my work and should 
 know what I was working for. But as it is you, I, 
 Muravlin, and the rest are like lunatics who write 
 books and plays to please themselves. To please 
 oneself is, of course, an excellent thing; one feels 
 the pleasure while one is writing, but afterwards? 
 But ... I will shut up. In short, I am sorry for 
 Tatyana Repin,* not because she poisoned herself, 
 but because she lived her life, died in agony, and 
 was described absolutely to no purpose, without 
 any good to anyone. A number of tribes, religions, 
 languages, civilizations, have vanished without a 
 trace — vanished because there were no historians 
 or biologists. In the same way a number of lives 
 and works of art disappear before our very eves 
 owing to the complete absence of criticism. It 
 
 * Suvorin's play. — Translators Note.
 
 110 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 may be objected that critics would have nothing 
 to do because all modern works are poor and in- 
 significant. But this is a narrow way of looking 
 at things. Life must be studied not from the 
 pluses alone, but from the minuses too. The con- 
 viction that the "eighties" have not produced a 
 single writer may in itself provide material for five 
 volumes. 
 
 ... I settled down last night to write a story 
 for the Novoye Vremya, but a woman appeared and 
 dragged me to see the poet Palmin who, when he was 
 drunk, had fallen and cut his forehead to the bone. 
 I was busy over the drunken fellow for nearly two 
 hours, was tired out, began to smell of iodoform all 
 over, felt cross, and came home exhausted. . . . Al- 
 together my life is a dreary one, and I begin to get 
 fits of hating people which used never to happen to 
 me before. Long stupid conversations, visitors, peo- 
 ple asking for help, and helping them to the extent 
 of one or two or three roubles, spending money on 
 cabs for the sake of patients who do not pay me a 
 penny — altogether it is such a hotch-potch that I feel 
 like running away from home. People borrow 
 money from me and don't pay it back, they take my 
 books, they waste my time. . . . Blighted love is 
 the one thing that is missing. 
 
 December 26, 1888. 
 
 . . . You say that from compassion women fall in 
 love, from compassion they get married. . . . And 
 what about men? I don't like realistic writers to 
 slander women, but I don't like it either when 
 people put women on a pedestal and attempt to prove 
 that even if they are worse than men, anyway they
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 111 
 
 are angels and men scoundrels. Neither men nor 
 women are worth a brass farthing, but men are more 
 just and more intelligent. 
 
 December 30, 1888. 
 
 . . . This is how I understand my characters.* 
 Ivanov is a gentleman, a University man, and not 
 remarkable in any way. He is excitable, hot- 
 headed, easily carried away, honest and straight- 
 forward like most people of his class. He has lived 
 on his estate and served on the Zemstvo. What he 
 has been doing and how he has behaved, what he has 
 been interested in and enthusiastic over, can be seen 
 from the following words of his, addressed to the 
 doctor (Act I., Scene 5) : "Don't marry Jewesses 
 or neurotic women or blue-stockings . . . don't 
 fight with thousands single-handed, don't wage war 
 on windmills, don't batter your head against the 
 wall . . . God preserve you from scientific farming, 
 wonderful schools, enthusiastic speeches. . . ." 
 This is what he has in his past. Sarra, who has seen 
 his scientific farming and other crazes, says about 
 him to the doctor: "He is a remarkable man, doctor, 
 and I am sorry you did not meet him tv^^o or three 
 years ago. Now he is depressed and melancholy, 
 he doesn't talk or do anything, but in old days . . . 
 how charming he was!" (Act I., Scene 7). His past 
 is beautiful, as is generally the case with educated 
 Russians. There is not, or there hardly is, a single 
 Russian gentleman or University man who does not 
 boast of his past. The present is always worse than 
 the past. Why? Because Russian excitability has 
 one specific characteristic: it is quickly followed by 
 
 * In the play "Ivanov." — Tratulator's Note.
 
 112 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 exhaustion. A man has scarcely left the class-room 
 before he rushes to take up a burden beyond his 
 strength; he tackles at once the schools, the peas- 
 ants, scientific farming, and the Vyestnik Evropi, he 
 makes speeches, writes to the minister, combats evil, 
 applauds good, falls in love, not in an ordinary, simple 
 way, but selects either a blue-stocking or a neurotic 
 or a Jewess, or even a prostitute whom he tries to 
 save, and so on, and so on. But by the time he is 
 thirty or thirty-five he begins to feel tired and bored. 
 He has not got decent moustaches yet, but he already 
 says with authority: 
 
 "Don't marry, my dear fellow. . . . Trust my 
 experience," or, "After all, what does Liberalism 
 come to? Between ourselves Katkov was often 
 right. ..." He is ready to reject the Zemstvo and 
 scientific farming, and science and love. My Ivanov 
 says to the doctor (Act L, Scene 5) : "You took your 
 degree only last year, my dear friend, you are still 
 young and vigorous, while I am thirty-five. I have 
 a right to advise you. ..." That is how these 
 prematurely exhausted people talk. Further down, 
 sighing authoritatively, he advises: "Don't you marry 
 in this or that way (see above), but choose some- 
 thing commonplace, grey, with no vivid colours or 
 superfluous flourishes. Altogether build your life 
 according to the conventional pattern. The greyer 
 and more monotonous the background the better. 
 - . . The life that I have led — how tiring it is! 
 Ah, how tiring!" 
 
 Conscious of physical exhaustion and boredom, 
 he does not understand what is the matter with 
 him, and what has happened. Horrified, he says 
 to the doctor (Act L, Scene 3) : "Here you tell me
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 113 
 
 she is soon going to die and I feel neither love nor 
 pity, but a sort of emptiness and weariness. . . . 
 If one looks at me from outside it must be 
 horrible. I don't understand what is happen- 
 ing to my soul." Finding themselves in such a posi- 
 tion, narrow and unconscientious people generally 
 throw the whole blame on their environment, or 
 write themselves down as Hamlets and superfluous 
 people, and are satisfied with that. But Ivanov, 
 a straightforward man, openly says to the doctor and 
 to the public that he does not understand his own 
 mind. "I don't understand! I don't understand!" 
 That he really doesn't understand can be seen 
 from his long monologue in Act HI., where, tete-a- 
 tete with the public, he opens his heart to it and even 
 weeps. 
 
 The change that has taken place in him offends 
 his sense of what is fitting. He looks for the causes 
 outside himself and fails to find them; he begins 
 to look for them inside and finds only an indefinite 
 feeling of guilt. It is a Russian feeling. Whether 
 there is a death or illness in his family, whether 
 he owes money or lends it, a Russian always feels 
 guilty. Ivanov talks all the time about being to 
 blame in some way, and the feeling of guilt increases 
 in him at every juncture. In Act I. he says: "Sup- 
 pose I am terribly to blame, yet my thoughts are in a 
 tangle, my soul is in bondage to a sort of sloth, and 
 I am incapable of understanding myself. . . ." In 
 Act II. he says to Sasha: "My conscience aches day 
 and night, I feel that I am profoundly to blame, but 
 in what exactly I have done wrong I cannot make 
 out." 
 
 To exhaustion, boredom, and the feeling of guilt
 
 114 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 add one more enemy: loneliness. Were Ivanov an 
 official, an actor, a priest, a professor, he would have 
 grown used to his position. But he lives on his 
 estate. He is in the country. His neighbours are 
 either drunkards or fond of cards, or are of the same 
 type as the doctor. None of them care about his 
 feelings or the change that has taken place in him. 
 He is lonely. Long winters, long evenings, an empty 
 garden, empty rooms, the grumbling Count, the ail- 
 ing wife. ... He has nowhere to go. This is why 
 he is every minute tortured by the question: what is 
 he to do with himself? 
 
 Now about his fifth enemy. Ivanov is tired and 
 does not understand himself, but life has nothing 
 to do with that! It makes its legitimate demands 
 upon him, and whether he will or no, he must settle 
 problems. His sick wife is a problem, his numerous 
 debts are a problem, Sasha flinging herself on his 
 neck is a problem. The way in which he settles all 
 these problems must be evident from his monologue 
 in Act III., and from the contents of the last two 
 acts. Men like Ivanov do not solve difficulties but 
 collapse under their weight. They lose their heads, 
 gesticulate, become nervous, complain, do silly 
 things, and finally, giving rein to their flabby, un- 
 disciplined nerves, lose the ground under their feet 
 and enter the class of the "broken down" and "mis- 
 understood." 
 
 Disappointment, apathy, nervous limpness and 
 exhaustion are the inevitable consequence of 
 extreme excitability, and such excitability is ex- 
 tremely characteristic of our young people. Take 
 literature. Take the present time. . . . Socialism 
 is one of the forms of this excitement. But where
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 115 
 
 is sociaKsm? You see it in Tihomirov's letter to the 
 Tsar. The socialists are married and are criticizing 
 the Zemstvo. Where is Liberalism? Mihailovsky 
 himself says that all the labels have been mixed 
 up now. And what are all the Russian enthusi- 
 asms worth? The war has wearied us, Bulgaria has 
 wearied us till we can only be ironical about it. 
 Zucchi has wearied us and so has the comic 
 opera. 
 
 Exhaustion (Dr. Bertensen will confirm this) finds 
 expression not only in complaining or the sensation of 
 boredom. The life of an over-tired man cannot be 
 
 It is very unequal. Over- tired people never lose 
 the capacity for becoming extremely excited, but can- 
 not keep it up for long, and each excitement is fol- 
 lowed by still greater apathy. . . . Graphically, it 
 could be represented like this: 
 
 "I 
 
 The fall, as you see, is not continuous but broken. 
 Sasha declares her love and Ivanov cries out in 
 ecstasy, "A new life!" — and next morning he be- 
 lieves in this new life as little as he does in spooks 
 (the monologue in Act HL) ; his wife insults him, 
 and, fearfully worked up and beside himself with 
 anger, he flings a cruel insult at her. He is called a 
 scoundrel. This is either fatal to his tottering brain, 
 or stimulates him to a fresh paroxysm and he pro- 
 nounces sentence on himself.
 
 116 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Not to tire you out altogether I pass now to Dr. 
 Lvov. He is the type of an honest, straightforward, 
 hotheaded, but narrow and uncompromising man. 
 Clever people say of such men: "He is stupid but 
 his heart is in the right place." Anything like width 
 of outlook or unreflecting feeling is foreign to Lvov. 
 He is the embodiment of a programme, a v/alking 
 tendency. He looks through a narrow frame at 
 every person and event, he judges everything accord- 
 ing to preconceived notions. Those who shout, 
 "Make way for honest labour!" are an object of 
 worship to him; those who do not shout it are scoun- 
 drels and exploiters. There is no middle. He has 
 been brought up on Mihailov's* novels ; at the theatre 
 he has seen on the stage "new men," i.e., the ex- 
 ploiters and sons of our age, painted by the modern 
 playwrights. He has stored it all up, and so much 
 so, that when he reads "Rudin" he is sure to be 
 asking himself, "Is Rudin a scoundrel or not?" 
 Literature and the stage have so educated him 
 that he approaches every character in real life and 
 in fiction with this question. ... It is not enough 
 for him that all men are sinners. He wants saints 
 and villains! 
 
 He was prejudiced before he came to the district. 
 He at once classed all the rich peasants as exploiters, 
 and Ivanov, whom he could not understand, as a 
 scoundrel. Why, the man has a sick wife and he 
 goes to see a rich lady neighbour — of course he is a 
 scoundrel! It is obvious that he is kilhng his wife 
 in order to marry an heiress. 
 
 Lvov is honest and straightforward, and he blurts 
 
 * The author of second-rate works inculcating civic virtue 
 with a revolutionary bias. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 117 
 
 out the truth without sparing himself. If necessary, 
 he will throw a bomb at a carriage, give a school in- 
 spector a blow in the face, or call a man a scoundrel. 
 He will not stop at anything. He never feels remorse 
 — it is his mission as "an honest worker" to fight 
 "the powers of darkness"! 
 
 Such people are useful, and are for the most part 
 attractive. To caricature them, even in the interests 
 of the play, is unfair and, indeed, unnecessary. 
 True, a caricature is more striking, and therefore 
 easier to understand, but it is better to put your 
 colour on too faint than too strong. 
 
 i\ow about the women. What do they love 
 Ivanov for? Sarra loves him because he is a fine 
 man, because he has enthusiasm, because he is 
 brilliant and speaks with as much heat as Lvov does 
 (Act L, Scene 7). She loves him so long as 
 he is excited and interesting; but when he begins 
 to grow misty in her eyes, and to lose definiteness 
 of outline, she ceases to understand him, and 
 at the end of Act HL speaks out plainly and 
 sharply. 
 
 Sasha is a young woman of the newest type. She 
 is well-educated, intelligent, honest, and so on. In 
 the realm of the blind a one-eyed man is king, and so 
 she favours Ivanov in spite of his being thirty-five. 
 He is better than anyone else. She knew him when 
 she was a child and saw his work close at hand, at the 
 period before he was exhausted. He is a friend of 
 her father's. 
 
 She is a female who is not won by the vivid plumage 
 of the male, not by their courage and dexterity, but 
 by their complaints, whinings and failures. She is 
 the sort of girl who loves a man when he is going
 
 118 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 downhill. The moment Ivanov loses heart the young 
 lady is on the spot! That's just what she was wait- 
 ing for. Just think of it, she now has such a holy, 
 such a grateful task before her! She will raise up 
 the fallen one, set him on his feet, make him happy. 
 ... It is not Ivanov she loves, but this task. 
 Argenton in Daudet's book says, "Life is not a novel." 
 Sasha does not know this. She does not know that 
 for Ivanov love is only a fresh complication, an extra 
 stab in the back. And what comes of it? She 
 struggles with him for a whole year and, instead of 
 being raised, he sinks lower and lower. 
 
 ... In my description of Ivanov there often oc- 
 curs the word "Russian." Don't be cross about it. 
 When I was writing the play I had in mind only the 
 things that really matter — that is, only the typical 
 Russian characteristics. Thus the extreme excita- 
 bility, the feeling of guilt, the liability to become 
 exhausted are purely Russian. Germans are never 
 excited, and that is why Germany knows nothing of 
 disappointed, superfluous, or over-tired people. . . . 
 The excitability of the French is always maintained 
 at one and the same level, and makes no sudden 
 bounds or falls, and so a Frenchman is normally 
 excited down to a decrepit old age. In other words, 
 the French do not have to waste their strength in 
 over-excitement; they spend their powers sensibly, 
 and do not go bankrupt. 
 
 . . . Ivanov and Lvov appear to my imagination 
 to be living people. I tell you honestly, in all con- 
 science, these men were born in my head, not by 
 accident, not out of sea foam, or preconceived "in- 
 tellectual" ideas. They are the result of observing 
 and studying life. They stand in my brain, and I
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 119 
 
 feel that I have not falsified the truth nor exaggerated 
 it a jot. If on paper they have not come out clear 
 and living, the fault is not in them but in me, for not 
 being able to express my thoughts. It shows it is too 
 early for me to begin writing plays. 
 
 January 7, 1889. 
 
 ... I have been cherishing the bold dream of 
 summing up all that has hitherto been written about 
 whining, miserable people, and with my Ivanov say- 
 ing the last word. It seemed to me that all Russian 
 novelists and playwrights were drawn to depict de- 
 spondent men, but that they all wrote instinctively, 
 having no definite image or views on the subject. As 
 far as my design goes I was on the right track, but the 
 execution is good for nothing. I ought to have 
 waited! I am glad I did not listen to Grigorovitch 
 two or three years ago, and write a novel ! I can just 
 imagine what a lot of good material I should have 
 spoiled. He says: "Talent and freshness overcome 
 everything." It is more true to say that talent and 
 freshness can spoil a great deal. In addition to 
 plenty of material and talent, one wants something 
 else which is no less important. One wants to be ma- 
 ture — that is one thing; and for another the feeling 
 of personal freedom is essential, and that feeling has 
 only recently begun to develop in me. I used not to 
 have it before ; its place was successfully filled by my 
 frivolity, carelessness, and lack of respect for my work. 
 
 What writers belonging to the upper class have 
 received from nature for nothing, plebeians acquire 
 at the cost of their youth. Write a story of how a 
 young man, the son of a serf, w^ho has ser^^ed in a 
 shop, sung in a choir, been at a high school and a
 
 120 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 university, who has been brought up to respect every- 
 one of higher rank and position, to kiss priests' hands, 
 to reverence other people's ideas, to be thankful for 
 every morsel of bread, who has been many times 
 whipped, who has trudged from one pupil to another 
 without goloshes, who has been used to fighting, and 
 tormenting animals, who has liked dining with his 
 rich relations, and been hypocritical before God and 
 men from the mere consciousness of his own insignifi- 
 cance — write how this young man squeezes the slave 
 out of himself, drop by drop, and how waking 
 one beautiful morning he feels that he has no 
 longer a slave's blood in his veins but a real 
 man's. . . . 
 
 March 5, 1889. 
 
 . . . Last night I drove out of town and listened to 
 the gypsies. They sing well, the wild creatures. 
 Their singing reminds me of a train falhng off a high 
 bank in a violent snow-storm: there is a lot of tur- 
 moil, screeching and banging. 
 
 ... I bought Dostoevsky in your shop and am 
 now reading him. It is fine, but very long and in- 
 discreet. It is over-pretentious. 
 
 Sumy, 
 lintvaryovs' estate, 
 May, 1889. 
 
 . . . Among other things I am reading Gontcha- 
 rov and wondering. I wonder how I could have 
 considered Gontcharov a first-rate writer. His 
 "Oblomov" is not really good. Oblomov himself is 
 exaggerated and is not so striking as to make it 
 worth while to write a whole book about him. A 
 flabby sluggard like so many, a commonplace, petty
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 121 
 
 nature without any complexity in it: to raise this 
 person to the rank of a social type is to make too 
 much oi iuni. I ask myself, what would Oblomov 
 be if he had not been a sluggard? And I answer 
 that he would not have been anything. And if so, 
 let him snore in peace. The other characters are 
 trivial, with a flavour of Leikin about them; they are 
 taken at random, and are half unreal. They are not 
 characteristic of the epoch and give one nothing new. 
 Stoltz does not inspire me with any confidence. The 
 author says he is a splendid fellow, but I don't believe 
 him. He is a sly brute, who thinks very well of 
 himself and is very complacent. He is half unreal, 
 and three-quarters on stilts. Olga is unreal and is 
 dragged in by the tail. And the chief trouble is that 
 the whole novel is cold, cold, cold. I scratch out 
 Gontcharov from the list of my demi-gods. 
 
 But how direct, how powerful is Gogol, and what 
 an artist he is! His "Marriage" alone is worth two 
 hundred thousand roubles. It is simply delicious, 
 and that is all about it. He is the greatest of Rus- 
 sian writers. In "The Inspector General" the first 
 act is the best, in "The Marriage" the third act is the 
 worst. I am going to read it aloud to my people. 
 
 May 4, 1889. 
 
 . . . Nature is an excellent sedative. It pacifies 
 — that is, it makes one indifferent. And it is essen- 
 tial in this world to be indifferent. Only those who 
 are indifferent are able to see things clearly, to be 
 just and to work. Of course, I am only speaking of 
 intelligent people of fine natures; the empty and 
 selfish are indifferent enough any way. 
 
 You say that I have grown lazy. That does not
 
 122 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 mean that I am now lazier than I used to be. I work 
 now as much as I did three or five years ago. To 
 work and to look as though I were working from nine 
 in the morning till dinner, and from evening tea till 
 bedtime has become a habit with me, and in that 
 respect I am just like a government clerk. And if 
 my work does not produce two novels a month or an 
 income of ten thousand, it is not my laziness that is 
 at fault, but my fundamental, psychological peculiari- 
 ties. I do not care enough for money to succeed in 
 medicine, and for literature I have not enough pas- 
 sion and therefore not enough talent. The fire 
 burns in me slowly and evenly, without suddenly 
 spluttering and flaring up, and this is why it does not 
 happen to me to write three or four signatures a 
 night, or to be so carried away by work as to prevent 
 myself from going to bed if I am sleepy; this is why 
 I commit no particular follies nor do anything par- 
 ticularly wise. 
 
 I am afraid that in this respect I resemble Gont- 
 charov, whom I don't like, who is ten heads taller 
 than I am in talent. I have not enough passion ; add 
 to that this sort of lunacy: for the last two years I 
 have for no reason at all ceased to care about seeing 
 my work in print, have become indifferent to re- 
 views, to literary conversations, to gossip, to success 
 and failure, to good pay — in short, I have gone down- 
 right silly. There is a sort of stagnation in my soul. 
 I explain it by the stagnation in my personal life. I 
 am not disappointed, I am not tired, I am not de- 
 pressed, but simply everything has suddenly become 
 less interesting. I must do something to rouse my- 
 self.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 123 
 
 May 7. 
 
 I have read Bourget's "Disciple" in the Russian 
 translation. This is how it strikes me. Bourget is 
 a gifted, very intelligent and cultured man. He is as 
 thoroughly acquainted with the method of the natural 
 sciences, and as imbued with it as though he had 
 taken a good degree in science or medicine. He is 
 not a stranger in the domain he proposes to deal with 
 — a merit absent in Russian writers both new and old. 
 
 . . . The novel is interesting. I have read it and 
 understand why you were so absorbed by it. It is 
 clever, interesting, in ulaces wittv. somewhat fan- 
 tastic. As to its defects, the chief of them is his pre- 
 tentious crusade against materialism. Forgive me, 
 but I can't understand such crusades. They never 
 lead to anything and only bring needless confusion 
 into people's thoughts. Whom is the crusade 
 against, and what is its object? Where is the enemy 
 and what is there dangerous about him? In the first 
 place, the materialistic movement is not a school or 
 tendency in the narrow journalistic sense; it is not 
 something passing or accidental; it is necessary, in- 
 evitable, and beyond the power of man. All that 
 lives on earth is bound to be materialistic. In 
 animals, in savages, in Moscow merchants, all that 
 is higher and non-animal is conditioned by an un- 
 conscious instinct, while all the rest is material, and 
 they of course cannot help it. Beings of a higher 
 order, thinking men, are also bound to be materialists. 
 They seek for truth in matter, for there is nowhere 
 else to seek for it, since they see, hear, and sense 
 matter alone. Of necessity they can only seek for 
 truth where their microscopes, lancets, and knives
 
 124 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 are of use to them. To forbid a man to follow the 
 materialistic line of thought is equivalent to forbid- 
 ding him to seek truth. Outside matter there is 
 neither knowledge nor experience, and consequently 
 there is no truth. . . . 
 
 I think that when dissecting a corpse, the most 
 inveterate spirituahst will be bound to ask him- 
 self, "Where is the soul here?" And if one knows 
 how great is the likeness between bodily and mental 
 diseases, and that both are treated by the same 
 remedies, one cannot help refusing to separate the 
 soul from the body. 
 
 ... To speak of the danger and harm of material- 
 ism, and even more to fight against it, is, to say the 
 least, premature. We have not enough data to 
 draw up an indictment. There are many theories 
 and suppositions, but no facts. . . . The priests 
 complain of unbelief, immorality, and so on. There 
 is no unbelief. People believe in something, what- 
 ever it may be. . . . 
 
 As to immorality, it is not people like Mendeleyev 
 but poets, abbots, and personages regularly attend- 
 ing Embassy churches, who have the reputation of 
 being perverted debauchees, libertines, and drunk- 
 ards. 
 
 In short, I cannot understand Bourget's crusade. 
 If, in starting upon it, he had at the same time taken 
 the trouble to point out to the materialists an in- 
 corporeal God in the sky, and to point to Him in such 
 a way that they should see Him, that would be an- 
 other matter, and I should understand what he is 
 driving at.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 125 
 
 May 14, 1889. 
 
 . . . You want to know if the lady doctor hates 
 you as before. Alas! she has grown stouter and 
 much more resigned, which I do not like at all. 
 There are not many women doctors left on earth. 
 They are disappearing and dying out like the 
 branches in the Byelovyezhsky forest. Some die of 
 consumption, others become mystics, some marry 
 widowed squadron-commanders, some still try to 
 stand firm, but are obviously losing heart. Prob- 
 ably the first tailors and the first astrologers also died 
 out rapidly. Life is hard on those who have the 
 temerity first to enter upon an unknown path. The 
 vanguard always has a bad time of it. 
 
 May 15, 1889. 
 
 If you have not gone abroad yet, I will answer 
 your letter about Bourget. . . . You are speaking 
 of the "right to live" of this or that branch of knowl- 
 edge; I am speaking of peace, not of rights. I want 
 people not to see war where there is none. Different 
 branches of knowledge have always lived together in 
 peace. Anatomy and belles-lettres are of equally 
 noble descent; they have the same purpose and the 
 same enemy — the devil — and there is absolutely* 
 nothing for them to fight about. There is no 
 struggle for existence between them. If a man 
 knows about the circulation of the blood, he is rich; 
 if he also learns the history of religion and the song 
 "I remember a marvellous moment," he becomes 
 richer, not poorer — that is to say, we are concerned 
 with pluses alone. This is why geniuses have never
 
 126 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 fought, and in Goethe the poet hved amicably side 
 by side with the scientist. 
 
 It is not branches of knowledge such as poetry 
 and anatomy, but errors — that is to say, men — that 
 fight with one another. When a man fails to under- 
 stand something he is conscious of a discord, and 
 seeks for the cause of it not in himself, as he should, 
 but outside himself — hence the war with what he 
 does not understand. In the middle ages alchemy 
 was gradually in a natural, peaceful way changing 
 into chemistry, and astrology into astronomy; the 
 monks did not understand, saw a conflict and fought 
 against it. Just such a belligerent Spanish monk 
 was our Pisarev in the sixties. 
 
 Bourget, too, is fighting. You say he is not, and I 
 say he is. Imagine his novel falling into the hands 
 of a man whose children are studying in the faculty 
 of science, or of a bishop who is looking for a subject 
 for his Sunday sermon. Will the effect be anything 
 like peace? It will not. Or imagine the novel 
 catching the eye of an anatomist or a physiologist, 
 or any such. It will not breathe peace into any- 
 one's soul; it will irritate those who know and give 
 false ideas to those who don't. 
 
 To A. N. Pleshtcheyev. 
 
 Moscow, 
 September 30, 1889. 
 
 ... I do not think I ought to change the title of 
 the story.* The wags who will, as you foretell, 
 make jokes about "A Dreary Story," are so dull that 
 
 * "A Dreary Story."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 127 
 
 one need not fear them ; and if someone makes a good 
 joke I shall be glad to have given him the occasion 
 for it. The professor could not write about Katya's 
 husband because he did not know him, and Katya 
 does not say anything about him; besides, one of my 
 hero's chief characteristics is that he cares far too 
 little about the inner life of those who surround him, 
 and while people around him are weeping, making 
 mistakes, telling lies, he calmly talks about the the- 
 atre or literature. Were he a different sort of man, 
 Liza and Katya might not have come to grief. 
 
 October, 1889. 
 
 I am afraid of those who look for a tendency be- 
 tween the lines, and who are determined to regard 
 me either as a liberal or as a conservative. I am not 
 a liberal, not a conservative, not a believer in gradual 
 progress, not a monk, not an indifferentist. I should 
 like to be a free artist and nothing more, and I regret 
 that God has not given me the power to be one. I 
 hate lying and violence in all their forms, and am 
 equally repelled by the secretaries of consistories and 
 by Notovitch and Gradovsky. Pharisaism, stupidity 
 and despotism reign not in merchants' houses and 
 prisons alone. I see them in science, in literature, 
 in the younger generation. . . . That is why I have 
 no preference either for gendarmes, or for butchers, 
 or for scientists, or for writers, or for the younger 
 generation. I regard trade-marks and labels as a 
 superstition. My holy of holies is the human body, 
 health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the 
 most absolute freedom — freedom from violence and 
 lying, whatever forms they may take. This is the 
 programme I would follow if I were a great artist.
 
 128 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 15, 1890. 
 
 I answer you, dear Alexey Nikolaevitch, at once 
 on receiving your letter. It was your name-day, and 
 I forgot it ! ! Forgive me, dear friend, and accept 
 my belated congratulations. 
 
 Did you really not like the "Kreutzer Sonata"? I 
 don't say it is a work of genius for all time, of that I 
 am no judge; but to my thinking, among the mass of 
 all that is written now, here and abroad, one scarcely 
 could find anything else as powerful both in the 
 gravity of its conception and the beauty of its execu- 
 tion. To say nothing of its artistic merits, which in 
 places are striking, one must be grateful to the novel, 
 if only because it is keenly stimulating to thought. 
 As one reads it, one can scarcely refrain from crying 
 out: "That's true," or "That's absurd." It is true 
 it has some very annoying defects. Apart from all 
 those you enumerate, it has one for which one can- 
 not readily forgive the author — that is, the audacity 
 with which Tolstoy holds forth about what he doesn't 
 know and is too obstinate to care to understand. 
 Thus his statements about syphilis, foundling hos- 
 pitals, the aversion of women for the sexual relation, 
 and so on, are not merely open to dispute, but show 
 him up as an ignoramus who has not, in the course 
 of his long life, taken the trouble to read two or three 
 books written by specialists. But yet these defects 
 fly away like feathers in the wind; one simply does 
 not notice them in face of the real worth of the story, 
 or, if one notices them, it is only with a little vexa- 
 tion that the story has not escaped the fate of all the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 129 
 
 works of man, all imperfect and never free from 
 blemish. 
 
 My Petersburg friends and acquaintances are 
 angry with me? What for? For my not having 
 bored them enough with my presence, which has for 
 so long been a bore to myself! Soothe their minds. 
 Tell them that in Petersburg I ate a great many din- 
 ners and a great many suppers, but did not fascinate 
 one lady; that every day I was confident of leaving 
 by the evening train, that I was detained by my 
 friends and by The Marine Almanack, the whole of 
 which I had to look through from the year 1852. 
 While I was in Petersburg, I got through in one 
 month more than my young friends would in a year. 
 Let them be angry, though ! 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 I sit all day long reading and making extracts. I 
 have nothing in my head or on paper except Sahalin. 
 Mental obsession. Mania Sachahnosa. 
 
 Not long ago I dined with Madame Yermolov.* 
 A wild-flower thrust into the same nosegay with the 
 carnation was the more fragrant for the good com- 
 pany it had kept. So I, after dining with the star, 
 was aware of a halo round my head for two days 
 afterwards . . . 
 
 Good-bye, my dear friend; come and see 
 us. . . . 
 
 * The celebrated actress. — Translator's Note.
 
 130 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 23, 1890. 
 
 . . . My brother Alexandr is a slow-witted 
 creature; he is enthusiastic over Ornatsky's mission- 
 ary speech, in which he says that the natives do not 
 become Christians because they are waiting for a 
 special ukaz (that is, command) from the Tsar on 
 the subject and are waiting for their chiefs to be bap- 
 tized . . . (by force — be it understood). This 
 eloquent pontifex says, too, that the native priests 
 ought, in view of their ascetic manner of life, to be 
 removed from the natives and put into special institu- 
 tions somewhat after the fashion of monasteries. A 
 nice set of people and no mistake! They have 
 wasted two million roubles, they send out every year 
 from the academy dozens of missionaries who cost 
 the treasury and the people large sums, yet they can- 
 not convert the natives, and what is more, want the 
 police and the military to help them with fire and 
 sword. . . . 
 
 If you have Madame Tsebrikov's article, do not 
 trouble to send it. Such articles give no information 
 and only waste time; I want facts. Indeed, in Rus- 
 sia there is a terrible poverty of facts, and a terrible 
 abundance of reflections of all sorts. 
 
 February 28. 
 
 . . . To-morrow is spring, and within ten to fif- 
 teen days the larks will come back. But alas! — the 
 coming spring seems strange to me, for I am going 
 away from it.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 131 
 
 In Sahalin there is very good fish, but there are no 
 hot drinks. . . . 
 
 Our geologists, ichthyologists, zoologists and so on, 
 are fearfully uneducated people. They write such a 
 vile jargon that it not only bores one to read it, but 
 one actually has at times to remodel the sentences be- 
 fore one can understand them; on the other hand, 
 they have solemnity and earnestness enough and to 
 spare. It's really beastly. . . . 
 
 March 4. 
 
 I have sent you to-day two stories: Filippov's (he 
 was here yesterday) and Yezhov's. I have not had 
 time to read the latter, and I think it is as well to say, 
 once for all, that I am not responsible for what I send 
 you. My handwriting on the address does not mean 
 that I like the story. 
 
 Poor Yezhov has been to see me; he sat near the 
 table crying: his young wife is in consumption. He 
 must take her at once to the south. To my ques- 
 tion whether he had money he answered that he had. 
 . . . It's vile catch-cold weather; the skv itself 
 is sneezing. I can't bear to look at it. . . . I have 
 already begun writing of Sahalin. I have written 
 five pages. It reads all right, as though written with 
 intelligence and authority ... I quote foreign 
 authors second-hand, but minutely and in a tone as 
 though I could speak every foreign language per- 
 fectly. It's regular swindling. 
 
 Yezhov has upset me with his tears. He reminded 
 me of something, and I was sorry for him too. 
 
 Don't forget us sinners.
 
 132 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To N. M. LiNTVARYOV. 
 
 Moscow, 
 March 5, 1890. 
 
 ... As for me, I have a cough too, but I am alive 
 and I believe Vm well. I shan't be with you this 
 summer, as I am going in April, on affairs of my own, 
 to the island of Sahalin, and shall not be back till 
 December. I am going across Siberia (eleven thou- 
 sand versts) and shall come back by sea. I believe 
 Misha wrote to you as though someone were commis- 
 sioning me to go, but that's nonsense. I am com- 
 missioning myself to go, on my own account. There 
 are lots of bears and escaped convicts in Sahalin, so 
 that in case messieurs the wild beasts dine off me or 
 some tramp cuts my throat, I beg you not to remem- 
 ber evil against me. 
 
 Of course if I have the time and the skill to write 
 what I want to about Sahalin, I shall send you the 
 book immediately that it comes into the world; it 
 will be dull, a specialist's book consisting of nothing 
 but figures, but let me count upon your indulgence: 
 you will suppress your yawns as you read it. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 
 March 9. 
 
 About Sahalin we are both mistaken, but you prob- 
 ably more than I. I am going in the full conviction 
 that my visit will furnish no contribution of value 
 either to literature or science: I have neither the 
 knowledge, nor the time, nor the ambition for that. 
 I have neither the plans of a Humboldt nor of a
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 133 
 
 Kennan. I want to write some 100 to 200 pages, 
 and so do something, however httle, for medical 
 science, which, as you are aware, I have neglected 
 shockingly. Possibly I shall not succeed in writing 
 anything, but still the expedition does not lose its 
 charm for me: reading, looking about me, and listen- 
 ing, I shall learn a great deal and gain experience. 
 I have not yet travelled, but thanks to the books 
 which I have been compelled to read, I have learned 
 a great deal which anyone ought to be flogged for 
 not knowing, and which I was so ignorant as not to 
 have known before. Moreover, I imagine the 
 journey will be six months of incessant hard work, 
 physical and mental, and that is essential for me, for 
 I am a Little Russian and have already begun to be 
 lazy. I must take myself in hand. My expedition 
 may be nonsense, obstinacy, a craze, but think a mo- 
 ment and tell me what I am losing if I go. Time? 
 Money? Shall I suffer hardships? My time is 
 worth nothing; money I never have anyway; as for 
 hardships, I shall travel with horses, twenty-five to 
 thirty days, not more, all the rest of the time I shall 
 be sitting on the deck of a steamer or in a room, and 
 shall be continually bombarding you with letters. 
 
 Suppose the expedition gives me nothing, yet 
 surely there will be 2 or 3 days out of the whole 
 journey which I shall remember all my life with 
 ecstasy or bitterness, etc., etc. ... So that's how 
 it is, sir. All that is unconvincing, but you know 
 you write just as unconvincingly. For instance, you 
 say that Sahalin is of no use and no interest to any- 
 one. Can that be true? Sahalin can be useless and 
 uninteresting only to a society which does not exile 
 thousands of people to it and does not spend millions
 
 134 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 of roubles on it. Except Australia in the past and 
 Cayenne, Sahalin is the only place where one can 
 study colonization by convicts; all Europe is in- 
 terested in it, and is it no use to us? Not more than 
 25 to 30 years ago our Russians exploring Sahalin 
 performed amazing feats which exalt them above hu- 
 manity, and that's no use to us : we don't know what 
 those men were, and simply sit within four walls and 
 complain that God has made man amiss. Sahalin is 
 a place of the most unbearable sufferings of which 
 man, free and captive, is capable. Those who work 
 near it and upon it have solved fearful, responsible 
 problems, and are still solving them. I am not senti- 
 mental, or I would say that we ought to go to places 
 like Sahalin to worship as the Turks go to Mecca, 
 and that sailors and gaolers ought to think of the 
 prison in Sahalin as military men think of Sevastopol. 
 From the books I have read and am reading, it is evi- 
 dent that we have sent millions of men to rot in prison, 
 have destroyed them — casually, without thinking, 
 barbarously; we have driven men in fetters through 
 the cold ten thousand versts, have infected them with 
 syphilis, have depraved them, have multiplied 
 criminals, and the blame for all this we have thrown 
 upon the gaolers and red-nosed superintendents. 
 Now all educated Europe knows that it is not the 
 superintendents that are to blame, but all of us; yet 
 that has nothing to do with us, it is not interesting. 
 The vaunted sixties did nothing for the sick and for 
 prisoners, so breaking the chief commandment of 
 Christian civilization. In our day something is be- 
 ing done for the sick, nothing for prisoners; prison 
 manao-ement is entirelv without interest for our 
 jurists. No, I assure you that Sahalin is of use and
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 135 
 
 of interest to us, and the only thing to regret is that 
 I am going there, and not someone else who knows 
 more about it and would be more able to rouse public 
 interest. Nothing much will come of my going there. 
 ****** 
 
 There have been disturbances among the students 
 on a grand scale here. It began with the Petrovsky 
 Academy, where the authorities forbade the students 
 to take young ladies to their rooms, suspecting the 
 ladies of politics as well as of prostitution. From 
 the Academy it spread to the University, where now 
 the students, surrounded by fully armed and mounted 
 Hectors and Achilleses with lances, make the follow- 
 ing demands: 
 
 1. Complete autonomy for the universities. 
 
 2. Complete freedom of teaching. 
 
 3. Free right of entrance to the university without 
 distinction of religious denomination, nationality, 
 sex, and social position. 
 
 4. Right of entrance to the university for the Jews 
 without restriction, and equal rights for them with 
 the other students. 
 
 5. Freedom of meeting and recognition of the 
 students' associations. 
 
 6. The establishment of a university and students' 
 tribunal. 
 
 7. The abolition of the police duties of the in- 
 spectors. 
 
 8. Lowering of the fees for instruction. 
 
 This I copied from a manifesto, with some abbre- 
 viations.
 
 136 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To I. L. Shtcheglov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 March 22, 1890. 
 
 My greetings, dear Jean! Thanks for your long 
 letter and for the good will of which it is full from 
 beginning to end. I shall be delighted to read your 
 military story. Will it come out in the Easter num- 
 ber? It is a long time since I read anything of yours 
 or my own. You say that you want to give me a 
 harsh scolding "especially on the score of morality 
 and art," you speak vaguely of my crimes as deserv- 
 ing friendly censure, and threaten me with "an in- 
 fluential newspaper criticism." If you scratch out 
 the word "art," the whole phrase in quotation marks 
 becomes clearer, but gains a significance which, to tell 
 the truth, perplexes me not a little. Jean, what is it? 
 How is one to understand it? Can I really be differ- 
 ent in my ideas of morality from people like you, and 
 so much so as to deserve censure and even an influen- 
 tial article? I cannot take it that you mean some 
 subtle higher morality, as there are no lower, higher, 
 or medium moralities, but only one which Jesus 
 Christ gave us, and which now prevents you and me 
 and Barantsevitch from stealing, insulting, lying, and 
 so on. If I can trust the ease of my conscience, I 
 have never by word or deed, in thought, or in my 
 stories, or in my farces, coveted my neighbour's wife, 
 nor his man, nor his ox, nor any of his cattle, I have 
 not stolen, nor been a hypocrite, I have not flattered 
 the great nor sought their favour, I have not black- 
 mailed, nor lived at other people's expense. It is 
 true I have waxed wanton and slothful, have laughed 
 heedlessly, have eaten too much and drunk too much
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 137 
 
 and been profligate. But all that is a personal mat- 
 ter, and all that does not deprive me of the right to 
 think that, as far as morals are concerned, I am noth- 
 ing out of the ordinary, one way or the other. Noth- 
 ing heroic and nothing scoundrelly — I am just like 
 everyone else; I have many sins, but I am quits with 
 morality, as I pay for those sins with interest in the 
 discomforts they bring with them. If you want to 
 abuse me cruelly because I am not a hero, you'd bet- 
 ter throw your cruelty out of the window, and instead 
 of abuse, let me hear your charming tragic laugh — 
 that's better. 
 
 But of the word "art" I am terrified, as merchants' 
 wives are terrified of "brimstone." When people 
 talk to me of what is artistic and inartistic, of what is 
 dramatic and not dramatic, of tendency, realism, and 
 so on, I am bewildered, hesitatingly assent, and 
 answer with banal half-truths not worth a brass farth- 
 ing. I divide all works into two classes : those I like 
 and those I don't. I have no other criterion, and if 
 you ask me why I like Shakespeare and don't like 
 Zlatovratsky, I don't venture to answer. Perhaps in 
 time and as I grow wiser I may work out some 
 criterion, but meanwhile all conversations about what 
 is "artistic" only weary me, and seem to me 
 like a continuation of the scholastic disputations 
 with which people wearied themselves in the middle 
 ages. 
 
 If criticism, on the authority of which you rely, 
 knows what you and I don't know, why has it up till 
 now not spoken ? why does it not reveal the truth and 
 the immutable laws? If it knew, believe me, it 
 would long ago have shown us the true path and we 
 should have known what to do, and Fofanov would
 
 138 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 not have been in a madhouse, Garshin would have 
 been ahve to-day, Barantsevitch would not have been 
 so depressed and we should not be so dull and ill at 
 ease as we are, and you would not feel drawn to the 
 theatre and I to Sahalin. But criticism maintains a 
 dignified silence or gets out of it with idle trashy 
 babble. If it seems to you authoritative it is because 
 it is stupid, conceited, impudent, and clamorous; 
 because it is an empty barrel one cannot help hearing. 
 But let us have done with that and sing something 
 out of a different opera. Please don't build any 
 literary hopes on my Sahalin trip. I am not going 
 for the sake of impressions or observations, but 
 simply for the sake of living for six months differently 
 from how I have lived hitherto. Don't rely on me, 
 old man ; if I am successful and clever enough to do 
 something, so much the better; if not, don't blame me. 
 I am going after Easter. I will send you in due time 
 my Sahalin address and minute instructions. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 March 22, 1890. 
 
 . . . Yesterday a young lady told me that Profes- 
 sor Storozhenko had related to her the following 
 anecdote. The Sovereign liked the Kreutzer Sonata. 
 Pobyedonostsev, Lubimov, and the other cherubim 
 and seraphim, hastened to justify their attitude to 
 Tolstoy by showing his Majesty "Nikolay Palkin." 
 After reading it, his Majesty was so furious that he 
 ordered measures to be taken. Prince Dolgorukov 
 was informed. And so one fine day an adjutant 
 from Dolgorukov comes to Tolstoy and invites him to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 139 
 
 go at once to the prince. The latter replies: "Tell 
 the prince that I only visit the houses of my acquain- 
 tances." The adjutant, overcome with confusion, 
 rides away, and next day brings Tolstoy the official 
 notice demanding from him an explanation in regard 
 to his "Nikolay Palkin." Tolstoy reads the docu- 
 ment and says : 
 
 "Tell his excellency that I have not for a long time 
 past written anything for publication; I write only 
 for my friends, and if my friends spread my writings 
 abroad, they are responsible and not I. Tell him 
 that!" 
 
 "But I can't tell him that," cried the adjutant in 
 horror, "the prince will not believe me!" 
 
 "The prince will not believe his subordinates? 
 That's bad." 
 
 Two days later the adjutant comes again with a 
 fresh document, and learns that Tolstoy has gone 
 away to Yasnaya Polyana. That is the end of the 
 anecdote. 
 
 Now about the new movements. They flog in our 
 police stations; a rate has been fixed; from a 
 peasant they take ten kopecks for a beating, from a 
 workman twenty — that's for the rods and the trouble. 
 Peasant women are flogged too. Not long ago, in 
 their enthusiasm for beating in a police station, they 
 thrashed a couple of budding lawyers, an incident 
 upon which Russkiya Vyedomosti has a vague para- 
 graph to-day; an investigation has begun. 
 
 Another sign of the times: the cabmen approve 
 of the students' disturbances. 
 
 "They are making a riot for the poor to be taken 
 in to study," they explain, "learning is not only for 
 the rich." It is said that when a crowd of students
 
 140 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 were being taken by night to the prison the populace 
 fell upon the gendarmes to rescue the students from 
 them. The populace is said to have shouted: "You 
 have set up flogging for us, but they stand up for us." 
 
 March 29. 
 
 . . . Fatigue is a relative matter. You say you 
 used to work twenty hours out of the twenty-four and 
 were not exhausted. But you know one may be ex- 
 hausted lying all day long on the sofa. You used to 
 write for twenty hours, but you know you were in per- 
 fect health all that time, you were stimulated by suc- 
 cess, defiance, a sense of your talent ; you liked your 
 work, or you wouldn't have written. Your heir-ap- 
 parent sits up late, not because he has a talent for 
 journalism or a love for his work, but simply because 
 his father is an editor of a newspaper. The difference 
 is vast. He ought to have been a doctor or a lawyer, 
 to have had an income of two thousand roubles a year, 
 and published his articles not in Novoye Vremya and 
 not in the spirit of Novoye Vremya. Only those 
 young people can be accepted as healthy who refuse to 
 be reconciled with the old order and foolishly or 
 wisely struggle against it — such is the will of nature 
 and it is the foundation of progress, while your son be- 
 gan by absorbing the old order. In our most intimate 
 talks he has never once abused Tatistchev or Burenin, 
 and that's a bad sign. You are a hundred times as 
 liberal as he is, and it ought to be the other way. He 
 utters a listless and indolent protest, he soon drops his 
 voice and soon agrees, and altogether one has the im- 
 pression that he has no interest whatever in the con- 
 test; that is, he looks on at the cock-fight like a spec- 
 tator and has no cock of his own. And one ought to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV ' 141 
 
 have one's own cock, else life is without interest. 
 The unfortunate thing, too, is that he is intelligent, 
 and great intelHgence with little interest in life is like 
 a great machine which produces nothing, yet requires 
 a great deal of fuel and exhausts the owner. . . . 
 
 April 1. 
 
 You abuse me for objectivity, calling it indifference 
 to good and evil, lack of ideals and ideas, and so on. 
 You would have me, when I describe horse-stealers, 
 say: "Stealing horses is an evil." But that has been 
 known for ages without my saying so. Let the jury 
 judge them, it's my job simply to show what sort of 
 people they are. I write: you are dealing with 
 horse-stealers, so let me tell you that they are not 
 beggars but well-fed people, that they are people of a 
 special cult, and that horse-stealing is not simply 
 theft but a passion. Of course it would be pleasant 
 to combine art with a sermon, but for me personally 
 it is extremely difficult and almost impossible, owing 
 to the conditions of technique. You see, to depict 
 horse-stealers in seven hundred lines I must all the 
 time speak and think in their tone and feel in their 
 spirit, otherwise, if I introduce subjectivity, the image 
 becomes blurred and the story will not be as compact 
 as all short stories ought to be. When I write I 
 reckon entirely Upon the reader to add for himself the 
 subjective elements that are lacking in the story. 
 
 April 11. 
 
 Madame N. who used at one time to live in your 
 family is here now. She married the artist N., a nice 
 but tedious man who wants at all costs to travel with 
 me to Sahalin to sketch. To refuse him my com-
 
 142 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 pany I haven't the courage, but to travel with him 
 would be simple misery. He is going to Petersburg 
 in a day or two to sell his pictures, and at his wife's 
 request will call on you to ask your advice. With a 
 view to this his wife came to ask me for a letter of 
 introduction to you. Be my benefactor, tell N. that 
 I am a drunkard, a swindler, a nihilist, a rowdy 
 character, and that it is out of the question to travel 
 with me, and that a journey in my company will do 
 nothing but upset him. Tell him he will be wasting 
 his time. Of course it would be very nice to have 
 my book illustrated, but when I learned that N. was 
 hoping to get not less than a thousand roubles for it, 
 I lost all appetite for illustrations. My dear fellow, 
 advise him against it ! ! ! Why it is your advice he 
 wants, the devil only knows. 
 
 April 15. 
 
 And so, my dear friend, I am setting off on Wednes- 
 day or Thursday at latest. Good-bye till Decem- 
 ber. Good luck in my absence. I received the 
 money, thank you very much, though fifteen hundred 
 roubles is a great deal; I don't know where to put it. 
 ... I feel as though I were preparing for the bat- 
 tlefield, though I see no dangers before me but tooth- 
 ache, which I am sure to have on the journey. As I 
 am provided with nothing in the way of papers but 
 a passport, I may have unpleasant encounters with 
 the authorities, but that is a passing trouble. If they 
 refuse to show me something, I shall simply write in 
 my book that they wouldn't show it me, and that's 
 all, and I won't worry. In case I am drowned or 
 anything of that sort, you might keep it in mind that 
 all I have or may have in the future belongs to my 
 sister; she will pay my debts.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 143 
 
 I am taking my mother with me and putting her 
 down at the Troitsky Monastery; I am taking my 
 sister too, and leaving her at Kostroma. I am tell- 
 ing them I shall be back in September. 
 
 I shall go over the university in Tomsk. As the 
 only faculty there is medicine I shall not show my- 
 self an ignoramus. 
 
 I have bought myself a fur coat, an officer's water- 
 proof leather coat, big boots, and a big knife for cut- 
 ting sausage and hunting tigers. I am equipped 
 from head to foot. 
 
 To His Sister. 
 
 Steamer "Alexandr Nevsky 23," 
 
 April, 1890, early in the morning. 
 
 My dear Tunguses! 
 
 Did you have rain when Ivan was coming back 
 from the monastery? In Yaroslavl there was such a 
 downpour that I had to swathe myself in my leather 
 chiton. My first impression of the Volga was 
 poisoned by the rain, by the tear-stained windows of 
 the cabin, and the wet nose of G., who came to meet 
 me at the station. In the rain Yaroslavl looks like 
 Zvenigorod, and its churches remind me of Perer- 
 vinsky Monastery; there are lots of illiterate sign- 
 boards, it's muddy, jackdaws with big heads strut 
 about the pavement. 
 
 In the steamer I made it my first duty to indulge 
 my talent — that is, to sleep. When I woke I beheld 
 the sun. The Volga is not bad; water meadows, 
 monasteries bathed in sunshine, white churches; the 
 wade expanse is marvellous, wherever one looks it 
 would be a nice place to sit down and begin fishing.
 
 144 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Class ladies* wander about on the banks, nipping at 
 the green grass. The shepherd's horn can be heard 
 now and then. White gulls, looking Hke the 
 younger Drishka, hover over the water. 
 The steamer is not up to much. . . . 
 
 ***** -H- 
 
 Kundasova is travelling with me. Where she is 
 going and with what object I don't know. When I 
 question her about it, she launches off into extremely 
 misty allusions about someone who has appointed a 
 tryst with her in a ravine near Kineshma, then goes 
 off into a wild giggle and begins stamping her feet 
 or prodding with her elbow whatever comes first. 
 We have passed both Kineshma and the ravine, but 
 she still goes on in the steamer, at which of course I 
 am very much pleased ; by the way, yesterday for the 
 first time in my life I saw her eating. She eats no 
 less than other people, but she eats mechanically, as 
 though she were munching oats. 
 
 Kostroma is a nice town. I saw the stretch of 
 river on which the languid Levitan used to live. I 
 saw Kineshma, where I walked along the boulevard 
 and watched the local beaus. Here I went into the 
 chemist's shop to buy some Bertholet salts for my 
 tongue, which was like leather after the medicine I 
 had taken. The chemist, on seeing Olga Petrovna, 
 was overcome with delight and confusion; she was 
 the same. They were evidently old acquaintances, 
 and judging from the conversation between them 
 they had walked more than once about the ravines 
 near Kineshma. 
 
 * I.e., School chaperons, whose duty it is to sit in the class- 
 room while the girls are receiving instruction from a master. — 
 Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 145 
 
 . . . It's rather cold and rather dull, but interest- 
 ing on the whole. The steamer whistles every 
 minute; its whistle is midway between the bray of 
 an ass and an y^olian harp. In five or six hours we 
 shall be in Nizhni. The sun is rising. I slept last 
 night artistically. My money is safe ; that is because 
 I am constantly pressing my hands on my stomach. 
 
 Very beautiful are the steam-tugs, dragging after 
 them four or five barges each; they look like some 
 fine young intellectual trying to run away while a 
 plebeian wife, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and wife's 
 grandmother hold on to his coat-tails. 
 
 * * -^ -Sf * * 
 
 The sun is hiding behind the clouds, the sky is 
 overcast, and the broad Volga looks gloomy. 
 Levitan ought not to live on the Volga. It lays a 
 weight of gloom on the soul. Though it would not 
 be bad to have an estate on its banks. 
 
 •3f * * * -Jf * 
 
 If the waiter would wake I should ask him for 
 some coffee; as it is, I have to drink water without 
 any relish for it. My greetings to Maryushka and 
 Olga.* 
 
 Well, keep well and take care of yourselves. I 
 will write regularly. 
 
 Your bored Volga-travelling 
 
 Homo Sachaliensis, 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 * The Chekhovs' servants.
 
 146 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 From the Steamer, 
 
 Evening, April 24, 1890. 
 
 My dear Tunguses! 
 
 I am floating on the Kama, but I can't fix the 
 exact locahty; I beheve we are near Tchistopol. I 
 cannot extol the beauties of the scenery either, as it 
 is helHshly cold; the birches are not yet out, there 
 are still patches of snow here and there, bits of ice 
 float by — in short, the picturesque has gone to the 
 dogs. I sit in the cabin, where people of all sorts 
 and conditions sit at the table, and listen to the con- 
 versation, wondering whether it is not time for me 
 to have tea. If I had my way I should do nothing 
 all day but eat; as I haven't the money to be eating 
 all day long I sleep and sleep. I don't go up on deck, 
 it's cold. By night it rains and by day there is an un- 
 pleasant wind. 
 
 Oh, the caviare! I eat it and eat and never have 
 enough. 
 
 ... It is a pity I did not think to get myself a 
 little bag for tea and sugar. I have to order it a 
 glass at a time, which is tiresome and expensive. I 
 meant to buy some tea and sugar to-day at Kazan, 
 but I over-slept myself. 
 
 Rejoice, mother! I believe I stop twenty-four 
 hours at Ekaterinburg, and shall see the rela- 
 tions. Perhaps their hearts may be softened 
 and they will give me three roubles and an ounce of 
 tea. 
 
 From the conversation I am listening to at this 
 moment, I gather that the members of a judicial 
 tribunal are travelling with me. They are not gifted 
 persons. Tlie merchants, who put in their word
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 147 
 
 from time to time seem, however, intelligent. One 
 comes across fearfully rich people. 
 
 Sterlets are cheaper than mushrooms; you soon 
 get sick of them. What more is there for me to 
 write about? There is nothing. . . . There is a 
 General, though, and a lean fair man. The former 
 keeps dashing from his cabin to the deck and back 
 again, and sending his photograph off somewhere; 
 the latter is got up to look like Nadson, and tries 
 thereby to give one to know that he is a writer. To- 
 day he was mendaciously telling a lady that he had 
 a book published by Suvorin; I, of course, put on 
 an expression of awe. 
 
 My money is all safe, except what I have 
 eaten. They won't feed me for nothing, the scoun- 
 drels. 
 
 I am neither gay nor bored, but there is a sort of 
 numbness in my soul. I like to sit without moving 
 or speaking. To-day, for instance, I have scarcely 
 uttered five words. That's not true, though: I 
 talked to a priest on deck. 
 
 We begin to come across natives ; there are lots of 
 Tatars: they are a respectable and well-behaved peo- 
 ple. 
 
 I beg Father and Mother not to worry, and not to 
 imagine dangers which do not exist. 
 
 ^ * * * * * 
 
 Excuse me for writing about nothing but food. If 
 I did not write about food I should have to write 
 about cold, for I have no other subjects. 
 
 ******
 
 148 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 April 29, 1890. 
 
 My dear Tunguses! 
 
 The Kama is a very dull river. To realise 
 its beauties one would have to be a native sitting 
 motionless on a barge beside a barrel of naphtha, 
 or a sack of dried fish, continually taking a pull at the 
 bottle. The river banks are bare, the trees are bare, 
 the earth is a dull brown, there are patches of snow, 
 and there is such a wind that the devil himself could 
 not blow as keenly and hatefully. When a cold 
 wind blows and ruffles up the water, which now after 
 the floods is the colour of coffee slops, one feels cold 
 and bored and miserable; the strains of a concertina 
 on the bank sound dejected, figures in tattered sheep- 
 skins standing motionless on the barges that meet 
 us look as though they were petrified by some unend- 
 ing grief. The towns on the Kama are grey; one 
 would think the inhabitants were employed in the 
 manufacture of clouds, boredom, soaking fences and 
 mud in the streets, as their sole occupation. The 
 stopping-places are thronged with inhabitants of the 
 educated class, for whom the arrival of a steamer is 
 an event. . . . 
 
 ... To judge from appearances not one of them 
 earns more than thirty-five roubles, and all of them 
 are ailing in some way. 
 
 I have told you already there are some legal gentle- 
 men in the steamer: the president of the court, one 
 of the judges, and the prosecutor. The president is 
 a hale and hearty old German who has embraced 
 Orthodoxy, is pious, a homoeopath, and evidently a 
 devotee of the sex. Tlie judge is an old man such as 
 dear Nikolay used to draw; he walks bent double.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 149 
 
 coughs, and is fond of facetious subjects. The prose- 
 cutor is a man of forty-three, dissatisfied with Ufe, a 
 liberal, a sceptic, and a very good-natured fellow. 
 All the journey these gentlemen have been occupied 
 in eating, settling mighty questions and eating, read- 
 ing and eating. There is a library on the steamer, 
 and I saw the prosecutor reading my "In the Twi- 
 light." They began talking about me. Mamin- 
 Sibiryak, who has described the Urals, is the author 
 most liked in these parts. He is more talked of than 
 Tolstoy. 
 
 I have been two and a half years sailing to Perm, 
 so it seems to me. We reached there at two o'clock 
 in the night. The train went at six o'clock in the 
 evening. I had to wait. It rained. Rain, cold, 
 mud . . . brrr! The Uralsky line is a good one. 
 . . . That is due to the abundance of business-like 
 people here, factories, mines, and so on, for whom 
 time is precious. 
 
 Waking yesterday morning and looking out of the 
 carriage window I felt an aversion for nature: the 
 earth was white, trees covered with hoar-frost, and a 
 regular blizzard pursuing the train. Now isn't it 
 revolting? Isn't it disgusting? ... I have no 
 goloshes, I pulled on my big boots, and on my way to 
 the refreshment-room for coffee I made the whole 
 Ural region smell of tar. And when we got to 
 Ekaterinburg there was rain, snow, and hail. I put 
 on my leather coat. The cabs are something incon- 
 ceivable, wretched, dirty, drenched, without springs, 
 the horse's four legs straddling, huge hoofs, gaunt 
 
 spines the droshkies here are a 
 
 clumsy parody of our britchkas. A tattered top is 
 put on to a britchka, that is all. And the more
 
 150 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 exactly I describe the cabman here and his vehicle, 
 the more it will seem like a caricature. They drive 
 not on the middle of the road where it is jolting, but 
 near the gutter where it is muddy and soft. All the 
 cabmen are like Dobrolyubov. 
 
 In Russia all the towns are alike. Ekaterinburg 
 is exactly the same as Perm or Tula. The note of 
 the bells is magnificent, velvety. I stopped at the 
 American Hotel (not at all bad), and at once sent 
 word of my arrival to A. M. S., telling him I meant to 
 stay in my hotel room for two days. 
 
 The people here inspire the newcomer with a feel- 
 ing akin to horror. They are big-browed, big-jawed, 
 broad-shouldered fellows with huge fists and tiny 
 eyes. They are born in the local iron foundries, and 
 at their birth a mechanic officiates instead of an ac- 
 coucheur. A specimen comes into your room with 
 a samovar or a bottle of water, and you expect him 
 every minute to murder you. I stand aside. This 
 morning just such a one came in, big-browed, big- 
 jawed, huge, towering up to the ceiling, seven feet 
 across the shoulders and wearing a fur coat too. 
 
 Well, I thought, this one will certainly murder me. 
 It appeared that this was our relation A. M. S. We 
 began to talk. He is a member of the local Zemstvo 
 and manager of his cousin's mill, which is lighted by 
 electric light; he is editor of the Ekaterinburg Week 
 which is under the censorship of the police-master 
 Baron Taube, is married and has two children, is 
 growing rich and getting fat and elderly, and lives 
 in a "substantial way." He says he has no time to 
 be bored. He advised me to visit the museum, the 
 factories, and the mines; I thanked him for his ad- 
 vice. He invited me to tea to-morrow evening; I
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 151 
 
 invited him to dine with me. He did not invite me 
 to dinner, and altogether did not press me very much 
 to visit him. From this mother may conclude that 
 the relations' heart is not softened. . . . Relations 
 are a race in which I take no interest. 
 
 There is snow in the street, and I have purposely 
 let down the blind over the windows so as not to see 
 the Asiatic sight. I am sitting here waiting for an 
 answer from Tyumen to my telegram. I tele- 
 graphed: "Tyumen. Kurbatov steamer line. 
 Reply paid. Inform me when the passenger steamer 
 starts Tomsk." It depends on the answer whether 
 I go by steamer or gallop fifteen hundred versts in 
 the slush of the thaw. 
 
 All night long they beat on sheets of iron at every 
 corner here. You need a head of iron not to go 
 crazy from the incessant clanging. To-day I tried 
 to make myself coffee. The result was a horrid mess. 
 I just drank it with a shrug. I looked at five sheets, 
 handled them, and did not take one. I am going 
 to-day to buy rubber overshoes. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Shall I find a letter from you at Irkutsk? 
 Ask Lika not to leave such big margins in her 
 letters. 
 
 Your Homo Sachaliensis, 
 
 A. Chekhov.
 
 152 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To Madame Kiselyov. 
 
 The Bank of the Irtysh, 
 May 7, 1890. 
 
 My greetings, honoured Marya Vladimirovna ! I 
 meant to write you a farewell letter from Moscow, 
 but I had not time; I write to you now sitting in a 
 hut on the bank of the Irtysh. 
 
 It is night. This is how I have come to be here. 
 I am driving across the plain of Siberia. I have 
 already driven 715 versts; I have been transformed 
 from head to foot into a great martyr. This morning 
 a keen cold wind began blowing, and it began driz- 
 zling with the most detestable rain. I must observe 
 that there is no spring yet in Siberia. The earth is 
 brown, the trees are bare, and there are white patches 
 of snow wherever one looks ; I wear my fur coat and 
 felt overboots day and night. . . . Well, the 
 wind has been blowing since early morning. . . . 
 Heavy leaden clouds, dull brown earth, mud, rain, 
 wind. . . . Brrr! I drive on and on. ... I 
 drive on endlessly, and the weather does not improve. 
 Towards evening I am told at the station I can't go 
 on further, as everything is under water, the bridges 
 have been carried away, and so on. Knowing how 
 fond these drivers are of frightening one with the 
 elements so as to keep the traveller for the night (it 
 is to their interest), I did not believe them, and 
 ordered them to harness the three horses; and now 
 — alas for me! — I had not driven more than five 
 versts when I saw the land on the bank of the Irtysh 
 all covered with great lakes, the road disappeared 
 under water, and the bridges on the road really had 
 been swept away or had decayed. I was prevented
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 153 
 
 from turning back partly by obstinacy and partly by 
 the desire to get out of these dreary parts as quickly 
 as possible. We began driving through the lakes. 
 . . . My God, I have never experienced anything 
 like it in my life! The cutting wind, the cold, the 
 loathsome rain, and one had to get out of the chaise 
 (not a covered one), if you please, and hold the 
 horses: at each little bridge one could only lead the 
 horses over one at a time. . . . What had I come 
 to? Where was I? All around, desert, dreariness; 
 the bare sullen bank of the Irtysh in sight. . . . 
 We drive into the very biggest lake. Now I should 
 be glad to turn back, but it is not easy. . . . We 
 drive on a long strip of land . . . the strip comes to 
 an end — we go splash ! Again a strip of land, again 
 a splash. . . . My hands were numb, and the wild 
 ducks seemed jeering at us and floated in huge flocks 
 over our heads. ... It got dark. The driver 
 said nothing — he was bewildered. But at last we 
 reached the last strip that separated the Irtysh from 
 the lake. . . . The sloping bank of the Irtysh was 
 nearly three feet above the level ; it was of clay, bare, 
 hollowed out, and looked slippery. The water was 
 muddy. . . . White waves splashed on the clay, 
 but the Irtysh itself made no roar or din, but gave 
 forth a strange sound as though someone were nailing 
 up a coffin under the water. . . . The further bank 
 was a flat, disconsolate plain. . . . You often 
 dream of the Bozharovsky pool ; in the same way now 
 I shall dream of the Irtysh. . . . 
 
 But behold a ferry. We must be ferried across to 
 the other side. A peasant shrinking from the rain 
 comes out of a hut, and tells us that the ferry cannot 
 cross now as it is too windy. . . . (The ferries are
 
 154 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 worked by oars). He advises us to wait for calm 
 weather. . . . 
 
 And so I am sitting at night in a hut on a lake at 
 the very edge of the Irtysh. I feel a penetrating 
 dampness to the very marrow of my bones, and a 
 loneliness in my soul; I hear my Irtysh banging on 
 the coffins and the wind howling, and wonder where 
 I am, why I am here. 
 
 In the next room the peasants who work the ferry 
 and my driver are asleep. They are good-natured 
 people. But if they were bad people they could per- 
 fectly well rob me and drown me in the Irtysh. The 
 hut is the only one on the river bank; there would 
 be no witnesses. 
 
 The road to Tomsk is absolutely free from danger 
 as far as brigands are concerned. It isn't the fashion 
 even to talk of robbery. There is no stealing even 
 from travellers. When you go into a hut you can 
 leave your things outside and they will all be safe. 
 
 But they very nearly did kill me all the same. 
 Imagine the night just before dawn. ... I was 
 driving along in a chaise, thinking and thinking. 
 . . . All at once I see coming flying towards us at 
 full gallop a post-cart with three horses; my driver 
 had hardly time to turn to the right, the three horses 
 dashed by, and I noticed in it the driver who had to 
 take it back. . . . Behind it came another, also at 
 full speed; we had turned to the right, it turned to the 
 left. "We shall smash into each other," flashed into 
 my mind . . . one instant, and — there was a crash, 
 the horses were mixed up in a black mass, my chaise 
 was rearing in the air, and I was rolling on the ground 
 with all my bags and boxes on the top of me. I leap 
 up and see — a third troika dashing upon us. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 155 
 
 My mother must have been praying for me that 
 night, I suppose. If I had been asleep, or if the 
 third troika had come immediately after the second, I 
 should have been crushed to death or maimed. It 
 appeared the foremost driver lashed on the horses, 
 while the drivers in the second and the third carts 
 were asleep and did not see us. The collision was 
 followed by the blankest amazement on both sides, 
 then a storm of ferocious abuse. Tlie traces were 
 torn, the shafts were broken, the yokes were lying 
 about on the road. . . . Ah, how the drivers swore ! 
 At night, in that swearing turbulent crew, I felt in 
 utter solitude such as I have never felt before in my 
 life. . . . 
 
 But my paper is running out. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 The Village of Yar, 45 Versts from Tomsk, 
 May 14, 1890. 
 
 My glorious mother, my splendid Masha, my sweet 
 Misha, and all my household! At Ekaterinburg I 
 got my reply telegram from Tyumen. "The first 
 steamer to Tomsk goes on the 18th May." This 
 meant that, whether I liked it or not, I must do the 
 journey with horses. So I did. I drove out of 
 Tyumen on the third of May after spending in 
 Ekaterinburg two or three days, which I devoted to 
 the repair of my coughing and hasmorrhoidal per- 
 son. Besides the public posting service, one can get 
 private drivers that take one across Siberia. I 
 chose the latter: it is just the same. They put me, 
 the servant of God, into a basketwork chaise and 
 drove me with two horses ; one sits in the basket like
 
 156 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 a goldfinch, looking at God's world and thinking of 
 nothing. . . . The plain of Siberia begins, I think, 
 from Ekaterinburg, and ends goodness knows where; 
 I should say it is very like our South Russian Steppe, 
 except for the little birch copses here and there and 
 the cold wind that stings one's cheeks. Spring has 
 not begun yet. There is no green at all, the woods 
 are bare, the snow has not thawed everywhere. 
 There is opaque ice on the lakes. On the ninth of 
 May there was a hard frost, and to-day, the fourteenth, 
 snow has fallen to the depth of three or four inches. 
 No one speaks of spring but the ducks. Ah, what 
 masses of ducks ! Never in my life have I seen such 
 abundance. They fly over one's head, they fly up 
 close to the chaise, swim on the lakes and in the pools 
 — in short, with the poorest sort of gun I could have 
 shot a thousand in one day. One can hear the wild 
 geese calling. . . . There are lots of them here too. 
 One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans. 
 . . . Snipe and woodcock flutter about in the birch 
 copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here, 
 stand on their hindlegs, and, pricking up their ears, 
 watch the passer-by with an inquisitive stare without 
 the slightest misgiving. They are so often running 
 across the road that to see them doing so is not con- 
 sidered a bad omen. 
 
 It's cold driving . . . ; I have my fur coat on. 
 My body is all right, but my feet are freezing. I 
 wrap them in the leather overcoat — but it is no use. 
 ... I have two pairs of breeches on. Well, one 
 drives on and on. . . . Telegraph poles, pools, 
 birch copses flash by. Here we overtake some 
 emigrants, then an etape. . . . We meet tramps 
 with pots on their back; these gentry promenade all
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 157 
 
 over the plain of Siberia without hindrance. One 
 time they will murder some poor old woman to take 
 her petticoat for their leg-wrappers; at another they 
 will strip from the verst post the metal plate with the 
 number on it — it might be useful; at another will 
 smash the head of some beggar or knock out the 
 eyes of some brother exile; but they never touch 
 travellers. Altogether, travelling here is absolutely 
 safe as far as brigands are concerned. Neither the 
 post-drivers nor the private ones from Tyumen to^ 
 Tomsk remember an instance of any things bein^ 
 stolen from a traveller. When you reach a station you: 
 leave your things outside; if you ask v/hether they 
 won't be stolen, they merely smile in answer. It is; 
 not the thing even to speak of robbery and murder oni 
 the road. I believe, if I were to lose my money in 
 the station or in the chaise, the driver would certainly 
 give it me if he found it, and would not boast of hav- 
 ing done so. Altogether the people here are good 
 and kindly, and have excellent traditions. Their 
 rooms are simply furnished but clean, with claims to> 
 luxury; the beds are soft, all feather mattresses and; 
 big pillows. The floors are painted or covered with' 
 home-made linen rugs. The explanation of this,, 
 of course, is their prosperity, the fact that a family 
 has sixteen dessyatins"^ of black earth, and that excel- 
 lent w^heat grows in this black earth. (Wheaten 
 flour costs thirty kopecks a pood here.f) But it can- 
 not all be put down to prosperity and being well fed. 
 One must give some of the credit to their manner of 
 life. When you go at night into a room where peo- 
 ple are asleep, the nose is not aware of any stuffiness 
 or "Russian smell." It is true one old woman when 
 • I.e., about 48 acres. f I.e., about lY^^- for 36 lb.
 
 158 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 she handed me a teaspoon wiped it on the back of her 
 skirt; but they don't set you down to drink tea with- 
 out a tablecloth, and they don't search in each other's 
 heads in your presence, they don't put their fingers 
 inside the glass when they hand you milk or water; 
 the crockery is clean, the kvass is transparent as beer 
 — in fact, there is a cleanliness of which our Little 
 Russians can only dream, yet the Little Russians are 
 far and away cleaner than the Great Russians ! They 
 make the most delicious bread here — I over-ate my- 
 self with it at first. The pies and pancakes and 
 Iritters and the fancy rolls, which remind one of 
 the spongy Little Russian ring rolls, are very good 
 too. . . . But all the rest is not for the European 
 stomach. For instance, I am regaled everywhere 
 with "duck broth." It's perfectly disgusting, a 
 muddy-looking liquid with bits of wild duck and un- 
 cooked onion floating in it. . . . I once asked them 
 to make me some soup from meat and to fry me some 
 perch. They gave me soup too salt, dirty, with hard 
 bits of skin instead of meat ; and the perch was cooked 
 with the scales on it. They make their cabbage soup 
 from salt meat; they roast it too. They have just 
 served me some salt meat roasted : it's most repulsive ; 
 I chewed at it and gave it up. They drink brick tea. 
 It is a decoction of sage and beetles — that's what it 
 is like in taste and appearance. 
 
 By the way, I brought from Ekaterinburg a quarter 
 of a pound of tea, five pounds of sugar, and three 
 lemons. It was not enough tea and there is nowhere 
 to buy any. In these scurvy little towns even the 
 government officials drink brick tea, and even the best 
 shops don't keep tea at more than one rouble fifty 
 kopecks a pound. I have to drink the sage brew.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 159 
 
 The distance apart of the posting stations depends 
 on the distance of the nearest villages from each other 
 — that is, 20 to 40 versts. The villages here are 
 large, there are no little hamlets. There are churches 
 and schools everywhere, the huts are of wood and 
 there are some with two storeys. 
 
 Towards the evening the road and the puddles 
 begin to freeze, and at night there is a regular frost, 
 one wants an extra fur coat . . . Brrr! It's jolting, 
 for the mud is transformed into hard lumps. One's 
 soul is shaken inside out. . . . Towards daybreak 
 one is fearfully exhausted by the cold, by the jolting 
 and the jingle of the bells: one has a passionate 
 longing for warmth and a bed. While they change 
 horses one curls up in some corner and at once drops 
 asleep, and a minute later the driver pulls at one's 
 sleeve and says: "Get up, friend, it is time to start." 
 On the second night I had acute toothache in my heels. 
 It was unbearably painful. I wondered whether 
 they were frostbitten. 
 
 I can't write more though. The "president," that 
 is the district police inspector, has come. We have 
 made acquaintance and are beginning to talk. Good- 
 bye till to-morrow. 
 
 Tomsk, 
 May 16. 
 
 It seems my strong boots were the cause, being too 
 tight at the back. My sweet Misha, if you ever have 
 any children, which I have no doubt you will, the 
 advice I bequeath to them is not to run after cheap 
 goods. Cheapness in Russian goods is the label of 
 worthlessness. To my mind it is better to go bare- 
 foot than to wear cheap boots. Picture my agony!
 
 160 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I keep getting out of the chaise, sitting down on damp 
 ground and taking off my boots to rest my heels. So 
 comfortable in the frost! I had to buy felt over- 
 boots in Ishim. ... So I drove in felt boots till 
 they collapsed from the mud and the damp. 
 
 In the morning between five and six o'clock one 
 cirinks tea at a hut. Tea on a journey is a great 
 blessing. I know^ its value now, and drink it with the 
 fury of a Yanov. It warms one through and drives 
 away sleep ; one eats a lot of bread with it, and in the 
 absence of other nourishment, bread has to be eaten 
 in great quantities; that is why peasants eat so much 
 bread and farinaceous food. One drinks tea and talks 
 wdth the peasant women, who are sensible, tender- 
 hearted, industrious, as well as being devoted mothers 
 and more free than in European Russia; their hus- 
 bands don't abuse or beat them, because they are as 
 tall, as strong, and as clever as their lords and masters 
 are. They act as drivers when their husbands are 
 away from home; they like making jokes. They are 
 not severe with their children, they spoil them. The 
 children sleep on soft beds and lie as long as they like, 
 drink tea and eat with the men, and scold the latter 
 when they laugh at them affectionately. There is 
 no diphtheria. Malignant smallpox is prevalent here, 
 but strange to say, it is less contagious than in other 
 parts of the world; two or three catch it and die and 
 that is the end of the epidemic. There are no hos- 
 pitals or doctors. The doctoring is done by feld- 
 shers. Bleeding and cupping are done on a grand- 
 iose, brutal scale. I examined a Jew with cancer in 
 the liver. The Jew was exhausted, hardly breathing, 
 but that did not prevent the feldsher from cupping 
 him twelve times. Apropos of the Jews. Here they
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 161 
 
 till the land, work as drivers and ierry-men, trade and 
 are called Krestyany,^ because they are de jure and 
 de facto Krestyany. They enjoy universal respect, 
 and according to the "president" they are not in- 
 frequently chosen as village elders. I saw a tall thin 
 Jew who scowled with disgust and spat when the 
 ^'president" told indecent stories: a chaste soul; his 
 wife makes splendid fish-soup. The wife of the Jew 
 who had cancer regaled me with pike caviare and with 
 most delicious white bread. One hears nothing of 
 exploitation by the Jews. And, by the way, about the 
 Poles. There are a few exiles here, sent from Poland 
 in 1864. They are good, hospitable, and very re- 
 fined people. Some of them live in a very wealthy 
 way; others are very poor, and serve as clerks at the 
 stations. Upon the amnesty the former went back 
 to their own country, but soon returned to Siberia 
 again — here they are better off; the latter dream of 
 their native land, though they are old and infirm. 
 At Ishim a wealthy Pole, Pan Zalyessky, who has a 
 daughter like Sasha Kiselyov, for a rouble gave me an 
 excellent dinner and a room to sleep in; he keeps an 
 inn and has become a money-grubber to the marrow 
 of his bones; he fleeces everyone, but yet one feels the 
 Polish gentleman in his manner, in the way the meals 
 are served, in everything. He does not go back to 
 Poland through greed, and through greed endures 
 snow till St. Nikolay's day; when he dies his daugh- 
 ter, who was born at Ishim, will remain here for ever 
 and so will multiply the black eyes and soft features 
 in Siberia! This casual intermixture of blood is to 
 the good, for the Siberian people are not beautiful. 
 There are no dark-haired people. Perhaps you 
 * I.e., Peasants, literally "Christians."— T^raTW^afor's Note.
 
 162 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 would like me to write about the Tatars ? Certainly. 
 There are very few of them here. They are good peo- 
 ple. In the province of Kazan everyone speaks well 
 of them, even the priests, and in Siberia they are 
 "better than the Russians" as the "president" said to 
 me in the presence of Russians, who assented to this 
 by their silence. My God, how rich Russia is in good 
 people! If it were not for the cold which deprives 
 Siberia of the summer, and if it were not for the of- 
 ficials who corrupt the peasants and the exiles, Siberia 
 would be the richest and happiest of lands. 
 
 I have nothing for dinner. Sensible people 
 usually take twenty pounds of provisions when they 
 go to Tomsk. It seems I was a fool and so I have fed 
 for a fortnight on nothing but milk and eggs, which 
 are boiled so that the yolk is hard and the white is soft. 
 One is sick of such fare in two days. I have only 
 twice had dinner during the whole journey, not count- 
 ing the Jewess's fish-soup, which I swallowed after 
 I had had enough to eat with my tea. I have not 
 had any vodka: the Siberian vodka is disgusting, and 
 indeed, I got out of the habit of taking it while I was 
 on the way to Ekaterinburg. One ought to drink 
 vodka: it stimulates the brain, dull and apathetic 
 from travelling, which makes one stupid and feeble. 
 
 Stop! I can't write: the editor of the Sibirsky 
 Vyestnik, N., a local Nozdryov, a drunkard and a 
 rake, has come to make my acquaintance. 
 
 N. has drunk some beer and gone away. I con- 
 tinue. 
 
 For the first three days of my journey my collar- 
 bones, my shoulders and my vertebrae ached from the 
 shaking and jolting. I couldn't stand or sit or he. 
 . . . But on the other hand, all pains in my head
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 163 
 
 and chest have vanished, my appetite has developed 
 incredibly, and my haemorrhoids have subsided com- 
 pletely. The overstrain, the constant worry with 
 luggage and so on, and perhaps the farewell drinking 
 parties in Moscow, had brought on spitting of blood in 
 the mornings, which induced something like depres- 
 sion, arousing gloomy thoughts, but towards the end 
 of the journey it has left off; now I haven't even a 
 cough. It is a long time since I have coughed so lit- 
 tle as now, after being for a fortnight in the open air. 
 After the first three days of travelling my body grew 
 used to the jolting, and in time I did not notice the 
 coming of midday and then of evening and night. 
 The time flew by rapidly as it does in serious illness. 
 You think it is scarcely midday when the peasants 
 say — "You ought to put up for the night, sir, or we 
 may lose our way in the dark"; you look at your 
 watch, and it is actually eight o'clock. 
 
 They drive quickly, but the speed is nothing re- 
 markable. Probably I have come upon the roads in 
 bad condition, and in winter travelling would have 
 been quicker. They dash uphill at a gallop, and be- 
 fore setting off and before the driver gets on the 
 box, the horses need two or three men to hold them. 
 The horses remind me of the fire brigade horses in 
 Moscow. One day we nearly ran over an old woman, 
 and another time almost dashed into an etape. Now, 
 would you like an adventure for which I am indebted 
 to Siberian driving? Only I beg mother not to wail 
 and lament, for it all ended well. On the 6th of 
 May towards daybreak I was being driven with two 
 horses by a very nice old man. It was a little chaise, 
 I was drowsy, and, to while away the time, watched 
 the gleaming of zigzagging lights in the fields and
 
 164 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 birch copses — it was last year's grass on fire; it is 
 their habit here to burn it. Suddenly I hear the swift 
 rattle of wheels, a post-cart at full speed comes flying 
 towards us like a bird, my old man hastens to move 
 to the right, the three horses dash by, and I see in 
 the dusk a huge heavy post-cart with a driver for the 
 return journey in it. It was followed by a second cart 
 also going at full speed. We made haste to move 
 aside to the right. To my great amazement and 
 alarm the approaching cart moved not to its right, 
 but its left. ... I hardly had time to think, "Good 
 heavens! we shall run into each other," when there 
 was a desperate crash, the horses were mixed up in 
 a dark blur, the yokes fell off, my chaise reared up 
 into the air, and I flew to the ground, and my lug- 
 gage on the top of me. But that was not all. . . . 
 A third cart was dashing upon us. This really ought 
 to have smashed me and my luggage to atoms but, 
 thank God ! I was not asleep, I broke no bones in the 
 fall, and managed to jump up so quickly that I was 
 able to get out of the way. "Stop," I bawled to the 
 third cart, "Stop!" The third dashed up to the sec- 
 ond and stopped. Of course if I were able to sleep 
 in a chaise, or if the third cart had followed instantly 
 on the second, I should certainly have come back a 
 cripple or a headless horseman. The results of the 
 collision were broken shafts, torn traces, yokes and 
 luggage scattered on the ground, the horses scared 
 and harassed, and the alarming feeling that we had 
 just been in danger. It turned out that the first 
 driver had lashed up the horses; while in the other 
 two carts the drivers were asleep, and the horses 
 followed the first team with no one controlling them. 
 On recovering from the shock, my old man and the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 165 
 
 other three men fell to abusing each other ferociously. 
 Oh, how they swore! I thought it would end in a 
 fight. You can't imagine the feeling of isolation in 
 the middle of that savage swearing crew in the open 
 country, just before dawn, in sight of the fires far 
 and near consuming the grass, but not warming the 
 cold night air! Oh, how heavy my heart was ! One 
 listened to the swearing, looked at the broken shafts 
 and at one's tormented luggage, and it seemed as 
 though one were cast away in another world, as though 
 one would be crushed in a moment. . . . After an 
 hour's abuse my old man began splicing together 
 the shafts with cord and tying up the traces ; my straps 
 were forced into the service too. We got to the sta- 
 tion somehow, crawling along and stopping from time 
 to time. 
 
 After five or six days rain with high winds began. 
 It rained day and night. The leather overcoat came 
 to the rescue and kept me safe from rain and wind. 
 It's a wonderful coat. The mud was almost im- 
 passable, the drivers began to be unwilling to go 
 on at night. But what was worst of all, and what 
 I shall never forget, was crossing the rivers. One 
 reaches a river at night. . . . One begins shouting 
 and so does the driver. . . . Rain, wind, pieces of 
 ice glide down the river, there is a sound of splashing. 
 - . . And to add to our gaiety there is the cry of a 
 heron. Herons live on the Siberian rivers, so it 
 seems they don't consider the climate but the geo- 
 graphical position. . . . Well, an hour later, in the 
 darkness, a huge ferry-boat of the shape of a barge 
 comes into sight with huge oars that look like the 
 pincers of a crab. The ferry-men are a rowdy set, 
 for the most part exiles banished here by the verdict
 
 166 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 of society for their vicious life. They use insuffer- 
 ably bad language, shout, and ask for money for 
 vodka. . . . The ferr^ang across takes a long, long 
 time ... an agonizingly long time. The ferry- 
 boat crawls. Again the feeling of loneliness, and the 
 heron seems calling on purpose, as though he means 
 to say: "Don't be frightened, old man, I am here, the 
 Lintvaryovs have sent me here from the Psyol." 
 
 On the 7th of May when I asked for horses the 
 driver said the Irtysh had overflowed its banks and 
 flooded the meadows, that Kuzma had set off the day 
 before and had difficulty in getting back, and that I 
 could not go, but must wait. ... I asked: "Wait till 
 when?" Answer: "The Lord onlv knows!" That 
 was vague. Besides, I had taken a vow to get rid 
 on the journey of two of my vices which were a source 
 of considerable expense, trouble, and inconvenience; 
 I mean my readiness to give in, and be overpersuaded. 
 I am quick to agree, and so I have had to travel any- 
 how, sometimes to pay double and to wait for hours 
 at a time. I had taken to refusing to agree and to be- 
 lieve — and my sides have ached less. For instance, 
 they bring out not a proper carriage but a common, 
 jolting cart. I refuse to travel in the jolting cart, 
 I insist, and the carriage is sure to appear, though 
 they may have declared that there was no such thing 
 in the whole village, and so on. Well, I suspected 
 that the Irtysh floods were invented simply to avoid 
 driving me by night through the mud. I pro- 
 tested and told them to start. The peasant who 
 had heard of the floods from Kuzma, and had not 
 himself seen them, scratched himself and consented ; 
 the old men encouraged him, saying that when they 
 were young and used to drive, they were afraid of
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 167 
 
 nothing. We set off. Much rain, a vicious wind, 
 cold . . . and felt boots on my feet. Do you know 
 what felt boots are like when they are soaked? They 
 are like boots of jelly. We drive on and on, and be- 
 hold, there lies stretched before my eyes an immense 
 lake from which the earth appears in patches here 
 and there, and bushes stand out: these are the 
 flooded meadows. In the distance stretches the 
 steep bank of the Irtysh, on which there are white 
 streaks of snow. . . . We begin driving through 
 the lake. We might have turned back, but obstinacy 
 prevented me, and an incomprehensible impulse of 
 defiance mastered me — that impulse which made me 
 bathe from the yacht in the middle of the Black Sea 
 and has impelled me to not a few acts of folly. . . I 
 suppose it is a special neurosis. We drive on and 
 make for the little islands and strips of land. The di- 
 rection is indicated by bridges and planks ; they have 
 been washed away. To cross by them we had to un- 
 harness the horses and lead them over one by one. 
 . . . The driver unharnesses the horses, I jump out 
 into the water in my felt boots and hold them. . . . 
 A pleasant diversion ! And the rain and wind. . . . 
 Queen of Heaven! At last we get to a little island 
 where there stands a hut without a roof. . . . Wet 
 horses are wandering about in the wet dung. A 
 peasant with a long stick comes out of the hut and 
 undertakes to guide us. He rheasures the depth of 
 the water with his stick, and tries the ground. He 
 led us out — God bless him for it! — on to a long strip 
 of ground which he called "the ridge." He instructs 
 us that we must keep to the right — or perhaps it was 
 to the left, I don't remember — and get on to another 
 ridge. This we do. My felt boots are soaking
 
 168 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and squelching, my socks are snuffling. The driver 
 says nothing and clicks dejectedly to his horses. He 
 would gladly turn back, but by now it was late, it 
 was dark. ... At last — oh, joy! — we reach the 
 Irtysh. . . . The further bank is steep but the near 
 bank is sloping. The near one is hollowed out, looks 
 slippery, hateful, not a trace of vegetation. . . . 
 The turbid water splashes upon it with crests of white 
 foam, and dashes back again as though disgusted at 
 touching the uncouth slippery bank on which it 
 seems that none but toads and the souls of murderers 
 could live. . . . The Irtysh makes no loud or roar- 
 ing sound, but it sounds as though it were hammering 
 on coffins in its depths. ... A damnable impres- 
 sion! The further bank is steep, dark brown, deso- 
 late. ... 
 
 There is a hut; the ferry-men live in it. One of 
 them comes out and announces that it is impossible 
 to work the ferry as a storm has come up. The river, 
 they said, was wide, and the wind was strong. And 
 so I had to stay the night at the hut. ... I remem- 
 ber the night. The snoring of the ferry-men and my 
 driver, the roar of the wind, the patter of the rain, 
 the mutterings of the Irtysh. . . . Before going to 
 sleep I wrote a letter to Mar}^a Vladimirovna ; I was 
 reminded of the Bozharovsky pool. 
 
 In the morning they were unwilling to ferry me 
 across: there was a high wind. We had to row across 
 in the boat. I am rowed across the river, while the 
 rai?i comes lashing down, the wind blows, my luggage 
 is drenched and my felt boots, which had been dried 
 overnight in the oven, become jelly again. Oh, the 
 darling leather coat! If I did not catch cold I owe 
 it entirely to that. When I come back you must
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 169 
 
 reward it with an anointing of tallow or castor-oil. 
 On the bank I sat for a whole hour on my portman- 
 teau waiting for horses to come from the village. I 
 remember it was very shppery clambering up the 
 bank. In the village I warmed myself and had some 
 tea. Some exiles came to beg for alms. Every 
 family makes forty pounds of wheaten flour into 
 bread for them every day. It's a kind of forced 
 tribute. 
 
 The exiles take the bread and sell it for drink at 
 the tavern. One exile, a tattered, closely shaven 
 old man, whose eyes had been knocked out in the 
 tavern by his fellow-exiles, hearing that there was a 
 traveller in the room and taking me for a merchant, 
 began singing and repeating the prayers. He recited 
 the prayer for health and for the rest of the soul, and 
 sang the Easter hymn, "Let the Lord arise," and 
 "With thy Saints, Lord" — goodness knows what 
 he didn't sing! Then he began telling lies, saying 
 that he was a Moscow merchant. I noticed how this 
 drunken creature despised the peasants upon whom 
 he was living. 
 
 On the 11th I drove with posting horses. I read 
 the books of complaints at the posting station in my 
 boredom. 
 
 ... On the 12th of May they would not give me 
 horses, saying that I could not drive, because the 
 River Ob had overflowed its banks and flooded all the 
 meadows. They advised me to turn off the track as 
 far as Krasny Yar; then go by boat twelve versts 
 to Dubrovin, and at Dubrovin you can get posting 
 horses. ... I drove with private horses as far as 
 Krasny Yar. I arrive in the morning ; I am told there 
 is a boat, but that I must wait a little as the grand-
 
 170 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 father had sent the workman to row the president's 
 secretary to Dubrovin in it. Very well, we will wait. 
 . . . An hour passes, a second, a third. . . . 
 Midday arrives, then evening. . . . Allah kerim, 
 what a lot of tea I drank, what a lot of bread I ate, 
 what a lot of thoughts I thought! And what a lot 
 I slept! Night came on and still no boat. . . . 
 Early morning came. ... At last at nine o'clock 
 the workmen returned. . . . Thank heaven, we are 
 afloat at last! And how pleasant it is! The air is 
 still, the oarsmen are good, the islands are beauti- 
 ful. . . . The floods caught men and cattle una- 
 awares, and I see peasant women rowing in boats to 
 the islands to milk the cows. And the cows are lean 
 and dejected. There is absolutely no grass for them, 
 owing to the cold. I was rowed twelve versts. At 
 the station of Dubrovin I had tea, and for tea they 
 gave me, can you imagine! waffles. ... I suppose 
 the woman of the house was an exile or the wife of 
 an exile. At the next station an old clerk, a Pole, 
 to whom I gave some antipyrin for his headache, 
 complained of his poverty, and said Count Sapyega, a 
 Pole who was a gentleman-in-waiting at the Austrian 
 Court, and who assisted his fellow-countrymen, had 
 lately arrived there on his way to Siberia, "He stayed 
 near the station," said the clerk, "and I didn't know 
 it! Holy Mother! He would have helped me! I 
 wrote to him at Vienna, but I got no answer, . . ." 
 and so on. Why am I not a Sapyega? I would send 
 this poor fellow to his own country. 
 
 On the 14th of May again they would not give me 
 horses. The Tom was flooded. How vexatious! 
 It meant not mere vexation but despair ! Fifty versts 
 from Tomsk and how unexpected ! A woman in my
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 171 
 
 place would have sobbed. Some kind-hearted peo- 
 ple found a solution for me. "Drive on, sir, as far as 
 the Tom, it is only six versts from here; there they 
 will row you across to Yar, and Ilya Markovitch will 
 take you on from there to Tomsk." I hired a horse 
 and drove to the Tom, to the place where the boat was 
 to be. I drove — there was no boat. They told me it 
 had just set off with the post, and was hardly likely to 
 return as there was such a wind. I began waiting. 
 . . . The ground was covered with snow, it rained 
 and hailed and the wind blew. . . . One hour 
 passed, a second, and no boat. Fate was laughing at 
 me. I returned to the station. There the driver of 
 the mail with three posting horses was just setting off 
 for the Tom. I told him there was no boat. He 
 stayed. Fate rewarded me; the clerk in response to 
 my hesitating inquiry whether there was anything to 
 eat told me the woman of the house had some cabbage 
 soup. Oh, rapture! Oh, radiant day! And the 
 daughter of the house did in fact give me some excel- 
 lent cabbage soup, with some capital meat with roast 
 potatoes and cucumbers. I have not had such a din- 
 ner since I was at Pan Zalyessky's. After the pota- 
 toes I let myself go, and made myself some coffee. 
 
 Towards evening the mail driver, an elderly man 
 who had evidently endured a good deal in his day, 
 and who did not venture to sit down in my presence, 
 began preparing to set off to the Tom. I did the 
 same. We drove off. As soon as we reached the 
 river the boat came into sight — a long boat: I have 
 never dreamed of a boat so long. While the post was 
 being loaded on to the boat I witnessed a strange 
 phenomenon — there was a peal of thunder, a queer 
 thing in a cold wind, with snow on the ground. They
 
 172 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 loaded up and rowed off. My sweet Misha, forgive 
 me for being so rejoiced that I did not bring you with 
 me! How sensible it was of me not to take anyone 
 with me! At first our boat floated over a meadow 
 near willow-bushes. ... As is common before a 
 storm or during a storm, a violent wind suddenly 
 sprang up on the water and stirred up the waves. 
 The boatman who was sitting at the helm advised our 
 waiting in the willow-bushes till the storm was over. 
 They answered him that if the storm grew worse, 
 they might stay in the willow-bushes till night and 
 be drowned all the same. They proceeded to settle 
 it by majority of votes ^ and decided to row on. An 
 evil mocking fate is mine. Oh, why these jests? 
 We rowed on in silence, concentrating our thoughts. 
 ... I remember the figure of the mail-driver, a 
 man of varied experiences. I remember the little 
 soldier who suddenly became as crimson as cherry 
 juice. I thought, if the boat upsets I will fling off my 
 fur coat and my leather coat . . . then my felt boots, 
 then . . . and so on. . . . But the bank came 
 nearer and nearer, one's soul felt easier and easier, 
 one's heart throbbed with joy, one heaved deep sighs 
 as though one could breathe freely at last, and leapt 
 on the wet slippery bank. . . . Thank God! 
 
 At Ilya Markovitch's, the converted Jew's, I was 
 told that I could not drive at night; the road was 
 bad; that I must remain till next day. Very good, 
 I stayed. After tea I sat down to write you this 
 letter, interrupted by the visit of the "president." 
 The president is a rich mixture of Nozdryov, Hlesta- 
 kov and a cur. A drunkard, a rake, a liar, a singer, a 
 story-teller, and with all that a good-natured man. 
 He had brought with him a big trunk stuffed full of
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 17S 
 
 business papers, a bedstead and mattress, a gun, and 
 a secretary. The secretary is an excellent, well- 
 educated man, a protesting liberal who has studied in 
 Petersburg, and is free in his ideas; I don't know how 
 he came to Siberia, he is infected to the marrow of 
 his bones with every sort of disease, and is taking to 
 drink, thanks to his principal, who calls him Kolya. 
 The representative of authority sends for a cordial. 
 "Doctor," he bawls, "drink another glass, I beseech 
 you humbly!" Of course, I drink it. The repre- 
 sentative of authority drinks soundly, lies out- 
 rageously, uses shameless language. We go to bed. 
 In the morning a cordial is sent for again. They 
 swill the cordial till ten o'clock and at last they go. 
 The converted Jew, Ilya Markovitch, whom the 
 peasants here idolize — so I was told — gave me horses 
 to drive to Tomsk. 
 
 The "president," the secretary and I got into the 
 same conveyance. All the way the "president" told 
 lies, drank out of the bottle, boasted that he did 
 not take bribes, raved about the scenery, and shook 
 his fist at the tramps that he met. We drove fifteen 
 versts, then halt! The village of Brovkino. . . . 
 We stop near a Jew's shop and go to take "rest and 
 refreshment." The Jew runs to fetch us a cordial 
 while his wife makes us some fish-soup, of which I 
 have written to you already. The "president" gave 
 orders that the sotsky, the desyatsky, and the road 
 contractor should come to him, and in his drunken- 
 ness began reproving them, not the least restrained 
 by my presence. He swore like a Tatar. 
 
 I soon parted from the "president," and on the 
 evening of the 15th of May by an appalling road 
 reached Tomsk. During the last two days I have
 
 174 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 only done seventy versts; you can imagine what the 
 roads are like! 
 
 In Tomsk the mud was almost impassable. Of 
 the town and the manner of living here I will write 
 in a day or two, but good-bye for now — I am tired of 
 writing. 
 
 ****** 
 
 There are no poplars. The Kuvshinnikov General 
 was lying. I have seen no nightingales. There are 
 magpies and cuckoos. 
 
 I received a telegram of eighty words from Suvorin 
 to-day. 
 
 Excuse this letter's being like a hotch-potch. It's 
 incoherent, but I can't help it. Sitting in an hotel 
 room one can't write better. Excuse its being long, 
 It's not my fault. My pen ran away with me — be- 
 sides, I wanted to go on talking to you. It's three 
 o'clock in the night. My hand is tired. The wick 
 of the candle wants snuffing, I can hardly see. Write 
 to me at Sahalin every four or five days. It seems 
 that the post goes there, not only by sea but across 
 Siberia, so I shall get letters frequently. 
 
 ****** 
 
 All the Tomsk people tell me that there has not 
 been a spring so cold and rainy as this one since 1842. 
 Half Tomsk is under water. My luck ! 
 
 I am eating sweets. 
 
 I shall have to stay at Tomsk till the rains are over. 
 They say the road to Irkutsk is awful.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 175 
 
 Tomsk, 
 
 May 20. 
 
 It is Trinity Sunday with you, while with us even 
 the willow has not yet come out, and there is still 
 snow on the banks of the Tom. To-morrow I am 
 starting for Irkutsk. I am rested. There is no need 
 for hurry, as steam navigation on Lake Baikal does 
 not begin till the 10th of June; but I shall go all the 
 same. 
 
 I am alive and well, my money is safe; I have a 
 slight pain in my right eye. It aches. 
 
 . . . Everyone advises me to go back across 
 America, as they say one may die of boredom in the 
 Volunteer Fleet; it's all military discipline and red 
 tape regulations, and they don't often touch at a 
 port. 
 
 To fill up my time I have been writing some im- 
 pressions of my journey and sending them to Novoye 
 Vremya; you will read them soon after the 10th of 
 June. I write a little about everything, chit-chat. 
 I don't write for glory but from a financial point of 
 view, and in consideration of the money I have had 
 in advance. 
 
 Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the 
 drunkards whose acquaintance I have made, and 
 from the intellectual people who have come to the 
 hotel to pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are 
 very dull too. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In two and a half days I shall be in Krasnoyarsk, 
 and in seven or eight in Irkutsk. It's fifteen hundred 
 versts to Irkutsk. I have made myself coffee and am 
 just going to drink it.
 
 176 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 . . . After Tomsk the Taiga begins. We shall 
 see it. 
 
 My greeting to all the Lintvaryovs and to our old 
 Maryushka. I beg mother not to worry and not to 
 put faith in bad dreams. Have the radishes suc- 
 ceeded? There are none here at all. 
 
 Keep well, don't worry about money — there will 
 be plenty; don't try to spend less and spoil the sum- 
 mer for yourselves. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Tomsk, 
 May 20, 1890. 
 
 Greetings to you at last from Siberia, dear Alexey 
 'Sergeyevitch ! I have missed you and our corres- 
 pondence terribly. 
 
 I will begin from the beginning, however. At 
 Tyumen I was told the first steamer to Tomsk went 
 on the 18th of May. I had to do the journey with 
 horses. For the first three days every joint and sinew 
 ached, but afterwards I got used to the jolting and 
 felt no more aches. Only the lack of sleep, the con- 
 tinual worry over the luggage, the jolting and the 
 'tasting brought on spitting of blood when I coughed, 
 and this depressed my spirits, which were none too 
 grand before. For the first few days it was bearable 
 but then a cold wind began to blow, the windows of 
 heaven were opened, the rivers flooded the meadows 
 and roads, I was continually having to change my 
 chaise for a boat. You'll read of my struggles with 
 the floods and the mud in the article I enclose. I did 
 not mention in it that my big high boots were tight, 
 and that I waded through the mud and the water in
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 177 
 
 my felt boots, and that my felt boots were soaked 
 to jelly. The road was so abominable that during 
 the last two days of my journey I only did seventy 
 versts. 
 
 When I set off I promised to send you notes of my 
 journey after Tomsk, since the road between Tyumen 
 and Tomsk has been described a thousand times 
 already. But in your telegram you have expressed 
 the desire to get my impressions of Siberia as quickly 
 as possible, and have even had the cruelty, sir, to 
 reproach me with lapse of memory, as though I had 
 forgotten you. It was absolutely impossible to write 
 on the road. I kept a brief diary in pencil and can 
 offer you now only what is written in that diary. To 
 avoid writing at great length and getting mixed up, 
 I divided all my impressions into chapters. I am 
 sending you six chapters. They are written for you 
 personally. I wrote for you only, and so have not 
 been afraid of being too subjective, and have not 
 been afraid of there being more of Chekhov's feelings 
 and thoughts than of Siberia in them. If you find 
 some lines interesting and worth printing, give them a 
 profitable publicity, signing them with my name and 
 printing them in separate chapters, a tablespoonful 
 once an hour. The general title can be From Siberia, 
 then From Trans-Baikalia, then From the Amur, and 
 so on. 
 
 You shall have another helping from Irkutsk, for 
 which I am starting to-morrow. I shall not be less 
 than ten days on the journey — the road is bad. I 
 shall send you a few chapters again, and shall send 
 them whether you intend to print them or not. 
 Read them and when you are tired of them telegraph 
 to me "Shut up!"
 
 178 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I have been as hungry as a dog the whole way. 
 I stuffed myself with bread so as not to dream of 
 turbot, asparagus, and suchlike. I even dreamed of 
 buckwheat porridge. I have dreamed of it for hours 
 at a time. 
 
 At Tyumen I bought some sausage for the journey, 
 but what sausage! When you take a bit in your 
 mouth there's a sniff as though you had gone into a 
 stable at the very moment when the coachmen were 
 taking off their leg-wrappers; when you begin chew- 
 ing it, you feel as though you had fastened your teeth 
 into a dog's tail defiled with pitch. Tfoo! I ate 
 some once or twice, and threw it away. 
 
 I have had one telegram and the letter from you 
 in which you write that you want to bring out an 
 encyclopaedic dictionary. I don't know why, but the 
 nev/s of that dictionary rejoiced me greatly. Do, my 
 dear friend! If I am any use for working on it, I 
 will devote November and December to you, and will 
 spend those months in Petersburg. I will sit at it 
 from morning till night. 
 
 I made a fair copy of my notes at Tomsk in horrid 
 hotel surroundings, but I took trouble about it and 
 was not without a desire to please you. I thought, 
 he must be bored and hot in Feodosia, let him read 
 about the cold. These notes will come to you instead 
 of a letter which has been taking shape in my head 
 during the whole journey. In return you must send 
 to me at Sahalin all your critical reviews except the 
 first two, which I have read; have Peshel's "Ethnol- 
 ogy" sent me there too, except the first two instal- 
 ments, which I have already. 
 
 The post to Sahalin goes both by sea and across 
 Siberia, so if people write to me I shall get letters
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 179 
 
 often. Don't lose my address — Island of Sahalin, 
 Alexandrovsky Post. 
 
 Oh, the expense ! Gewalt! Thanks to the floods, 
 I had to pay the drivers double and almost treble, for 
 it has been fiendishly hard work. My trunk, a very 
 charming article, has turned out unsuitable for the 
 journey; it takes a lot of room, pokes one in the ribs, 
 and rattles, and worst of all threatens to burst open. 
 "Don't take boxes on long journeys!" good people 
 said to me, but I remembered this advice only when 
 I had gone half-way. Well, I am leaving my trunk 
 to reside permanently at Tomsk, and am buying in- 
 stead of it a sort of leather carcase, which has the 
 advantage that it can be tied so as to form two halves 
 at the bottom of the chaise as one likes. I paid six- 
 teen roubles for it. Next point. To travel to the 
 Amur, changing one's conveyance at every station, 
 is torture. You shatter both yourself and all your 
 luggage. I was advised to buy a trap. I bought one 
 to-day for one hundred and thirty roubles. If I don't 
 succeed in selling it at Sryetensk, where my horse 
 journey ends, I shall be in a fix and shall howl aloud. 
 To-day I dined with the editor of the Sibirsky 
 Vyestnik, a local Nozdryov, a broad nature. . . . He 
 drank to the tune of six roubles. 
 
 Stop ! They announce that the deputy police mas- 
 ter wants to see me. What can it be?!? 
 
 My alarm was unnecessary. The police officer 
 turns out to be devoted to literature and himself an 
 author; he has come to pay his respects to me. He 
 went home to fetch his play, and I believe intends 
 to regale me with it. He is just coming again and 
 preventing me from writing to you. . . . 
 
 . . . My greetings to Nastyusha and Boris. I
 
 180 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 should be genuinely delighted for their satisfaction 
 to fling myself into the jaws of a tiger and call them 
 to my aid, but, alas! I haven't reached the tigers 
 here: the only furry animals I have seen so far in 
 Siberia are many hares and one mouse. 
 
 Stop! The pohce officer has returned. He has 
 not read me his drama though he brought it, but re- 
 galed me with a story. It's not bad, only too local. 
 He showed me a nugget of gold. He asked for some 
 vodka. I don't remember a single educated Siberian 
 who has not asked for vodka on coming to see me. 
 He told me he had a mistress, a married woman; he 
 gave me a petition to the Tsar about divorce to 
 read. ... 
 
 ****** 
 
 How glad I am when I am forced to stop some- 
 where for the night ! I no sooner roll into bed than 
 I am asleep. Here, travelling and not sleeping at 
 night, one prizes sleep above everything. There is 
 no greater enjoyment in life than sleep when one 
 is sleepy. In Moscow, in Russia generally, I never 
 was sleepy as I understand the word now. I went to 
 bed simply because one had to. But now! Another 
 observation. On a journey one has no desire for 
 spirits. I can't drink. I smoke a great deal. 
 One's mind does not work well. I cannot put my 
 thoughts together. Time flies rapidly, so that one 
 scarcely notices it, from ten o'clock in the morning to 
 seven o'clock in the evening. Evening comes quickly 
 after morning. It's just the same when one is seri- 
 ously ill. The wind and the rain have made my face 
 all scaly, and when I look in the looking-glass I don't 
 recognize my once noble features.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 181 
 
 I am not going to describe Tomsk. All the towns 
 are alike in Russia. Tomsk is a dull and intemperate 
 town. There are absolutely no good-looking women, 
 and the disregard for justice is Asiatic. The town is 
 remarkable for the fact that governors die in it. 
 
 If my letters are short, careless, or dry, don't be 
 cross, for one cannot always be oneself on a journey 
 and write as one wants to. The ink is bad, and there 
 is always a hair or a splodge on one's pen. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Krasnoyarsk, 
 May 28, 1890. 
 
 What a deadly road! It was all we could do to 
 crawl to Krasnoyarsk and my trap had to be repaired 
 twice. The first thing to be broken was the vertical 
 piece of iron connecting the front of the carriage with 
 the axle; then the so-called circle under the front 
 broke. I have never in all my life seen such a road — 
 such impassable mud and such an utterly neglected 
 road. I am going to write about its horrors to the 
 Novoye Vremya, and so won't talk about it now. 
 
 The last three stations have been splendid; as one 
 comes down to Krasnoyarsk one seems to be getting 
 into a different world. You come out of the forest 
 into a plain which is like our Donets steppe, but here 
 the mountain ridges are grander. The sun shines its 
 very best and the birch-trees are out, though three sta- 
 tions back the buds were not even bursting. Thank 
 God, I have at last reached a summer in which there is 
 neither rain nor a cold wind. Krasnoyarsk is a pic- 
 turesque, cultured town ; compared with it, Tomsk is 
 "'a pig in a skull-cap and the acme of mauvais ton/'
 
 182 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 The streets are clean and paved, the houses are of 
 stone and large, the churches are elegant. 
 
 I am alive and perfectly well. My money is all 
 right, and so are my things ; I lost my woollen stock- 
 ings but soon found them again. 
 
 Apart from my trap, everything so far has been 
 satisfactory and I have nothing to complain of. 
 Only I am spending an awful lot of money. Incom- 
 petence in the practical affairs of life is never felt so 
 much as on a journey. I pay more than I need to, 
 I do the wrong thing, and I say the wrong thing, and 
 I am always expecting what does not happen. 
 
 ... I shall be in Irkutsk in five or six days, shall 
 spend as many days there, then drive on to Sryetensk 
 — and that will be the end of my journey on land. 
 For more than a fortnight I have been driving with- 
 out a break, I think about nothing else, I live for 
 nothing else; every morning I see the sunrise from 
 beginning to end. I've grown so used to it that it 
 seems as though all my life I had been driving and 
 struggling with the muddy roads. When it does not 
 rain, and there are no pits of mud on the road, one 
 feels queer and even a little bored. And how filthy 
 I am, what a rapscallion I look! What a state my 
 luckless clothes are in ! 
 
 . . . For mother's information: I have still a jar 
 and a half of coffee ; I feed on locusts and wild honey ; 
 I shall dine to-day at Irkutsk. The further east one 
 gets the dearer everything is. Rye flour is seventy 
 kopecks a pood, while on the other side of Tomsk it 
 was twenty-five and twenty-seven kopecks per pood, 
 and wheaten flour thirty kopecks. The tobacco sold 
 in Siberia is vile and loathsome; I tremble because 
 mine is nearly done.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 183 
 
 ... I am travelling with two lieutenants and an 
 army doctor who are all on their way to the Amur. 
 So my revolver is after all quite superfluous. In 
 such company hell would have no terrors. We are 
 just having tea at the station, and after tea we are 
 going to have a look at the town. 
 
 I should have no objection to living in Krasno- 
 yarsk. I can't think why this is a favourite place for* 
 sending exiles to. 
 
 * 4e- * * * * 
 
 Your Homo Sachaliensis, 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 To HIS Brother Alexandr. 
 
 Irkutsk, 
 
 June 5, 1890. 
 
 My European Brother, 
 
 It is, of course, unpleasant to live in Siberia ; 
 but better to live in Siberia and feel oneself a man of 
 moral worth, than to live in Petersburg with the repu- 
 tation of a drunkard and a scoundrel. No reference 
 to present company. 
 
 * * -jf * * * 
 
 Siberia is a cold and long country. I drive on and 
 on and see no end to it. I see little that is new or of 
 interest, but I feel and experience a great deal. I 
 have contended with flooded rivers, with cold, with 
 impassable mud, hunger and sleepiness: such sen- 
 sations as you could not get for a million in Moscow ! 
 You ought to come to Siberia. Ask the authorities 
 to exile you. 
 
 The best of all Siberian towns is Irkutsk. Tomsk
 
 184 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 is not worth a brass farthing, and the district towns 
 are no better than the Kryepkaya in which you were 
 so heedlessly born. What is most provoking, there 
 is nothing to eat in the district towns, and oh dear, 
 how conscious one is of that on the journey! You 
 get to a town and feel ready to eat a mountain; you 
 arrive and — alack! — no sausage, no cheese, no meat, 
 no herring even, but the same insipid eggs and milk 
 as in the villages. 
 
 On the whole I am satisfied with my expedition, 
 and don't regret having come. The travelling is 
 hard, but the resting after it is delightful. I rest 
 with enjoyment. 
 
 From Irkutsk I shall make for Baikal, which I 
 shall cross by steamer; it's a thousand versts from 
 the Baikal to the Amur, and thence I shall go by 
 steamer to the Pacific, where the first thing I shall do 
 is to have a bath and eat oysters. 
 
 I got here yesterday and went first of all to have a 
 bath, then to bed. Oh, how I slept! I never 
 understood what sleep meant till now. 
 
 •5e- -jf -jf * * * 
 
 I bless you with both hands. 
 
 Your Asiatic brother, 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 To A. N. Pleshtcheyev. 
 
 Irkutsk, 
 
 June 5, 1890. 
 
 A thousand greetings to you, dear Alexey Niko- 
 laevitch. 
 
 At last I have vanquished the most difficult three
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 185 
 
 thousand versts; I am sitting in a decent hotel and 
 can write. I have rigged myself out all in new things 
 and, as far as possible, smart ones, for you cannot 
 imagine how sick I was of my big muddy boots, of my 
 sheepskin smelHng of tar, of my overcoat covered with 
 bits of hay, of dust and crumbs in my pockets, and 
 of my extremely dirty linen. I looked such a raga- 
 muffin on the journey that even the tramps eyed me 
 askance; and then, as ill luck would have it, the cold 
 winds and rain chapped my face and made it scaly 
 like a fish. Now at last I am a European again, and 
 I am conscious of it all over. 
 
 Well, what am I to write to you? It's all so long 
 and so vast that one doesn't know where to begin. 
 All my experiences in Siberia I divide into three 
 periods, (l) From Tyumen to Tomsk, fifteen hun- 
 dred versts, terrible cold, day and night, sheepskin, 
 felt boots, cold rains, winds and a desperate life- 
 and-death struggle with the flooded rivers. The 
 rivers had flooded the meadows and roads, and I was 
 constantly exchanging my trap for a boat and floating 
 like a Venetian on a gondola ; the boats, the waiting 
 on the bank for them, the rowing across, etc., all that 
 took up so much time that during the last two days 
 before reaching Tomsk, in spite of all my efforts, I 
 only did seventy versts instead of four or five 
 hundred. There were, moreover, some very uneasy 
 and unpleasant moments, especially when the wind 
 rose and began to buffet the boat. (2) From 
 Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk, five hundred versts, impass- 
 able mud, my chaise and I stuck in the mud like flies 
 in thick jam. How many times I broke my chaise 
 (it's my own property!) how many versts I walked! 
 how bespattered my countenance and my clothes
 
 186 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 were ! It was not driving but wading through mud. 
 How I swore at it all ! My brain would not work, I 
 could do nothing but swear. I was utterly ex- 
 hausted, and was very glad to reach the posting 
 station at Krasnoyarsk. (3) From Krasnoyarsk 
 to Irkutsk, fifteen hundred and sixty-six versts, 
 heat, smoke from the burning woods, and dust 
 — dust in one's mouth, in one's nose, in one's 
 pockets; when you look at yourself in the glass, 
 you think your face has been painted. When, 
 on reaching Irkutsk, I washed at the baths, the 
 soapsuds off my head were not white but of an 
 ashen brown colour, as though I were washing a horse. 
 
 When I get home I will tell you about the Yenissey 
 and the Taiga — very interesting and curious, for it is 
 something quite new to a European; everything else 
 is ordinary and monotonous. Roughly speaking, 
 the scenery of Siberia is not very different from that 
 of European Russia; there are differences, but they 
 are not very noticeable. Travelling is perfectly 
 safe. 
 
 Robbers and highwaymen are all nonsense and 
 fairy tales. A revolver is utterly unnecessary, and 
 you are as safe at night in the forest as you are by day 
 on the Nevsky Prospect. It's different for anyone 
 travelling on foot. . . . 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 Irkutsk, 
 June 5, 1890. 
 
 Greetings, dear Nikolay Alexandrovitch ! 
 
 I send you heartfelt good wishes from Irkutsk, 
 from the depths of Siberia. I reached Irkutsk last 
 night and was very glad to have arrived, as I was
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 187 
 
 exhausted by the journey and missed friends and 
 relations, to whom I had not written for ages. Well, 
 what is there of interest to write to you? I will begin 
 by telling you that the journey is extraordinarily 
 long. From Tyumen to Irkutsk I have driven more 
 than three thousand versts. From Tyumen to 
 Tomsk I had cold and flooded rivers to contend with. 
 The cold was awful; on Ascension Day there was 
 frost and snow, so that I could not take off my sheep- 
 skin and felt boots until I reached the hotel at 
 Tomsk. As for the floods, they were a veritable 
 plague of Egypt. The rivers rose above their banks 
 and overflowed the meadows, and with them the 
 roads, for dozens of versts around. I was continually 
 having to exchange my chaise for a boat, and one 
 could not get a boat for nothing — for a good boat 
 one had to pay with one's heart's blood, for one had to 
 sit waiting on the bank for twenty-four hours at a 
 stretch in the cold wind and the rain. . . . From 
 Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk was a desperate struggle 
 through impassable mud. My goodness, it frightens 
 me to think of it! How often I had to mend mv 
 chaise, to walk, to swear, to get out of my chaise and 
 get into it again, and so on ! It sometimes happened 
 that I was from six to ten hours getting from one 
 station to another, and every time the chaise had to be 
 mended it took from ten to fifteen hours. From Kras- 
 noyarsk to Irkutsk was fearfully hot and dusty. Add 
 to all that hunger, dust in one's nose, one's eyes 
 glued together with sleep, the continual dread that 
 something would get broken in the chaise (it is my 
 own), and boredom. . . . Nevertheless I am well 
 content, and I thank God that He has given me the 
 strength and opportunity to make this journey. I have
 
 188 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 seen and experienced a great deal, and it has all been 
 very new and interesting to me not as a literary man, 
 but as a human being. The Yenissey, the Taiga, the 
 stations, the drivers, the wild scenery, the wild life, 
 the physical agonies caused by the discomforts of 
 the journey, the enjoyment I got from rest — all taken 
 together is so delightful that I can't describe it. The 
 mere fact that I have been for more than a month in 
 the open air is interesting and healthy ; every day for 
 a month I have seen the sunrise. . . . 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Irkutsk, 
 
 June 6, 1890. 
 
 Greetings to you, dear mother, Ivan, Masha and 
 Misha, and all of you ! 
 
 In my last long letter I wrote to you that the 
 mountains near Krasnoyarsk are like the Donets 
 Ridge, but that's not true; when I looked at them 
 from the street I saw they were like high walls 
 surrounding the city, and I was vividly reminded of 
 the Caucasus. And when towards evening I left the 
 town and was crossing the Yenissey, I saw on the 
 other bank mountains that were exactlv like the 
 Caucasus, as misty and dreamy. The Yenissey is a 
 broad, swift, winding river, beautiful, finer than the 
 Volga. And the ferry across it is wonderful, in- 
 geniously constructed, moving against the current; 
 I will tell you when I am home about the construction 
 of it. And so the mountains and the Yenissey are the 
 first things original and new that I have met in 
 Siberia. The mountains and the Yenissev have given 
 me sensations which have made up to me a hundred-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 189 
 
 fold for all the trials and troubles of the journey, and 
 which have made me call Levitan a fool for being so 
 stupid as not to come with me. 
 
 The Taiga stretches unbroken from Krasnoyarsk 
 to Irkutsk. The trees are not bigger than in Sokol- 
 niki, but not one driver knows how far it goes. There 
 is no end to be seen to it. It stretches for hundreds 
 of versts. No one knows who or what is in the Taiga, 
 and it only happens in winter that people come 
 through the Taiga from the far north with reindeer 
 for bread. When you get to the top of a mountain 
 and look down, you see a mountain before you, then, 
 another, mountains at the sides too — and all thickly 
 covered with forest. It makes one feel almost 
 frightened. That's the second thing original and 
 new. 
 
 From Krasnoyarsk it began to be hot and dusty. 
 The heat was terrible. My sheepskin and cap lie 
 buried away. The dust is in my mouth, in my nose, 
 down my neck — tfoo ! We were approaching Irkutsk 
 — we had to cross the Angara by ferry. As though- 
 to mock us a high wind sprang up. My military 
 companions and I, after dreaming for ten days of a 
 bath, dinner, and sleep, stood on the bank and turned 
 pale at the thought that we should have to spend the 
 night not at Irkutsk, but in the village. The ferry 
 could not succeed in reaching the bank. We stood 
 an hour, a second, and — oh Heavens! — the ferry 
 made an effort and reached the bank. Bravo, we 
 shall have a bath, we shall have supper and sleep! 
 Oh, how sweet to steam oneself, to eat, to sleep ! 
 
 Irkutsk is a fine town. Quite a cultured town.. 
 There is a theatre, a museum, a town garden with a 
 band, a good hotel. ... No hideous fences, no ab-
 
 190 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 surd shop-signs, and no waste places with warming 
 placards. There is a tavern called "Taganrog"; 
 sugar costs twenty-four kopecks a pound, pine kernels 
 six kopecks a pound. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I am quite well. My money is safe. I am saving 
 up my coffee for Sahalin. I have splendid tea here, 
 after which I am aware of an agreeable excitement. 
 I see Chinamen. They are a good-natured and in- 
 telligent people. At the Siberian bank they gave me 
 money at once, received me cordially, regaled me with 
 cigarettes, and invited me to their summer villa. 
 There is a magnificent confectioner's but everything 
 is fiendishly dear. The pavements are of wood. 
 
 Last night I drove with the officers about the town. 
 We heard someone cry "help" six times. It must 
 have been someone being murdered. We went to 
 look, but could not find anyone. 
 
 The cabs in Irkutsk have springs. It is a better 
 town than Ekaterinburg or Tomsk. Quite Euro- 
 pean. 
 
 Have a Mass celebrated on June 17th,* and keep 
 the 29tht as festively as you can; I shall be with you 
 in thought and you must drink my health. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Everything I have is crumpled, dirty, torn! I 
 look like a pickpocket. 
 
 I shall not bring you any furs most likely. I do not 
 know where they are sold, and I am too lazy to ask. 
 
 One must take at least two big pillows for a journey 
 and dark pillow cases are essential. 
 
 * The anniversary of the death of his brother Nikolay. 
 t His father's name-day.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 191 
 
 What is Ivan doing? Where has he been? Has 
 he been to the south? I am going from Irkutsk to 
 Baikal. My companions are preparing for sea-sick- 
 ness. 
 
 My big boots have grown looser with wearing, and 
 don't hurt my heels now. 
 
 I have ordered buckwheat porridge for to-morrow. 
 On the journey here I thought of curds and began 
 having them with milk at the stations. 
 
 Did you get my postcards from the little towns? 
 Keep them: I shall be able to judge from them how 
 long the post takes. The post here is in no hurry. 
 
 Irkutsk, 
 
 June 7, 1890. 
 
 . . . The Steamer from Sryetensk leaves on June 
 20th. Good Christians, what am I to do till the 
 20th? How am I to dispose of myself? The 
 journey to Sryetensk will only take five or six days. 
 I have greatly altered the route of my journey. From 
 Habarovsk (look at the map*) I am going not to 
 Nikolaevsk, but by the Ussuri to Vladivostok, and 
 from there to Sahalin. I must have a look at the 
 Ussuri region. At Vladivostok I shall bathe in the 
 sea and eat oysters. 
 
 It was cold till I reached Kansk; from Kansk (see 
 map) I began to go down to the south. Everything 
 is as green as with you, even the oaks are out. The 
 birches here are darker than in Russia, the green is 
 not so sentimental. There are masses of the Russian 
 white service-tree, which here takes the place of both 
 the lilac and the cherry. They say they make an 
 
 * Chekhov's family had, during his absence, a map of Siberia 
 on the wall by means of which they followed his progress.
 
 192 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 excellent jam from the service-tree. I tasted some of 
 the fruit pickled; it was not bad. 
 
 Two lieutenants and an army doctor are travelling 
 with me. They have received their travelling ex- 
 penses three times over, but have spent all the money, 
 though they are travelling in one carriage. They 
 are sitting without a farthing, waiting for the pay de- 
 partment to send them some money. They are nice 
 fellows. They have had from fifteen hundred to 
 two thousand roubles each for travelling expenses, 
 and the journey will cost them next to nothing (ex- 
 cluding, of course, the cost of the stopping places). 
 They do nothing but pitch into everybody at hotels 
 and stations so that people are positively afraid to 
 present their bills. In their company I pay less than 
 usual. . . . To-day for the first time in my life I 
 saw a Siberian cat. It has long soft fur, and a gentle 
 disposition. 
 
 ... I felt homesick and sent you a telegram to- 
 day asking you to subscribe together and send me a 
 long telegram. It would be nothing to all of you, in- 
 habitants of Luka, to fling away five roubles. 
 
 . . . With whom is Mishka in love? To what 
 happy woman is Ivanenko telling stories of his 
 uncle? ... I must be in love with Jamais as I 
 dreamed of her yesterday. In comparison with all 
 the "jeunes Siberiennes" with their Yakut-Buriat 
 physiognomies, who do not know how to dress, to 
 sing, and to laugh, our Jamais^ Drishka, and Gund- 
 assiha are simply queens. The Siberian girls and 
 women are like frozen fish; one would have to be a 
 walrus or a seal to get up a flirtation with them. 
 
 I am tired of my companions. It is much nicer 
 travelling alone. I like silence better than anything
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 193 
 
 on the journey and my companions talk and sing 
 without stopping, and they talk of nothing but 
 women. They borrowed a hundred and thirty-six 
 roubles from me till to-morrow and have already 
 spent it. They are regular sieves. 
 
 . . . The stations are sometimes thirty to thirty- 
 five versts apart. You drive by night, you drive and 
 drive, till you feel silly and light-headed, and if you 
 venture to ask the driver how far it is to the next 
 station, he will never say less than seventeen versts. 
 That's particularly agonizing when you have to go at 
 a walking pace along a muddy road full of holes, and 
 when you are thirsty. I have learned to do without 
 sleep; I don't mind a bit when they wake me. As 
 a rule one does not sleep for one day and night, and 
 then the next day at dinner-time there is a strained 
 feeling in one's eyelids; in the evening and in the 
 night towards daybreak of the third day, one dozes 
 in the chaise and sometimes falls asleep for a minute 
 as one sits ; at dinner and after dinner at the stations, 
 while the horses are being harnessed, one lolls on the 
 sofa, and the real torture only begins at night. In 
 the evening, after drinking five glasses of tea, one's 
 face begins to burn, one's body feels limp all over and 
 longs to bend backwards; one's eyes close, one's feet 
 ache in one's big boots, one's brain is in a tangle. If 
 I allow myself to put up for the night I fall into a dead 
 sleep at once; if I have strength of will to go on, I 
 drop asleep in the chaise, however violent the jolting 
 may be; at the stations the drivers wake one up, as one 
 has to get out of the chaise and pay for the journey. 
 They wake one not so much by shouting and tugging 
 at one's sleeve, as by the stink of garlic that issues 
 from their lips; they smell of garlic and onion till
 
 194 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 they make me sick. I only learned to sleep in the 
 chaise after Krasnoyarsk. On the way to Irkutsk I 
 slept for fifty-eight versts, and was only once woken 
 up. But the sleep one gets as one drives makes one 
 feel no better. It's not real sleep, but a sort of un- 
 conscious condition, after which one's head is mud- 
 dled and there's a bad taste in one's mouth. 
 
 Chinamen are like those decrepit old gentlemen 
 dear Nikolay* used to like drawing. Some of them 
 have splendid pigtails. 
 
 The police came to see me at Tomsk. Towards 
 eleven o'clock the waiter suddenly announced to me 
 that the assistant police-master wanted to see me. 
 What was this for? Could it be pohtics? Could 
 they suspect me of being a Voltairian? I said to the 
 waiter, "Ask him in." A gentleman with long 
 moustaches walks in and introduces himself. It ap- 
 pears he is devoted to literature, writes himself, and 
 has come to me in my hotel room as though to 
 Mahomed at Mecca to worship. I'll tell you why 
 I thought of him. Late in the autumn he is going to 
 Petersburg, and I have foisted my trunk upon him 
 and asked him to leave it at the Novoye Vremya office. 
 You might keep that in mind in case any one of us 
 or our friends goes to Petersburg. 
 
 You might, by the way, look out for a place in the 
 country. When I get back to Russia I shall take 
 five years' rest — that is, stay in one place and twiddle 
 my thumbs. A place in the country will come in 
 very handy. I think the money will be found, for 
 things don't look bad. If I work off the money I 
 have had in advance (half of it is worked off already) 
 I shall certainly borrow two or three thousand in the 
 
 * Chekhov's brother.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 195 
 
 spring, to be paid off over a period of five years. 
 That will not be against my conscience, as I have 
 already let the publishing department of the Novoye 
 Vremya make two or three thousand out of my books, 
 and I shall let them make more. 
 
 I think I shall not begin on any serious work till I 
 am five and thirty. ... I want to try personal 
 life, of which I have had some before, but have not 
 noticed it owing to various circumstances. 
 
 To-day I rubbed my leather coat with grease. It's 
 a splendid coat. It has saved me from catching 
 cold. My sheepskin is a capital thing, too: it serves 
 me as a coat and a mattress, both. One is as warm 
 in it as on a stove. It's wretched without pillows. 
 Hay does not take the place of them, and with the 
 continual friction there's a lot of dust from it which 
 tickles one's face and prevents one from dozing. I 
 haven't a single sheet. That's horrid too. And I 
 ought to have taken some more trousers. The more 
 luggage one has the better — there's less jolting and 
 more comfort. 
 
 Good-bye, though. I have got nothing more to 
 write about. My greetings to all. 
 
 Station Listvenitchnaya, 
 ON Lake Baikal, 
 
 June 13. 
 
 I am having an idiotic time. On the evening of 
 the 11th of June, the day before yesterday, we set 
 off from Irkutsk, in the fond hope of catching the 
 Baikal steamer, which leaves at four o'clock in the 
 morning. From Irkutsk to Baikal there are only 
 three stations. At the first station they informed us 
 that all the horses were exhausted and that it was
 
 196 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 therefore impossible to go. We had to put up for 
 the night. Yesterday morning we set off from that 
 station, and by midday we reached Baikal. We went 
 to the harbour, and in answer to our inquiries were 
 told that the steamer did not go till Friday the 
 fifteenth. This meant that we should have to sit on 
 the bank and look at the water and wait. As there 
 is nothing that does not end in time, I have no ob- 
 jection to waiting, and always wait patiently; but the 
 point is the steamer leaves Sryetensk on the 20th 
 and sails down the Amur: if we don't catch it we 
 must wait for the next steamer, which does not go till 
 the 30th. Merciful Heavens, when shall I get to 
 Sahalin ! 
 
 We drove to Baikal along the bank of the An- 
 gara, which rises out of Lake Baikal and flows into 
 the Yenissey. Look at the map. The banks are 
 picturesque. Mountains and mountains, and dense 
 forests on the mountains. The weather was exquisite 
 still, sunny and warm; as I drove I felt I was excep- 
 tionally well; I felt so happy that I cannot describe 
 it. It was perhaps the contrast after the stay at 
 Irkutsk, and because the scenery on the Angara is 
 like Switzerland. It is something new and original. 
 We drove along the river bank, came to the mouth of 
 the river, and turned to the left ; then we came upon 
 the bank of Lake Baikal, which in Siberia is called the 
 sea. It is like a mirror. The other side, of course, 
 is out of sight; it is ninety versts away. The banks 
 are high, steep, stony, and covered with forest, to 
 right and to left there are promontories which jut 
 into the sea like Au-dag or the Tohtebel at Feodosia. 
 It's like the Crimea. The station of Listvenitchnaya 
 lies at the water's edge, and is strikingly like Yalta:
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 197 
 
 if the houses were white it would be exactly like 
 Yalta. Only there are no buildings on the moun- 
 tains, as they are too overhanging and it is impossible 
 to build on them. 
 
 We have taken a little barn of a lodging that re- 
 minds one of any of the Kraskovsky summer villas. 
 Just outside the window, two or three yards from 
 the wall, is Lake Baikal. We pay a rouble a day. 
 The mountains, the forests, the mirror-like Baikal are 
 all poisoned for me by the thought that we shall have 
 to stay here till the fifteenth. What are we to do 
 here? What is more, we don't know what there is 
 for us to eat. The inhabitants feed upon nothing 
 but garlic. There is neither meat nor fish. They 
 have given us no milk, but have promised it. For a 
 little white loaf they demanded sixteen kopecks. I 
 bought some buckwheat and a piece of smoked pork, 
 and asked them to make a thin porridge of it: it was 
 not nice, but there was nothing to be done, I had to 
 eat it. All the evening we hunted about the village 
 to find someone who w^ould sell us a hen, and found 
 no one. . . . But there is vodka. The Russian is a 
 great pig. If you ask him why he doesn't eat meat 
 and fish he justifies himself by the absence of trans- 
 port, ways and communications, and so on, and yet 
 vodka is to be found in the remotest villages and as 
 much of it as you please. And yet one would have 
 supposed that it would have been much easier to 
 obtain meat and fish than vodka, which is more ex- 
 pensive and more difficult to transport. . . . Yes, 
 drinking vodka must be much more interesting than 
 fishing in Lake Baikal or rearing cattle. 
 
 At midnight a little steamer arrived; we went to 
 look at it, and seized the opportunity to ask if there
 
 198 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 was anything to eat. We were told that to-morrow 
 we should be able to get dinner, but that now it was 
 late, the kitchen fire was out, and so on. We thanked 
 them for "to-morrow" — it was something to look for- 
 ward to anyway! But alas! the captain came in and 
 told us that at four o'clock in the morning the steamer 
 was setting off for Kultuk. We thanked him. In 
 the refreshment bar, where there was not room to turn 
 round, we drank a bottle of sour beer (thirty-five 
 kopecks) , and saw on a plate some amber beads — it 
 was salmon caviare. We returned home, and to 
 sleep. I am sick of sleeping. Every day one has to 
 put down one's sheepskin with the wool upwards, 
 under one's head one puts a folded greatcoat and a 
 pillow, and one sleeps on this heap in one's waistcoat 
 and trousers. . . . Civilization, where art thou? 
 
 To-day there is rain and Lake Baikal is plunged 
 in mist, "Interesting," Semaskho would say. It's 
 dull. One ought to sit down and write, but one can 
 never work in bad weather. One has a foreboding of 
 merciless boredom; if I were alone I should not mind 
 but there are two lieutenants and an army doctor 
 with me, who are fond of talking and arguing. They 
 don't understand much but they talk about every- 
 thing. One of the lieutenants, moreover, is a bit of 
 a Hlestakov and a braggart. When one is travelling 
 one absolutely must be alone. To sit in a chaise or 
 in a room alone with one's thoughts is much more 
 interesting than being with people. 
 
 ^ 46 -Jfr 45- * * 
 
 Congratulate me: I sold my own carriage at Irkutsk. 
 How much I gained on it I won't say, or mother would 
 fall into a faint and not sleep for five nights. 
 
 Your Homo Sachaliensis, 
 
 A. Chekhov.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 199 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Steamer "Yermak," 
 
 June 20, 1890. 
 
 Greeting, dear ones at home! 
 
 At last I can take off my heavy muddy boots, my 
 shabby breeches, and my blue shirt which is shiny 
 with dust and sweat; I can wash and dress like a 
 human being. I am not sitting in a chaise but in 
 a first-class cabin of the steamer Yermak. This 
 change took place ten days ago, and this is how it 
 happened. I wrote to you from Listvenitchnaya that 
 I was late for the Baikal steamer, that I had to cross 
 Lake Baikal on Friday instead of Tuesday, and that 
 owing to this I should only be able to catch the Amur 
 steamer on the 30th. But fate is capricious, and 
 often plays us tricks we do not expect. On Thurs- 
 day morning I went out for a walk on the shores of 
 Lake Baikal; behold — the funnel of one of the lit- 
 tle steamers is smoking. I inquire where the steamer 
 is going. They tell me, "Across the sea" to 
 Klyuevo ; some merchant had hired it to take his wag- 
 gons of goods across the Lake. We, too, wanted 
 to cross "the sea" and to go to Boyarskaya station. 
 I inquire how many versts from Klyuevo to Boyars- 
 kaya. They tell me twenty-seven. I run back to my 
 companions and beg them to take the risk of going 
 to Klyuevo. I say the "risk" because, going to 
 Klyuevo where there is nothing but a harbour and a 
 watchman's hut, we ran the risk of not finding horses, 
 having to stay on at Klyuevo, and being late for 
 Friday's steamer, which for us would be worse than 
 Igor's death, as we should have to wait till Tuesday. 
 My companions consented. We gathered together
 
 200 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 our belongings, with cheerful legs stepped on to the 
 steamer and straight to the refreshment bar: soup, 
 for the love of God ! Half my kingdom for a plate 
 of soup ! The refreshment bar was very nasty and 
 cramped; but the cook, Grigory Ivanitch, who had 
 been a house-serf at Voronezh, turned out to be at the 
 tip-top of his profession. He fed us magnificently. 
 The weather was still and sunny. The water of 
 Lake Baikal is the colour of turquoise, more trans- 
 parent than the Black Sea. They say that in deep 
 places you can see the bottom over a verst below; 
 and I myself have seen to such a depth, with rocks 
 and mountains plunged in the turquoise-blue, that 
 it sent a shiver all over me. Our journey over 
 Lake Baikal was wonderful. I shall never forget it 
 as long as I live. But I will tell you what was not 
 nice. We travelled third class, and the whole deck 
 was occupied by the waggon-horses, which were wild 
 as mad things. These horses gave a special character 
 to our crossing: it seemed as though we were in a 
 brigand's steamer. At Klyuevo the watchman under- 
 took to convey our luggage to the station; he drove 
 the cart while we walked along the very picturesque 
 shore. Levitan was an ass not to come with me. 
 The way was through woods : on the right, woods run- 
 ning uphill; on the left, woods running down to the 
 Lake. Such ravines, such crags ! The colouring of 
 Lake Baikal is soft and warm. It was, by the way, 
 very warm. After walking eight versts we reached 
 the station of Myskan, where a Kyahtan official, who 
 was also on his travels, regaled us with excellent tea, 
 and where we got the horses for Boyarskaya; and so 
 we set off on Thursday instead of Friday; what is 
 more, we got twenty-four hours in advance of the post,,
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 201 
 
 which usually takes all the horses at the station. We 
 began driving as fast as we could, cherishing a faint 
 hope of reaching Sryetensk by the 20th. I will tell 
 you when we meet about my journey along the bank of 
 the Selenga and across Transbaikalia. Now I will 
 only say that Selenga is one continuous loneliness, and 
 in Transbaikalia I found everything I wanted: the 
 Caucasus, and the valley of the Psyol, and the Zveni- 
 gorod district, and the Don. By day you gallop 
 through the Caucasus, at night along the steppe of the 
 Don ; in the morning, rousing yourself from slumber, 
 behold the province of Poltava — and so for the whole 
 thousand versts. Verhneudinsk is a nice little town. 
 Tchita is a wretched place, in the style of Sumy. I 
 need hardly say that we had no time to think of 
 sleep or dinner. One gallops on thinking of nothing 
 but the chance that at the next station we might not 
 get horses, and might be kept five or six hours. We 
 did two hundred versts in twenty-four hours — one 
 can't do more than that in the summer. We were 
 stupefied. The heat was fearful by day, while at 
 night it was so cold that I had to put on my leather 
 coat over my cloth one. One night I even wore my 
 sheepskin. Well, we drove on and on, and reached 
 Sryetensk this morning just an hour before the 
 steamer left, giving the drivers from the last two sta- 
 tions a rouble each for themselves. 
 
 And so my horse-journey is over. It has lasted 
 two months (I set out on the 21st of April). If we 
 exclude the time spent on the railway and the steamer, 
 the three days spent in Ekaterinburg, the week in 
 Tomsk, the day in Krasnoyarsk, the week in Irkutsk, 
 the two days on the shores of Lake Baikal, and the 
 days wasted in waiting for boats to cross the floods,
 
 202 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 you can judge of the rate at which I have driven. 
 My journey has been most successful, I wish nothing 
 better for anyone. I have not once been ill, and of 
 the mass of things I had with me I have lost nothing 
 but a penknife, the strap off my trunk, and a little 
 jar of carbolic ointment. My money is safe. It is 
 not often that anyone succeeds in travelling a thou- 
 sand versts so well. 
 
 I have grown so used to driving that now I don't 
 feel like myself, and cannot believe that I am not in 
 a chaise and that I don't hear the rattling and the 
 jingling of the bells. It seems strange that when I 
 go to bed I can stretch out my legs full length, and 
 that my face is not covered with dust. But what is 
 stranger still is that the bottle of brandy Kuvshinni- 
 kov gave me has not been broken, and that the 
 brandy is still in it, every drop of it. I have vowed 
 not to uncork it except on the shore of the Pacific. 
 
 I am sailing down the Shilka, which runs into the 
 Amur at the Pokrovskaya Stanitsa. The river is not 
 broader than the Psyol, it is even narrower. The 
 shores are stony: there are crags and forests. It is 
 absolutely wild. . . . We tack about to avoid 
 foundering on a sandbank, or running our helm into 
 the banks: steamers and barges often do so in the 
 rapids. It's stifling. We have just stopped at Ust- 
 Kara, where we have landed five or six convicts. 
 There are mines here and a convict prison. 
 
 Yesterday we were at Nertchinsk. The little town 
 is nothing to boast of, but one could live there. 
 
 And how are you, messieurs and mesdames? I 
 know positively nothing about you. You might sub- 
 scribe twopence each and send me a full telegram. 
 
 The steamer will stay the night at Gorbitsa. The
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 203 
 
 nights here are foggy, sailing is dangerous. I shall 
 
 send off this letter at Gorbitsa. 
 
 ... I am going first class because my companions 
 
 are in the second. I have got away from them. We 
 
 have driven together (three in one chaise), we have 
 
 slept together and are sick of each other, especially 
 
 I of them. 
 
 4f * * * * * 
 
 My handwriting is very bad, shaky. That is be- 
 cause the steamer rocks. It's difficult to write. 
 
 I broke off here. I went to my lieutenants and had 
 tea. They have both had a long sleep and were in 
 a very cordial mood. One of them, Lieutenant N. 
 (the surname jars upon my ear), is in the infantry; 
 he is a tall, well-fed, loud-voiced Courlander, a great 
 braggart and Hlestakov, who sings songs from every 
 opera, but has no more ear than a smoked herring, 
 an unlucky fellow who has squandered all the money 
 for his travelling expenses, knows all Mickiewicz by 
 heart, is ill-bred, far too unreserved, and babbles till 
 it makes you sick. Like me, he is fond of talking 
 about his uncles and aunts. The other lieutenant, 
 M., a geographer, is a quiet, modest, thoroughly well- 
 educated fellow. If it were not for N., I could travel 
 with the other for a million versts without being 
 bored. But with N., who intrudes into every con- 
 versation, the other bores me too. ... I believe 
 we are reaching Gorbitsa. 
 
 To-morrow I will make up the form of a telegram 
 which you must send me to Sahalin. I will try to 
 put all I want to know in thirty words, and you must 
 try and keep strictly to the pattern. 
 
 The gad-flies bite.
 
 204 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 GORBITSA, 
 June 20, 1890. 
 
 Greetings, dear Nikolay Alexandrovitch ! 
 
 I wrote you this as I approached Gorbitsa, one of 
 the Cossack settlements on the banks of the Shilka, 
 a tributary of the Amur. This is where I have got to. 
 I am saiHng down the Amur. 
 
 I sent you a letter from Irkutsk. Did you get it? 
 Since then more than a week has passed, in the course 
 of which I have crossed Lake Baikal and driven 
 through Transbaikalia. Lake Baikal is wonderful, 
 and the Siberians may well call it a sea instead of 
 a lake. The water is extraordinarily transparent, so 
 that one can see through it as through air ; the colour 
 is a soft turquoise very agreeable to the eye. The 
 banks are mountainous, and covered with forests; it 
 is all impenetrable wildness without a break any- 
 where. 
 
 There are great numbers of bears, wild goats, and 
 wild creatures of all sorts, who spend their time living 
 in the Taiga and eating one another. I spent two 
 days and nights on the shore of Lake Baikal. 
 
 It was still and hot when I was sailing. 
 
 Transbaikalia is splendid. It is a mixture of 
 Switzerland, the Don, and Finland. 
 
 I have driven with horses more than four thousand 
 versts. My journey was entirely successful. I was 
 in good health all the time, and lost nothing of my 
 luggage but a penknife. I can wish no one a better 
 journey. The journey is absolutely free from danger, 
 and all the tales of escaped convicts, of night attacks, 
 and so on are nothing but legends, traditions of the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 205 
 
 remote past. A revolver is an entirely superfluous 
 article. Now I am sitting in a first-class cabin, and 
 feel as though I were in Europe. I feel in the mood 
 one is in after passing an examination. 
 A whistle! — that's Gorbitsa. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The banks of the Shilka are picturesque like stage 
 scenes but, alas ! there is something oppressive in this 
 complete absence of human beings. It is like a cage 
 without a bird. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 June 21, 1890. 6 o'clock in the evening, not far 
 from the Stanitsa Pokrovskaya. 
 
 We ran upon a rock, stove a hole in the steamer, 
 and are now undergoing repairs. We are aground on 
 a sandbank and pumping out water. On the left is 
 the Russian bank, on the right the Chinese. If I 
 were back at home now I should have the right to 
 boast: "Though I have not been in China I have 
 seen China only twenty feet off." We are to stay the 
 night in Pokrovskaya. We shall make up a party to 
 see the place. 
 
 If I were a millionaire I should certainly have a 
 steamer of my own on the Amur. It is a fine, in- 
 teresting country. I advise Yegor Mihailovitch not 
 to go to Tuapse but here; there are here by the way 
 neither tarantulas nor phalangas. On the Chinese 
 side there is a sentry post — a small hut; sacks of 
 flour are piled up on the bank, ragged Chinamen are 
 dragging the sacks on barrows to the hut. And be- 
 yond is the dense, endless forest.
 
 206 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Some schoolgirls are travelling with us from Ir- 
 kutsk — Russian faces, but not good-looking. 
 
 POKROVSKAYA StANITSA, 
 
 June 23, 1890. 
 
 I have told you already we are aground on a sand- 
 bank. At Ust-Stryelka, where the Shilka joins the 
 Argun (see map), the steamer went aground in two 
 and a half feet of water, struck a rock, and stove in 
 several holes in its side and, the hold filling with 
 water, the steamer sank to the bottom. They began 
 pumping out water and putting on patches; a naked 
 sailor crawled into the hold, stood up to his neck in 
 water, and tried the holes with his heels. Each hole 
 was covered on the inside with cloth smeared with 
 grease: they lay a board on the top, and stuck a 
 support upon the latter which pressed against the 
 ceiling like a column. Such is the repairing. They 
 were pumping from five o'clock in the evening till 
 night, but still the water did not abate: they had to 
 put off the work till morning. In the morning they 
 discovered some more holes, and began patching and 
 pumping again. The sailors pump while we, the 
 general public, pace up and down the decks, criticize, . 
 eat, drink, and sleep; the captain and his mate do 
 the same as the general public, and seem in no hurry. 
 On the right is the Chinese bank, on the left is the 
 stanitsa, Pokrovskaya, with the Cossacks of the 
 Amur; if one likes one can stay in Russia, if one likes 
 one can go into China, there is nothing to hinder one. 
 It is insufferably hot in the daytime, so that one has to 
 put on a silk shirt. They give us dinner at twelve 
 o'clock, supper at seven. 
 
 Unluckily the steamer Vyestnik coming the other
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 207 
 
 way with a crowd of passengers is approaching the 
 stanitsa. The Vyestnik cannot go on either, and 
 both steamers stay stock-still. There is a military 
 band on the Vyestnik, consequently there has been 
 a regular festival. All yesterday the band was play- 
 ing on deck to the entertainment of the captain and 
 sailors, and consequently to the delay of the repair- 
 ing. The feminine half of the public were highly 
 delighted; a band, officers, naval men ... oh! 
 The schoolgirls were particularly pleased. 'Yester- 
 day evening we walked about the Cossack settlement, 
 where the same band, hired by the Cossacks, was 
 playing. To-day we are continuing the repairs. 
 The captain promises that we shall start after din- 
 ner, but he promises it listlessly, gazing away into 
 space — obviously he does not mean it. We are in 
 no haste. When I asked a passenger, "Whenever 
 are we going on?" he asked, "Why, aren't you all 
 right here!" 
 
 And that's true. Why not stay, as long as we are 
 not bored? 
 
 The captain, his mate, and his agent are the acme 
 of politeness. The Chinese in the third class are 
 good-natured and funny. Yesterday a Chinaman 
 sat on the deck and sang something very mournful in 
 a falsetto voice; as he did so his profile was funnier 
 than any caricature. Everybody looked at him and 
 laughed, while he took not the slightest notice. He 
 sang falsetto and then began singing tenor. My God, 
 what a voice! It was like the bleat of a sheep or a 
 calf. The Chinese remind me of good-natured tame 
 animals, their pigtails are long and black like Natalya 
 Mihailovna's. Apropos of tame animals, there's a 
 tame fox cub living in the toilet-room. It sits and
 
 208 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 looks on as one washes. If it sees no one for a long 
 time it begins to whine. 
 
 What strange conversations one hears! They 
 talk of nothing but gold, the mines, the Volunteer 
 Fleet and Japan. In Pokrovskaya all the peasants 
 and even the priests mine for gold. The exiles fol- 
 low the same occupation and grow rich as quickly as 
 they grow poor. There are people who look like 
 artizans and who never drink anything but cham- 
 pagne, and walk to the tavern on red baize which is 
 laid down from their hut to the tavern. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The Amur country is exceedingly interesting. 
 Highly original. The life here is such as people have 
 no conception of in Europe. It reminds me of Amer- 
 ican stories. The shores of the Amur are so wild, 
 original, and luxuriant that one longs to live there all 
 one's life. I am writing these last few lines on the 
 25th of June. The steamer rocks and prevents my 
 WTiting properly. We are moving again. I have 
 come a thousand versts down the Amur already, and 
 have seen a million gorgeous landscapes ; I feel giddy 
 with ecstasy. . . . It's marvellous scenery, and 
 how^ hot! What warm nights! There is a mist in 
 the mornings but it is warm. 
 
 I look through an opera-glass at the shore and see 
 a prodigious number of ducks, geese, grebes, herons 
 and all sorts of creatures with long beaks. This 
 would be the place to take a summer villa in! At 
 a little place called Reinov a goldminer asked me to 
 see his sick wife. As I was leaving him he thrust 
 into my hands a roll of notes. I felt ashamed. I 
 was beginning to refuse and thrust it back, saying
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 209 
 
 that I was very rich myself; we talked together for a 
 long time tndng to persuade each other, and yet in the 
 end fifteen roubles remained in my hands. Yester- 
 day a goldminer with the face of Petya Polevaev 
 dined in my cabin; at dinner he drank champagne 
 instead of water, and treated us to it. 
 
 The villages here are like those on the Don. There 
 is a difference in the buildings but nothing to speak 
 of. The inhabitants don't keep the fasts, and eat 
 meat even in Holy Week; the girls smoke cigarettes, 
 and old women smoke pipes — it is the correct thing. 
 It's strange to see peasants with cigarettes! And 
 what liberalism! Oh, what liberalism! 
 
 The air on the steamer is positively red-hot with 
 the talk that goes on. People are not afraid to talk 
 aloud here. There's no one to arrest them and no- 
 where to exile them to, so you can be as liberal as you 
 like. The people for the most part are independent, 
 self-reliant, and logical. If there is anv misunder- 
 standing at Ust-Kara, where the convicts work 
 (among them many politicals who don't work) , all the 
 Amur redon is in revolt. It is not the thino; to tell 
 tales. An escaped convict can travel freely on the 
 steamer to the ocean, without any fear of the captain's 
 giving him up. This is partly due to the absolute 
 indifference to everything that is done in Russia. 
 Evervbodv savs: "What is it to do with me?" 
 
 I forgot to tell you that in Transbaikalia the driv- 
 ers are not Russians but Buriats. A funnv people! 
 Their horses are regular vipers; thev could never 
 be harnessed -without trouble — more furious than 
 fire-brigade horses. While the trace-horse is being 
 harnessed, its legs are hobbled; as soon as they are set 
 free the chaise goes flying to the devil, so that one
 
 210 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 holds one's breath. If one does not hobble a horse 
 while it is being harnessed, it kicks, knocks bits out of 
 the shaft with its hoofs, tears the harness, and behaves 
 like a young devil that has been caught by the horns. 
 
 June 26. 
 
 We are getting near Blagoveshtchensk. Be well 
 and merry, and don't get used to being without me. 
 No doubt you have already? Respectful greetings 
 to all, and a friendly kiss. 
 
 I am perfectly well. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Blagoveshtchensk, 
 
 June 27, 1890. 
 
 The Amur is a very fine river ; I have gained more 
 from it than I could have expected, and I have been 
 wishing for a long time to share my transports with 
 you, but the rascally steamer has been rocking all 
 the seven days I have been on it, and prevents me 
 writing properly. Moreover, I am quite incapable 
 of describing anything so beautiful as the shores of 
 the Amur; I am at a complete loss before them, and 
 recognise my bankruptcy. How is one to describe 
 them? . . . Rocks, crags, forests, thousands of 
 ducks, herons and all sorts of beaked gentry, and 
 absolute wilderness. On the left the Russian shore, 
 on the right the Chinese. I can look at Russia or 
 China as I please. China is as deserted and wdld as 
 Russia: villages and sentinels' huts are rare. Every- 
 thing in my head is muddled; and no wonder, your 
 Excellency! I have come more than a thousand
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 211 
 
 versts down the Amur and seen a million landscapes, 
 and you know before the Amur there was Lake 
 Baikal, Transbaikalia. . . . Truly I have seen 
 such riches and had so much enjoyment that death 
 would have no terrors now. The people on the Amur 
 are original, their life is interesting, unlike ours. 
 They talk of gold, gold, gold, and nothing else. I am 
 in a stupid state, I feel no inclination to write, and 
 I write shortly, piggishly; to-day I sent you four 
 papers about Yenissey and the Taiga, later on I will 
 send you something about Lake Baikal, Trans- 
 baikaha, and the Amur. Don't throw away these 
 sheets ; I will collect them, and they will serve as notes 
 from which I can tell you what I don't know how to 
 put on paper. 
 
 To-day I changed into the steamer Muravyov, 
 which they say does not rock; maybe I shall write. 
 
 I am in love with the Amur; I should be glad to 
 spend a couple of years on it. There is beauty, 
 space, freedom and warmth. Switzerland and France 
 have never known such freedom. The lowest con- 
 vict breathes more freely on the Amur than the high- 
 est general in Russia. If you Hved here, you would 
 write a great deal of good stuff and delight the public, 
 but I am not equal to it. 
 
 One begins to meet Chinamen at Irkutsk, and here 
 they are common as flies. They are the most good- 
 natured people. If Nastya and Borya made the ac- 
 quaintance of the Chinese, they would leave donkeys 
 alone, and transfer their affection to the Chinese. 
 They are charming tame animals. 
 
 . . . When I invited a Chinaman to the refresh- 
 ment bar to treat him to vodka, before drinking it he 
 held out the glass to me, the bar-keeper, the waiters,
 
 212 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and said: "Taste." That's the Chinese ceremonial. 
 He did not drink it off as we do, but drank it in sips, 
 eating something between each sip, and then, to 
 express his gratitude, gave me several Chinese 
 coins. An awfully polite people. They are dressed 
 poorly, but beautifully; they eat daintily, with cere- 
 mony 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 The Steamer "Muravyov," 
 June 29, 1890. 
 
 Meteors are flying in my cabin — ^these are luminous 
 beetles that look like electric sparks. Wild goats 
 swim across the Amur in the day-time. The flies 
 here are huge. I am sharing my cabin with a China- 
 man — Son-Luli — who is constantly telling me how 
 in China for the merest trifle it is "off with his head." 
 Last night he got drunk with opium, and was talking 
 in his sleep all night and preventing me from sleep- 
 ing. On the 27th I walked about the Chinese town 
 Aigun. Little by little I seem gradually to be step- 
 ping into a fantastic world. The steamer rocks, it is 
 hard to write. 
 
 To-morrow I shall reach Habarovsk. The China- 
 man began to sing from music written on his fan. 
 
 Telegram to his Mother. 
 
 Sahalin, 
 
 July 11, 1890. 
 
 Arrived well, telegraph Sahalin. — Chekhov.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 213 
 
 Telegram to his Mother. 
 
 Sahalin, 
 September 27, 1890. 
 
 Well. Shall arrive shortly. — Chekhov. 
 
 To a. S. Suvorin. 
 
 The Steamer "Baikal," 
 September 11, 1890. 
 
 Greetings! I am sailing on the Gulf of Tartary 
 from the north of Sahalin to the south. I am writing 
 and don't know when this letter will reach you. I 
 am well, though I see on all sides glaring at me the 
 green eyes of cholera which has laid a trap for me. 
 In Vladivostok, in Japan, in Shanghai, Tchifu, Suez, 
 and even in the moon, I fancy — everywhere there 
 is cholera, everywhere quarantine and terror. . . . 
 They expect the cholera in Sahalin and keep all ves- 
 sels in quarantine. In short, it is a bad lookout. 
 Europeans are dying at Vladivostok, among others 
 the wife of a general has died. 
 
 I have spent just two months in the north of Saha- 
 lin. I was received by the local administration very 
 amicably, though Galkin had not written a single 
 word about me. Neither Galkin nor the Baroness 
 v., nor any of the other genii I was so foolish as to 
 appeal to for help, turned out of the slightest use to 
 me; I had to act on my own initiative. 
 
 The Sahalin general, Kononovitch, is a cultivated 
 and gentlemanly man. We soon got on together, 
 and everything went off well. I am bringing some 
 papers with me from which you will see that I was
 
 214 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 put on the most agreeable footing from the first. I 
 have seen everything, so that the question is not now 
 what I have seen, but how I have seen it. 
 
 I don't know what will come of it, but I have done 
 a good deal. I have got enough material for three 
 dissertations. I got up every morning at five o'clock 
 and went to bed late; and all day long was on the 
 strain from the thought that there was still so much I 
 hadn't done; and now that I have done with the con- 
 vict system, I have the feeling that I have seen every- 
 thing but have not noticed the elephants. 
 
 By the way, I had the patience to make a census of 
 the whole Sahalin population. I made the round of 
 all the settlements, went into every hut and talked to 
 everyone; I made use of the card system in making 
 the census, and I have already registered about ten 
 thousand convicts and settlers. In other words, 
 there is not in Sahalin one convict or settler who has 
 not talked with me. I was particularly successful 
 with the census of the children, on which I am build- 
 ing great hopes. 
 
 I dined at Landsberg's ; I sat in the kitchen of the 
 former Baroness Gembruk. ... I visited all the 
 celebrities. I was present at a flogging, after which 
 I dreamed for three or four nights of the executioner 
 and the revolting accessories. I have talked to men 
 who were chained to trucks. Once when I was 
 drinking tea in a mine, Borodavkin, once a Petersburg 
 merchant who was convicted of arson, took a tea- 
 spoon out of his pocket and gave it to me, and the 
 long and the short of it is that I have upset my nerves 
 and have vowed not to come to Sahalin again. 
 
 I should write more to you, but there is a lady in 
 the cabin who giggles and chatters unceasingly. I
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 215 
 
 haven't the strength to write. She has been laugh- 
 ing and cackhng ever since yesterday evening. 
 
 This letter will go across America, but I shall go 
 probably not across America. Everyone says that 
 the American way is duller and more expensive. 
 
 To-morrow I shall see Japan, the Island of Mats- 
 mai. Now it is twelve o'clock at night. It is dark 
 on the sea, the wind is blowing. I don't understand 
 how the steamer can go on and find its direction when 
 one can't see a thing, and above all in such wild, 
 little-known waters as those in the Gulf of Tartary. 
 
 When I remember that I am ten thousand versts 
 away from my world I am overcome with apathy. It 
 seems I shall not be home for a hundred years. . . . 
 God give you health and all blessings. I feel dreary. 
 
 ****** 
 
 To HIS Mother. 
 
 Sahalin, 
 October 6, 1890. 
 
 My greetings, dear mother! 
 
 I write you this letter almost on the eve of my 
 departure for Russia. Every day we expect a 
 steamer of the Volunteer Fleet, and cherish hopes 
 that it will not come later than the 10th of October. 
 I send this letter to Japan, whence it will go by 
 Shanghai or America. I am living at the station of 
 Korsakovo, where there is neither telegraph nor post, 
 and which is not visited by ships oftener than once a 
 fortnight. Yesterday a steamer arrived and brought 
 me from the north a pile of letters and telegrams. 
 From the letters I learn that Masha likes the
 
 216 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Crimea, I believe she will like the Caucasus better 
 still. . . . 
 
 ****** 
 
 Strange, with you it has been cold and rainy, while 
 in Sahalin from the day of my arrival till to-day it 
 has been bright warm weather: there is slight cold 
 with hoar-frost in the mornings, the snow is white 
 on one of the mountains, but the earth is still green, 
 the leaves have not fallen, and all the vegetation is 
 still as flourishing as at a summer villa in May. 
 There you have Sahalin! 
 
 ****** 
 
 At midnight yesterday I heard the roar of a steamer. 
 Everybody jumped out of bed: hurrah! the steamer 
 has arrived ! We dressed and went out with lanterns 
 to the harbour; we gazed into the distance; there 
 really was a steamer. . . . The majority of voices 
 decided that it was the Petersburg, on which I am to 
 go to Russia. I was overjoyed. We got into a 
 boat and rowed to the steamer. We went on and on, 
 till at last we saw in the mist the dark hulk of a 
 steamer. One of us shouted in a hoarse voice asking 
 the name of the vessel. And we received the answer 
 "the Baikal.^' Tfoo! anathema! what a disappoint- 
 ment ! I am homesick, and weary of Sahalin. Here 
 for the last three months I have seen no one but con- 
 victs or people who can talk of nothing but penal 
 servitude, the lash, and the convicts. A depressing 
 existence. One longs to get quickly to Japan and 
 from there to India. 
 
 I am quite well, except for flashes in my eye from 
 which I often suffer now, after which I always have
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 217 
 
 a bad headache. I had the flashes in my eye yester- 
 day and to-day, and so I am writing this with a head- 
 ache and heaviness all over. 
 
 At the station the Japanese General Kuse-San 
 lives with his two secretaries, good friends of mine. 
 They live like Europeans. To-day the local author- 
 ities visited them in state to present decorations that 
 had been conferred on them; and I, too, went with 
 my headache and had to drink champagne. 
 
 Since I have been in the south I have three times 
 driven to Nay Race where the real ocean waves 
 break. Look at the map and you will see at once on 
 the south coast that poor dismal Nay Race. The 
 waves cast up a boat with six American whalefishers, 
 who had been shipwrecked off the coast of Sahalin; 
 they are living now at the station and solemnly walk 
 about the streets. They are waiting for the Peters- 
 burg and will sail with me. 
 
 I am not bringing you furs, there are none in 
 Sahalin. Keep well and Heaven guard you all. 
 
 I am bringing you all presents. The cholera in 
 Vladivostok and Japan is over. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Malaya Dmitrovka, 
 Moscow, 
 
 December 9. 
 
 . . . Hurrah! Here at last I am sitting at my 
 table at home! I pray to my faded penates and 
 write to you. I have now a happy feeling as though 
 I had not been away from home at all. I am well and
 
 218 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 thriving to the marrow of my bones. Here's a very 
 brief report for you. I was in SahaHn not two 
 months, as you have printed, but three months plus 
 two days. I worked at high pressure. I made a full 
 and minute census of the whole of Sahalin's popula- 
 tion, and saw everything except the death penalty. 
 When we see each other I will show you a whole trunk- 
 ful of stuff about the convicts which is very valuable 
 as raw material. I know a very great deal now, but I 
 have brought away a horrid feeling. While I was 
 staying in Sahalin, I only had a bitter feeling in my 
 inside as though from rancid butter; and now, as I 
 remember it, Sahalin seems to me a perfect hell. 
 For two months I worked intensely, putting my back 
 into it; in the third month I began to feel ill from 
 the bitterness I have spoken of, from boredom, and 
 the thought that the cholera would come from Vladi- 
 vostok to Sahalin, and that so I was in danger of hav- 
 ing to winter in the convict settlement. But, thank 
 God! the cholera ceased, and on the 13th of October 
 the steamer bore me away from Sahalin. I have 
 been in Vladivostok. About the Primorsky Region 
 and our Eastern sea-coast with its fleets, its problems, 
 and its Pacific dreams altogether, I have only one 
 thing to tell of : its crying poverty! Poverty, ignor- 
 ance, and worthlessness, that might drive one to de- 
 spair. One honest man for ninety-nine thieves, that 
 are blackening the name of Russia. . . . We 
 passed Japan because the cholera was there, and so I 
 have not bought you anything Japanese, and the five 
 hundred you gave me for your purchases I have spent 
 on my own needs, for which you have, by law, the 
 right to send me to a settlement in Siberia. The 
 first foreign port we reached was Hong Kong. It is
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 219 
 
 an exquisite bay. The traffic on the sea was such 
 as I had never seen before even in pictures ; excellent 
 roads, trams, a railway to the mountains, a museum, 
 botanical gardens; wherever you look you see the 
 tenderest solicitude on the part of the English for the 
 men in their service; there is even a club for 
 the sailors. I went about in a jinrickshaw — that is, 
 carried by men — bought all sorts of rubbish of the 
 Chinese, and was moved to indignation at hearing my 
 Russian fellow-travellers abuse the English for ex- 
 ploiting the natives. I thought: Yes, the English 
 exploit the Chinese, the Sepoys, the Hindoos, but they 
 do give them roads, aqueducts, museums, Christian- 
 ity, and what do you give them? 
 
 When we left Hong Kong the boat began to rock. 
 The steamer was empty and lurched through an angle 
 of thirty-eight degrees, so that we were afraid it 
 would upset. I am not subject to sea-sickness: that 
 discovery was very agreeable to me. On the way to 
 Singapore we threw two corpses into the sea. When 
 one sees a dead man, wrapped in sailcloth, fly, turn- 
 ing somersaults in the water, and remembers that it is 
 several miles to the bottom, one feels frightened, and 
 for some reason begins to fancy that one will die 
 oneself and will be thrown into the sea. Our 
 horned cattle have fallen sick. Through the united 
 verdict of Dr. Stcherbak and your humble servant, 
 the cattle have been killed and thrown into the 
 sea. 
 
 I have no clear memory of Singapore as, for some 
 reason, I felt very sad while I was driving about it, 
 and was almost weeping. Next after it comes Ceylon 
 — an earthly Paradise. There in that Paradise I 
 went more than a hundred versts on the railway and
 
 220 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 gazed at palm forests and bronze women to my 
 heart's content. . . . After Ceylon we sailed for 
 thirteen days and nights without stopping and were 
 all stupid from boredom. I bear the heat well. The 
 Red Sea is depressing; I felt touched as I gazed at 
 Sinai. 
 
 God's world is a good place. The one thing not 
 good in it is we. How little justice and humility 
 there is in us. How little we understand true patriot- 
 ism ! A drunken, broken-down debauchee of a hus- 
 band loves his wife and children, but of what use is 
 that love? We, so we are told in our own newspapers, 
 love our great motherland, but how does that love 
 express itself? Instead of knowledge — insolence 
 and immeasurable conceit; instead of work — sloth 
 and swinishness; there is no justice, the conception 
 of honour does not go beyond "the honour of the 
 uniform" — the uniform which is so commonly seen 
 adorning the prisoner's dock in our courts. Work is 
 what is wanted, and the rest can go to the devil. 
 First of all we must be just, and all the rest will be 
 added unto us. 
 
 I have a passionate desire to talk to you. My soul 
 is in a ferment. I want no one else but you, for it is 
 only with you I can talk. 
 
 ****** 
 
 How glad I am that everything was managed 
 without Calkin- Vrasskoy's help. He didn't write 
 one line about me, and I turned up in Sahalin utterly 
 unknown. 
 
 ******
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 221 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 24, 1890. 
 
 I believe in Koch and in spermine and praise God 
 for it. All that — that is the kochines, spermines, 
 and so on — seem to the public a kind of miracle that 
 leaped forth from some brain, after the fashion of 
 Pallas Athene: but people who have a closer acquain- 
 tance with the facts know that they are only the natural 
 sequel of what has been done during the last twenty 
 years. A great deal has been done, my dear fellow! 
 Surgery alone has done so much that one is fairly 
 dumbfoundered at it. To one who is studying 
 medicine now, the time before twenty years ago 
 seems simply pitiable. My dear friend, if I were 
 offered the choice between the "ideals" of the 
 renowned "sixties," or the very poorest Zemstvo 
 hospital of to-day, I should, without a moment's 
 hesitation, choose the second. 
 
 Will kochine cure syphilis? It's possible. But 
 as for cancer, you must allow me to have my doubts. 
 Cancer is not a microbe; it's a tissue, growing in the 
 wrong place, and like a noxious weed smothering all 
 the neighbouring tissues. If N.'s uncle feels better, 
 that is, because the microbes of erysipelas — that is, 
 the elements that produce the disease of erysipelas — 
 form a component part of kochine. It was observed 
 long ago that with the development of erysipelas, the 
 growth of malignant tumours is temporarily checked.. 
 
 * * * -x- * * 
 
 It's a strange business — while I was travelling to 
 Sahalin and back I felt perfectly well, but now, at 
 home, the devil knows what is happening to me. My
 
 222 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 head is continually aching, I have a feeling of languor 
 all over, I am quickly exhausted, apathetic, and worst 
 of all, my heart is not beating regularly. My heart is 
 continually stopping for a few seconds. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 January, 1891. 
 
 I shall probably come to Petersburg on the 8th of 
 January. . . . Since by February I shall not have a 
 farthing, I must make haste and finish the noveP 
 I've begun. There is something in the novel about 
 which I must talk to you and ask your advice. 
 
 I spent Christmas in a horrible way. To begin 
 with, I had palpitations of the heart; secondly, my 
 brother Ivan came to stay and was ill with typhoid, 
 poor fellow; thirdly, after my Sahalin labours and the 
 tropics, my Moscow life seems to me now so petty, 
 so bourgeois, and so dull, that I feel ready to bite; 
 fourthly, working for my daily bread prevents my 
 giving up my time to Sahalin; fifthly, my acquain- 
 tances bother me, and so on. 
 
 The poet Merezhkovsky has been to see me twice; 
 he is a very intelligent man. 
 
 How sorry I am you did not see my mongoose. It 
 is a wonderful creature. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 St. Petersburg, 
 January 14, 1891. 
 
 Unforeseen circumstances have kept me a few days 
 longer. I am alive and well. There is no news. I 
 saw Tolstoy's "The Power of Darkness" the other 
 
 * "The Duel."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 223 
 
 day, though. I have been to Ryepin's studio. 
 What else? Nothing else. It's dull, in fact. 
 
 I went to-day to a dog-show; I went there with 
 Suvorin, who at the moment I am writing these lines 
 is standing by the table and asking me to write and 
 tell you that I have been to the dog-show with the 
 famous dog Suvorin. . . . 
 
 January, later. 
 
 I am alive and well, I have no palpitations, I've 
 no money either, and everything is going well. 
 
 I am paying visits and seeing acquaintances. I 
 have to talk about Sahalin and India. It's horribly 
 boring. 
 
 . . . Anna Ivanovna is as nice as ever, Suvorin 
 talks as incessantly as ever. 
 
 I receive the most boring invitations to the most 
 boring dinners. It seems I must make haste and get 
 back to Moscow, as they won't let me work 
 here. 
 
 Hurrah, we are avenged! To make up for our 
 being so bored, the cotton ball has yielded 1,500 
 roubles clear profit, in confirmation of which I en- 
 close a cutting from a newspaper. 
 
 If anything is collected for the benefit of the 
 Sahalin schools, let me know at once. 
 
 How is my mongoose? Don't forget to give him 
 food and drink, and beat him without mercy when 
 he jumps on the table. Does he eat people?* 
 
 Write how Ivan is. . . . 
 
 * A naive question asked by a lady of Chekhov's acquaintance.
 
 224 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 January, later. 
 
 I am tired as a ballet dancer after five acts and 
 eight tableaux. Dinners, letters which I am too 
 lazy to answer, conversations and imbecilities of all 
 sorts. I have to go immediately to dine in Vassil- 
 yevsky Ostrov, and I am bored and ought to work. 
 I'll stay another three days and see whether the ballet 
 will go on the same, then I shall go home, or to see 
 Ivan. 
 
 I am surrounded by a thick atmosphere of ill-feel- 
 ing, extremely vague and to me incomprehensible. 
 They feed me with dinners and pay me the vulgarest 
 compliments, and at the same time they are ready to 
 devour me. What for? The devil only knows. If 
 I were to shoot myself I should thereby provide the 
 greatest gratification to nine-tenths of my friends and 
 admirers. And how pettily they express their petty 
 feelings ! 
 
 . . . My greetings to Lydia Yegorovna Mizinov. 
 I expect a programme from her. Tell her not to eat 
 farinaceous food and to avoid Levitan. A better 
 admirer than me she will not find in her Town Council 
 nor in higher society. 
 
 January 16, 1891. 
 
 I have the honour to congratulate you and the 
 hero of the name-day;* I wish you and him health 
 and prosperity, and above all that the mongoose 
 should not break the crockery or tear the wall-paper. 
 I shall celebrate my name-day at the Maly Yaro- 
 slavets restaurant, from the restaurant to the benefit 
 performance, from the benefit performance to the 
 restaurant again. 
 
 * It was the name-day of Chekhov himself.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 225 
 
 I am working, but with very great difficulty. No 
 sooner have I written a Hne than the bell rings and 
 someone comes in to talk to me about Sahalin. It's 
 simply awful! . . . 
 
 I have found Drishka. It appears that she is 
 living in the same house as I am. She ran away 
 from Moscow to Petersburg under romantic circum- 
 stances: she meant to marry a lawyer, plighted her 
 troth to him, but an army captain turned up, and so 
 on; she had to run away or the lawyer would have 
 shot both Drishka and the captain with a pistol loaded 
 with cranberries. She is prospering and is the same 
 lively rogue as ever. I went to Svobodin's name-day 
 party with her yesterday. She sang gipsy songs, and 
 created such a sensation that all the great men kissed 
 her hand. 
 
 Rumours have reached me that Lidia Stahievna is 
 going to be married par depit. Is it true ? Tell her 
 that I shall carry her off from her husband par depit. 
 I am a violent man. 
 
 Has not anything been collected for the benefit of 
 the Sahalin schools? Let me know. . . . 
 
 To A. F. KoNi. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 
 January 16, 1891. 
 
 Dear Sir, Anatoly Fyodorovitch, 
 
 I did not hasten to answer your letter because 
 I am not leaving Petersburg before next Saturday. 
 I am sorry I have not been to see Madame Naryshkin, 
 but I think I had better defer my visit till my book 
 has come out, when I shall be able to turn more
 
 226 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 freely to the material I have. My brief Sahalin past 
 looms so immense in my imagination that when I 
 want to speak about it I don't know where to begin, 
 and it always seems to me that I have not 
 said what was wanted, 
 
 I will try and describe minutely the position of the 
 children and young people in Sahalin. It is excep- 
 tional. I saw stai-ving children, I saw girls of thir- 
 teen prostitutes, girls of fifteen with child. Girls be- 
 gin to live by prostitution from twelve years old, some- 
 times before menstruation has begun. Church and 
 school exist only on paper, the children are educated 
 by their environment and the convict surroundings. 
 Among other things I have noted down a conversa- 
 tion with a boy of ten years old. I was making the 
 census of the settlement of Upper Armudano; all the 
 inhabitants are poverty-stricken, every one of them, 
 and have the reputation of being desperate gamblers 
 at the game of shtoss. I go into a hut; the people 
 are not at home; on a bench sits a white-haired, 
 round-shouldered, bare-footed boy; he seems lost in 
 thought. We begin to talk. 
 
 I. "What is your father's second name?" 
 
 He. "I don't know." 
 
 I. "How is that? You live with your father and 
 don't know what his name is? Shame!" 
 
 He. "He is not my real father." 
 
 I. "How is that?" 
 
 He. "He is living with mother." 
 
 I. "Is your mother married or a widow?" 
 
 He. "A widow. She followed her husband here.' ' 
 
 I. "What has become of her husband, then?" 
 
 He. "She killed him." 
 
 I. "Do you remember your father?"
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 227 
 
 He. "No, I don't, I am illegitimate. I was born 
 when mother was at Kara." 
 
 On the Amur steamer going to Sahalin, there was 
 a convict with fetters on his legs who had murdered 
 his wife. His daughter, a little girl of six, was with 
 him. I noticed wherever the convict moved the little 
 girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. 
 At night the child slept with the convicts and soldiers 
 all in a heap together. I remember I was at a 
 funeral in Sahalin. Beside the newly dug grave 
 stood four convict bearers ex officio; the treasury 
 clerk and I, in the capacity of Hamlet and Horatio, 
 wandering about the cemetery; the dead woman's 
 lodger, a Circassian, who had come because he had 
 nothing better to do; and a convict woman who had 
 come out of pity and had brought the dead woman's 
 two children, one a baby, and the other, Alyoshka, a 
 boy of four, wearing a woman's jacket and blue 
 breeches with bright-coloured patches on the knees. 
 It was cold and damp, there was water in the grave, 
 the convicts were laughing. The sea was in sight. 
 Alyoshka looked into the grave with curiosity; he 
 tried to wipe his chilly nose, but the long sleeve of his 
 jacket got into his way. When they began to fill in 
 the grave I asked him: "Alyoshka, where is your 
 mother?" He waved his hand with the air of a 
 gentleman who has lost at cards, laughed, and said: 
 "They have buried her!" 
 
 The convicts laughed, the Circassian turned and 
 asked what he was to do with the children, saying it 
 was not his duty to feed them. 
 
 Infectious diseases I did not meet with in Sahalin. 
 There is very little congenital syphilis, but I saw 
 blind children, filthy, covered with eruptions — all
 
 228 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 diseases that are evidence of neglect. Of course I 
 am not going to settle the problem of the children. 
 I don't know what ought to be done. But it seems 
 to me that one will do nothing by means of philan- 
 thropy and what little is left of prison and other funds. 
 To my thinking, to make something of great impor- 
 tance dependent upon charity, which in Russia always 
 has a casual character, and on funds which do not 
 exist, is pernicious. I should prefer it to be financed 
 out of the government treasury. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 January 31, 1891. 
 
 At home I found depression. My nicest and most 
 intelligent mongoose had fallen ill and was lying very 
 quietly under a quilt. The little beast eats and 
 drinks nothing. The climate has already laid its cold 
 claw on it and means to kill it. What for? 
 
 We have received a dismal letter. In Taganrog 
 we were on friendly terms with a well-to-do Polish 
 family. The cakes and jam I ate in their house when 
 I was a boy at school arouse in me now the most touch- 
 ing reminiscences; there used to be music, young 
 ladies, home-made liqueurs, and catching goldfinches 
 in the immense courtyard. The father had a post in 
 the Taganrog customs and got into trouble. The in- 
 vestigation and trial ruined the family. There were 
 two daughters and a son. When the elder daughter 
 married a rascal of a Greek, the family took an 
 orphan girl into the house to bring up. This little 
 girl was attacked by disease of the knee and they
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 229 
 
 amputated the leg. Then the son died of consump- 
 tion, a medical student in his fourth year, an excellent 
 fellow, a perfect Hercules, the hope of the family. 
 . . . Then came terrible poverty. . . . The father took 
 to wandering about the cemetery, longed to take to 
 drink but could not: vodka simply made his head 
 ache cruelly while his thoughts remained the same, 
 just as sober and revolting. Now they write that the 
 younger daughter, a beautiful, plump young girl, is 
 consumptive. . . . The father writes to me of that 
 and writes to me for a loan of ten roubles. . . . Ach! 
 
 I felt awfully unwilling to leave you, but still I am 
 glad I did not remain another day — I went away and 
 showed that I had strength of will. I am writing 
 already. By the time you come to Moscow my 
 novel* will be finished, and I will go back with you 
 to Petersburg. 
 
 Tell Borya, Mitya, and Andrushka that I vituper- 
 ate them. In the pocket of my greatcoat I found 
 some notes on which was scrawled: "Anton Pavlo- 
 vitch, for shame, for shame, for shame!" pes- 
 simi discipuli ! Utinam vos lupus devoret ! 
 
 Last night I did not sleep, and I read through my 
 "Motley Tales" for the second edition. I threw 
 out about twenty stories. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 5, 1891. 
 
 My mongoose has recovered and breaks crockery 
 again with unfailing regularity. 
 
 I am writing and writing ! I must own I was afraid 
 that my Sahalin expedition would have put me out of 
 the way of writing, but now I see that it is all right. 
 
 * "The Duel."
 
 230 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I have written a great deal. I am writing diffusely 
 a la Yasinsky. I want to get hold of a thousand 
 roubles. 
 
 I shall soon begin to expect you. Are we going to 
 Italy or not? We ought to. 
 
 In Petersburg I don't sleep at night, I drink and 
 loaf about, but I feel immeasurably better than in 
 Moscow. The devil only knows why it is so. 
 
 I am not depressed, because in the first place I am 
 writing, and in the second, one feels that summer, 
 which I love more than anything, is close at hand. 
 I long to prepare my fishing tackle. . . . 
 
 February 23. 
 
 Greetings, my dear friend. 
 
 Your telegram about the Tormidor upset me. I 
 felt dreadfully attracted to Petersburg: now for the 
 sake of Sardou and the Parisian visitors. But 
 practical considerations pulled me up. I reflected 
 that I must hurry on with my novel; that I don't 
 know French, and so should only be taking up some- 
 one else's place in the box; that I have very little 
 money, and so on. In short, as it seems to me now, 
 I am a poor comrade, though apparently I acted 
 sensibly. 
 
 My novel is progressing. It's all smooth, even, 
 there is scarcely anything that is too long. But do 
 you know what is very bad? There is no movement 
 in my novel, and that frightens me. I am afraid it 
 will be difficult to read to the middle, to say nothing of 
 reading to the end. Anyway, I shall finish it. I 
 shall bring Anna Pavlovna a copy on vellum paper 
 to read in the bathroom. I should like something to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 231 
 
 sting her in the water, so that she would run out of the 
 Lathroom sobbing. 
 
 I was melancholy when you went away. . . . 
 
 Send me some money. I have none and seem to 
 have nowhere to borrow. By my reckoning I cannot 
 under favourable circumstances get more than a 
 thousand roubles from you before September. But 
 don't send the money by post, as I can't bear going 
 to post offices. . . . 
 
 March 5. 
 
 We are going!!! I agree to go, where you like 
 and when you like. My soul is leaping with delight. 
 It would be stupid on my part not to go, for when 
 would an opportunity come again? But, my dear 
 friend, I leave you to weigh the following circum- 
 stances. 
 
 (1) My work is still far from being finished; if I 
 put it by till May, I shall not be able to begin my 
 Sahalin work before July, and that is risky. For my 
 Sahalin impressions are already evaporating, and I 
 run the risk of forgetting a great deal. 
 
 (2) I have absolutely no money. If without 
 finishing my novel I take another thousand roubles 
 for the tour abroad, and then for living after the tour, 
 I shall get into such a tangle that the devil himself 
 could not pull me out by the ears. I am not in a 
 tangle yet because I am up to all sorts of dodges, and 
 live more frugally than a mouse; but if I go abroad 
 everything will go to the devil. My accounts will be 
 in a mess and I shall get myself hopelessly in debt. 
 The very thought of a debt of two thousand makes 
 my heart sink. 
 
 There are other considerations, but they are all of
 
 232 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 small account beside that of money and work. And 
 so, thoroughly digest my objections, put yourself into 
 my skin for a moment, and decide, wouldn't it be 
 better for me to stay at home? You will say all this 
 is unimportant. But lay aside your point of view, 
 and look at it from mine. 
 
 I await a speedy answer. 
 
 My noveP is progressing, but I have not got far. 
 
 I have been to the Kiselyovs'. The rooks are 
 already arriving. 
 
 To Madame Kiselyov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 March 11, 1891. 
 
 As I depart for France, Spain, and Italy, I beseech 
 you, oh, Heavens, keep Babkino in good health and 
 prosperity ! 
 
 Yes, Marya Vladimirovna ! As it is written in the 
 scripture: he had not time to cry out, before a bear 
 devoured him. So I had not time to cry out before 
 an unseen power has drawn me again to the mysterious 
 distance. To-day I am going to Petersburg, from 
 there to Berlin, and so further. Whether I climb 
 Vesuvius or watch a bull-fight in Spain, I shall 
 remember you in my holiest prayers. Good-bye. 
 
 I have been to a seminary and picked out a 
 seminarist for Vassilisa. There were plenty with 
 delicate feelings and responsive natures, but not one 
 would consent. At first, especially when I told them 
 that you sometimes had peas and radishes on your 
 table, they consented; but when I accidentally let 
 
 * "The Duel."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 233 
 
 out that in the district captain's room there was a 
 bedstead on which people were flogged, they 
 scratched their heads and muttered that they must 
 think it over. One, however, a pockmarked fellow 
 called Gerasim Ivanovitch, with very delicate feelings 
 and a responsive nature, is coming to see you in a day 
 or two. I hope that Vassilisa and you will make him 
 welcome. Snatch the chance: it's a brilliant match. 
 You can flog Gerasim Ivanovitch, for he told me: "I 
 am immensely fond of violent sensations;" when he 
 is with you you had better lock the cupboard where 
 the vodka is kept and keep the windows open, as the 
 seminary inspiration and responsiveness is percept- 
 ible at every minute. 
 
 "What a happy girl is Vassilisa!" 
 
 Idiotik has not been to see me yet. 
 
 The hens peck the cock. They must be keeping 
 Lent, or perhaps the virtuous widows don't care for 
 their new suitor. 
 
 They have brought me a new overcoat with check 
 lining. 
 
 Well, be in Heaven's keeping, happy, healthy and 
 peaceful. God give you all everything good. I 
 shall come back in Holy Week. Don't forget your 
 truly devoted, 
 
 Anton Chekhov. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 • March 16. Midnight. 
 
 I have just seen the Italian actress Duse in Shakes- 
 peare's Cleopatra. I don't know Italian, but she 
 acted so well that it seemed to me I understood every
 
 234 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 word. A remarkable actress! I have never seen 
 anything like it before. I gazed at that Duse and felt 
 overcome with misery at the thought that we have to 
 educate our temperaments and tastes on such wooden 
 actresses as N. and her like, whom we call great be- 
 cause we have seen nothing better. Looking at 
 Duse I understood why it is that the Russian theatre 
 is so dull. 
 
 I sent three hundred roubles to-day, did you get 
 them? 
 
 After Duse it was amusing to read the address I 
 enclose."^ My God, how low taste and a sense of 
 justice have sunk! And these are the students — the 
 devil take them ! Whether it is Solovtsov or whether 
 it is Salvini, it's all the same to them, both equally 
 "stir a warm response in the hearts of the young." 
 They are worth a farthing, all those hearts. 
 
 We set off for Warsaw at half-past one to-morrow. 
 My greetings to all, even the mongooses, though they 
 don't deserve it. I will write. 
 
 • Vienna, 
 March 20, 1891. 
 
 My dear Czechs, 
 
 I write to you from Vienna, which I reached 
 yesterday at four o'clock in the afternoon. Every- 
 thing went well on the journey. From Warsaw to 
 Vienna I travelled like a railway Nana in a luxurious 
 compartment of the "Societe Internationale des 
 Wagons-Lits." Beds, looking-glasses, huge win- 
 dows, rugs, and so on. 
 
 Ah, my dears, if you only knew how nice Vienna is ! 
 
 * A newspaper cutting containing an address: From the Stu- 
 dents of the Technological Institute of Harkov to M. M. Solovtsov, 
 was enclosed.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 235 
 
 It can't be compared with any of the towns I have 
 seen in my life. The streets are broad and elegantly 
 paved, there are numbers of boulevards and squares, 
 the houses have always six or seven storeys, and shops 
 — they are not shops, but a perfect delirium, a dream! 
 There are myriads of neckties alone in the windows! 
 Such amazing things made of bronze, china, and 
 leather! The churches are huge, but they do not 
 oppress one by their hugeness; they caress the eye, 
 for it seems as though they are woven of lace. St. 
 Stephen and the Votiv-Kirche are particularly fine. 
 They are not like buildings, but like cakes for tea. 
 The parliament, the town hall, and the university 
 are magnificent. It is all magnificent, and I have 
 for the first time realized, yesterday and to-day, 
 that architecture is really an art. And here the art 
 is not seen in little bits, as with us, but stretches over 
 several versts. There are numbers of monuments. 
 In every side street there is sure to be a bookshop. 
 In the windows of the bookshops there are Russian 
 books to be seen — not, alas, the works of Albov, of 
 Barantsevitch, and of Chekhov, but of all sorts of 
 anonymous authors who write and publish abroad. 
 I saw "Renan," "The Mysteries of the Winter 
 Palace," and so on. It is strange that here one is 
 free to read anything and to say what one likes. 
 Understand, ye peoples, what the cabs are like 
 here ! The devil take them ! There are no droshkys, 
 but they are all new, pretty carriages with one and 
 often two horses. Tlie horses are splendid. On the 
 box sit dandies in top-hats and reefer jackets, reading 
 the newspaper, all politeness and readiness to oblige. 
 The dinners are good. There is no vodka; they 
 drink beer and fairly good wine. There is one thing
 
 236 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 that is nasty: they make you pay for bread. When 
 they bring the bill they ask, Wie viel brodchen? — 
 that is, how many rolls have you devoured? And 
 you have to pay for every little roll. 
 
 The women are beautiful and elegant. Indeed, 
 everything is diabolically elegant. 
 
 I have not quite forgotten German. I understand, 
 and am understood. 
 
 When we crossed the frontier it was snowing. In 
 Vienna there is no snow, but it is cold all the same. 
 
 I am homesick and miss you all, and indeed I am 
 conscience-stricken, too, at deserting you all again. 
 But there, never mind! I shall come back and stay 
 at home for a whole year. I send my greetings to 
 everyone, everyone. 
 
 I wish you all things good; don't forget me with 
 my many transgressions. I embrace you, I bless you, 
 send my greetings and remain, 
 
 Your loving 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 Everyone who meets us recognises that we are Rus- 
 sians, and stares not at my face, but at my grizzled 
 cap. Looking at my cap they probably think I am 
 a very rich Russian Count. 
 
 To HIS Brother Ivan. 
 
 Venice, 
 March 24, 1891. 
 
 I am now in Venice. I arrived here two days ago 
 from Vienna. One thing I can say: I have never 
 in my life seen a town more marvellous than Venice. 
 It is perfectly enchanting, brilHance, joy, life. In-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 237 
 
 stead of streets and roads there are canals; instead 
 of cabs, gondolas. The architecture is amazing, and 
 there is not a single spot that does not excite some 
 historical or artistic interest. You float in a gondola 
 and see the palace of the Doges, the house where 
 Desdemona lived, homes of various painters, 
 churches. And in the churches there are sculptures 
 and paintings such as we have never dreamed of. In 
 fact it is enchantment. 
 
 All day from morning till night I sit in a gondola 
 and glide along the streets, or I saunter about the 
 famous St. Mark's Square. The square is as level 
 and clean as a parquet floor. Here there is St. Mark's 
 — something impossible to describe — the Palace of 
 the Doges, and other buildings which make me feel as 
 I do listening to part singing — I feel the amazing 
 beauty and revel in it. 
 
 And the evenings ! My God ! One might almost 
 die of the strangeness of it. One goes in a gondola 
 . . . warmth, stillness, stars. . . . There are no 
 horses in Venice, and so there is a silence here as in 
 the open country. Gondolas flit to and fro, . . . then 
 a gondola glides by, hung with lanterns. In it are a 
 double-bass, violins, a guitar, a mandolin and cornet, 
 two or three ladies, several men, and one hears 
 singing and music. They sing from operas. What 
 voices! One goes on a little further and again meets 
 a boat with singers, and then again, and the air is full, 
 till midnight, of the mingled strains of violins and 
 tenor voices, and all sorts of heart-stirring sounds. 
 
 Merezhkovsky, whom I have met here, is off his 
 head with ecstasy. For us poor and oppressed Rus- 
 sians it is easy to go out of our minds here in a 
 world of beauty, wealth, and freedom. One longs to
 
 238 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 remain here for ever, and when one stands in the 
 churches and listens to the organ one longs to become 
 a Catholic. 
 
 The tombs of Canova and Titian are magnificent. 
 Here they bury great artists like kings in churches; 
 here they do not despise art as with us ; the churches 
 provide a shelter for pictures and statues however 
 naked they may be. 
 
 In the Palace of the Doges there is a picture in 
 which there are about ten thousand human figures. 
 
 To-day is Sunday. There will be a band playing 
 in St. Mark's Square. . . . 
 
 If you ever happen to come to Venice it will be the 
 best thing in your life. You ought to see the glass 
 here! Your bottles^ are so hideous compared with 
 the things here, that it makes one sick to think of 
 them. 
 
 I will write again; meanwhile, good-bye. 
 
 To Madame Kiselyov. 
 
 Venice, 
 March 25. 
 
 I am in Venice. You may put me in a madhouse. 
 Gondolas, St. Mark's Square, water, stars, Italian 
 women, serenades, mandolins, Falernian wine — in 
 fact all is lost! 
 
 Don't remember evil against me. 
 
 The shade of the lovely Desdemona sends a smile 
 to the District Captain. 
 
 Greetings to all. Antonio. 
 
 The Jesuits send their love to you. 
 
 * His brother Ivan was teaching in a school attached to a 
 glass factory.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 239 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Venice, 
 March 25, 1891. 
 
 Bewitching blue-eyed Venice sends her greetings 
 to all of you. Oh, signori and signorine, what an 
 exquisite town this Venice is ! Imagine a town con- 
 sisting of houses and churches such as you have never 
 seen; an intoxicating architecture, everything as 
 graceful and light as the birdlike gondola. Such 
 houses and churches can only be built by people 
 possessed of immense artistic and musical taste and 
 endowed with a lion-like temperament. Now imagine 
 in the streets and alleys, instead of pavement, water; 
 imagine that there is not one horse in the town; that 
 instead of cabmen you see gondoliers on their wonder- 
 ful boats, light, delicate long-beaked birds which 
 scarcely seem to touch the water and tremble at the 
 tiniest wave. And all from earth to sky bathed in 
 sunshine. 
 
 There are streets as broad as the Nevsky, and others 
 in which you can bar the way by stretching out your 
 arms. The centre of the town is St. Mark's Square 
 with the celebrated cathedral of the same name. 
 The cathedral is magnificent, especially on the out- 
 side. Beside it is the Palace of the Doges where 
 Othello made his confession before the senators. 
 
 In short, there is not a spot that does not call up 
 memories and touch the heart. For instance, the 
 little house where Desdemona lived makes an im- 
 pression that is difficult to shake off. The very best 
 time in Venice is the evening. First the stars; sec- 
 ondly, the long canals in which the lights and stars 
 are reflected ; thirdly, gondolas, gondolas, and gondo-
 
 240 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 las ; when it is dark they seem to be ahve. Fourthly, 
 one wants to cry because on all sides one hears 
 music and superb singing. A gondola glides up 
 hung with many-coloured lanterns; there is light 
 enough for one to distinguish a double-bass, a guitar, 
 a mandolin, a violin. . . . Then another gondola 
 like it. . . . Men and women sing, and how they 
 sing! It's quite an opera. 
 
 Fifthly, it's warm. 
 
 In short, the man's a fool who does not go to 
 Venice. Living is cheap here. Board and lodging 
 costs eighteen francs a week — that is, six roubles each 
 or twenty-five roubles a month. A gondolier asks a 
 franc for an hour — that is, thirty kopecks. Admis- 
 sion to the academies, museums, and so on, is free. 
 The Crimea is ten times as expensive, and the Crimea 
 beside Venice is a cuttle-fish beside a whale. 
 
 I am afraid Father is angry with me for not having 
 said good-bye to him. I ask his forgiveness. 
 
 What glass there is here ! what mirrors ! Why am 
 I not a millionaire! . . . Next year let us all take 
 a summer cottage in Venice. 
 
 The air is full of the vibration of church bells : my 
 dear Tunguses, let us all embrace Catholicism. If 
 only you knew how lovely the organs are in the 
 churches, what sculptures there are here, what Italian 
 women on their knees with prayer-books! 
 
 Keep well and don't forget me, a sinner. 
 
 A picturesque railway line, of which I have been 
 told a great deal, runs from Vienna to Venice. But I 
 was disappointed in the journey. The mountains, 
 the precipices, and the snowy crests I have seen in the 
 Caucasus and Ceylon are far more impressive than 
 here. Addio.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 241 
 
 Venice, 
 March 26, 1891. 
 
 It is pelting cats and dogs. Venetia bella has 
 ceased to be bella. The water excites a feehng of 
 dejected dreariness, and one longs to hasten some- 
 where where there is sun. 
 
 The rain has reminded me of my raincoat (the 
 leather one) ; I believe the rats have gnawed it a little. 
 If they have, send it to be mended as soon as you 
 can. ... 
 
 How is Signor Mongoose? I am afraid every day 
 of hearing that he is dead. 
 
 In describing the cheapness of Venetian life yester- 
 day, I overdid it a bit. It is Madame Merezhkovsky's 
 fault ; she told me that she and her husband paid only 
 six francs per week each. But instead of per week, 
 read per day. Anyway, it is cheap. The franc here 
 goes as far as a rouble. 
 
 We are going to Florence. 
 
 May the Holy Mother bless you. 
 
 I have seen Titian's Madonna. It's very fine. 
 But it is a pity that here fine works are mixed up side 
 by side with worthless things, that have been pre- 
 served and not flung away simply from the spirit of 
 conservatism all-present in such creatures of habit as 
 messieurs les hommes. There are many pictures the 
 long life of which is quite incomprehensible. 
 
 The house where Desdemona used to live is to let. 
 
 Bologna, 
 March 28, 1891. 
 
 I am in Bologna, a town remarkable for its arcades, 
 slanting towers, and Raphael's pictures of "Cecilia." 
 We are going on to-day to Florence.
 
 242 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Florence, 
 March 29, 1891. 
 
 I am in Florence. I am worn out with racing about 
 to museums and churches. I have seen the Venus of 
 Medici, and I think that if she were dressed in modern 
 clothes she would be hideous, especially about the 
 waist. 
 
 The sky is overcast, and Italy without sun is like 
 a face in a mask. 
 
 P. S. — Dante's monument is fine. 
 
 Florence, 
 March 30, 1891. 
 
 I am in Florence. To-morrow we are going to 
 Rome. It's cold. We have the spleen. You can't 
 take a step in Florence without coming to a picture- 
 shop or a statue-shop. 
 
 P. S. — Send my watch to be mended. 
 
 To Madame Kiselyov. 
 
 Rome, 
 April 1, 1891. 
 
 The Pope of Rome charges me to congratulate you 
 on your name-day and wish you as much money as 
 he has rooms. He has eleven thousand! Strolling 
 about the Vatican I was nearlv dead with exhaustion, 
 and when I got home I felt that my legs were made of 
 cotton-wool. 
 
 I am dining at the table d'hote. Can you imagine 
 just opposite me are sitting two Dutch girls: one of 
 them is like Pushkin's Tatyana, and the other like her 
 sister Olga. I watch them all through dinner, and
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 243 
 
 imagine a neat, clean little house with a turret, ex- 
 cellent butter, superb Dutch cheese, Dutch herrings, 
 a benevolent-looking pastor, a sedate teacher, . . . 
 and I feel I should like to marry a Dutch girl and be 
 depicted with her on a tea-tray beside the little white 
 house. 
 
 I have seen everything and dragged myself every- 
 where I was told to go. What was offered me to 
 sniff at, I sniffed at. But meanwhile I feel nothing 
 but exhaustion and a craving for cabbage-soup and 
 buckwheat porridge. I was enchanted by Venice, 
 beside myself; but since I have left it, it has been 
 nothing but Baedeker and bad weather. 
 
 Good-bye for now, Marya Vladimirovna, and the 
 Lord God keep you. Humble respects from me and 
 the other Pope to his Honour, Vassilisa and Elizaveta 
 Alexandrovna. 
 
 Neckties are marvellously cheap here. I think I 
 may take to eating them. They are a franc a pair. 
 
 To-morrow I am going to Naples. Pray that I may 
 meet there a beautiful Russian lady, if possible a 
 widow or a divorced wife. 
 
 In the guide-books it says that a love affair is an 
 essential condition for a tour in Italy. Well, hang 
 them all! I am ready for anything. If there must 
 be a love affair, so be it. 
 
 Don't forget your sinful, but sincerely devoted, 
 
 Anton Chekhov. 
 
 My respects to the starlings.
 
 244 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Rome, 
 April 1, 1891. 
 
 When I got to Rome I went to the post-office and 
 did not find a single letter. Suvorin has got several 
 letters. I made up my mind to pay you out, not to 
 write to you at all — but there, God bless you! I am 
 not so very fond of letters, but when one is travelling 
 nothing is so bad as uncertainty. How have you 
 settled the summer villa question? Is the mongoose 
 alive? And so on and so on. 
 
 I have been in St. Peter's, in the Capitol, in the 
 Coliseum, in the Forum — I have even been in a cafe- 
 chantant, but did not derive from it the gratification 
 I had expected. The weather is a drawback, it is 
 raining. I am hot in my autumn overcoat, and cold 
 in my summer one. 
 
 Travelling is very cheap. One may pay a visit to 
 Italy with only four hundred roubles and go back 
 with purchases. If I were travelling alone or with 
 Ivan, I should have brought away the conviction that 
 travelling in Italy was much cheaper than travelling 
 in the Caucasus. But alas! I am with the Suvorins. 
 ... In Venice we lived in the best of hotels like 
 Doges; here in Rome we live like Cardinals, for we 
 have taken a salon of what was once the palace of 
 Cardinal Conti, now the Hotel Minerva; two huge 
 drawing-rooms, chandeliers, carpets, open fireplaces, 
 and all sorts of useless rubbish, costing us forty francs 
 a day. 
 
 My back aches, and the soles of my feet burn from 
 tramping about. It's awful how we walk ! 
 
 It seems odd to me that Levitan did not like Italy.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 245 
 
 It's a fascinating country. If I were a solitary per- 
 son, an artist, and had money, I should live here in 
 the winter. You see, Italy, apart from its natural 
 scenery and warmth, is the one country in which you 
 feel convinced that art is really supreme over every- 
 thing, and that conviction gives one courage. 
 
 Naples, 
 April 4, 1891. 
 
 I arrived in Naples, went to the post-office and 
 found there five letters from home, for which I am 
 very grateful to you all. Well done, relations! 
 Even Vesuvius is so touched it has gone out. 
 
 Vesuvius hides its top in clouds and can only be 
 seen well in the evening. By day the sky is overcast. 
 We are staying on the sea-front and have a view of 
 everything: the sea, Vesuvius, Capri, Sorrento. . . . 
 We drove in the daytime up to the monastery of St. 
 Martini: the view from here is such as I have never 
 seen before, a marvellous panorama. I saw some- 
 thing like it at Hong Kong when I went up the 
 mountain in the railway. 
 
 In Naples there is a magnificent arcade. And the 
 shops ! ! The shops make me quite giddy. What 
 brilliance! You, Masha, and you, Lika, would be 
 rabid with delight. 
 
 ****** 
 
 There is a wonderful aquarium in Naples. There 
 are even sharks and squids. When a squid (an 
 octopus) devours some animals it's a revolting sight. 
 
 I have been to a barber's and watched a young 
 man having his beard clipped for a whole hour. He 
 was probably engaged to be married or else a card-
 
 246 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 sharper. At the barber's the ceiling and all the four 
 walls were made of looking-glass, so that you feel that 
 you are not at a hairdresser's but at the Vatican where 
 there are eleven thousand rooms. They cut your hair 
 wonderfully. 
 
 I shan't bring you any presents, as you don't write 
 to me about the summer villa and the mongoose. I 
 bought you a watch, Masha, but I have cast it to the 
 swine. But there, God forgive you! 
 
 P. S. — I shall be back by Easter, come and meet 
 me at the station. 
 
 Naples, 
 April 7, 1891. 
 
 Yesterday I went to Pompeii and went over it. As 
 you know, it is a Roman town buried under the lava 
 and ashes of Vesuvius in 79 a.d. I walked about the 
 streets of the town and saw the houses, the temples, 
 the theatre, the squares. ... I saw and marvelled 
 at the faculty of the Romans for combining simplicity 
 with convenience and beauty. After viewing Pom- 
 peii, I lunched at a restaurant and then decided to go 
 to Vesuvius. The excellent red wine I had drunk had 
 a great deal to do with this decision. I had to ride on 
 horseback to the foot of Vesuvius. I have in conse- 
 quence to-day a sensation in some parts of my mortal 
 frame as though I had been in the Third Division, and 
 had there been flogged. What an agonising business 
 it is climbing up Vesuvius! Ashes, mountains of 
 lava, solid waves of molten minerals, mounds of earth, 
 and every sort of abomination. You take one step 
 forward and fall half a step back, the soles of your 
 feet hurt you, your breathing is oppressed. . . . 
 You go on and on and on, and it is still a long way to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 247 
 
 the top. You wonder whether to turn back, but you 
 are ashamed to turn back, you would be laughed at. 
 The ascent began at half-past two, and ended at six. 
 The crater of Vesuvius is a great many yards in 
 diameter. I stood on its edge and looked down as 
 into a cup. The soil around, covered by a layer of 
 sulphur, was smoking vigorously. From the crater 
 rose white stinking smoke; spurts of hot water and 
 red-hot stones fly out while Satan lies snoring under 
 cover of the smoke. Tlie noise is rather mixed, you 
 hear in it the beating of breakers and the roar of 
 thunder, and the rumble of the railway line and the 
 falling of planks. It is very terrible, and at the same 
 time one has an impulse to jump right into the crater. 
 I believe in hell now. The lava has such a high tem- 
 perature that copper coins melt in it. 
 
 Coming down was as horrid as going up. You 
 sink up to your knees in ashes. I was fearfully tired. 
 I went back on horseback through a little village and 
 by houses; there was a glorious fragrance and the 
 moon was shining. I sniffed, gazed at the moon, and 
 thought of her — that is, of Lika L. 
 
 All the summer, noble gentlemen, we shall have no 
 money, and the thought of that spoils my appetite. 
 I have got into debt for a thousand for a tour, which 
 I could have made solo for three hundred roubles. 
 All my hopes now are in the fools of amateurs who are 
 going to act my "Bear." 
 
 Have you taken a house for the holidays, signori? 
 You treat me piggishly, you write nothing to me, and 
 I don't know what's going on, and how things are at 
 home. 
 
 Humble respects to you all. Take care of your- 
 selves, and don't completely forget me.
 
 248 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Monte Carlo, 
 April 13, 1891. 
 
 I am writing to you from Monte Carlo, from the 
 very place where they play roulette. I can't tell you 
 how thrilling the game is. First of all I won eighty 
 francs, then I lost, then I won again, and in the end 
 was left with a loss of forty francs. I have twenty 
 francs left, I shall go and try my luck again. I have 
 been here since the morning, and it is twelve o'clock 
 at night. If I had money to spare I believe I should 
 spend the whole year gambling and walking about the 
 magnificent halls of the casino. It is interesting to 
 watch the ladies who lose thousands. This morning 
 a young lady lost 5000 francs. The tables with piles 
 of gold are interesting too. In fact it is beyond all 
 words. This charming Monte Carlo is extremely like 
 a fine . . . den of thieves. The suicide of losers is 
 quite a regular thing. 
 
 Suvorin fils lost 300 francs. 
 
 We shall soon see each other. I am weary of 
 wandering over the face of the earth. One must 
 draw the line. My heels are sore as it is. 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Nice, 
 Monday in Holy Week, April, 1891. 
 
 We are staying in Nice, on the sea-front. The sun 
 is shining, it is warm, green and fragrant, but windy. 
 An hour's journey from Nice is the famous Monaco. 
 There is Monte Carlo, where roulette is played. Im- 
 agine the rooms of the Hall of Nobihty but hand-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 249 
 
 somer, loftier and larger. There are big tables, and 
 on the tables roulette — which I will describe to you 
 when I get home. The day before yesterday I went 
 over there, played and lost. The game is fearfully 
 fascinating. After losing, Suvorin fils and I fell to 
 thinking it over, and thought out a system which 
 would ensure one's winning. We went yesterday, 
 taking five hundred francs each; at the first staking 
 I won two gold pieces, then again and again; my 
 waistcoat pockets bulged with gold. I had in hand 
 French money even of the year 1808, as well as Bel- 
 gian, Italian, Greek, and Austrian coins. ... I 
 have never before seen so much gold and silver. I 
 began playing at five o'clock and by ten I had not a 
 single franc in my pocket, and the only thing left me 
 was the satisfaction of knowing that I had my return 
 ticket to Nice. So there it is, my friends ! You will 
 say, of course: "What a mean thing to do! We are 
 so poor, while he out there plays roulette." Per- 
 fectly just, and I give you permission to slay me. But 
 I personally am much pleased with myself. Anyway, 
 now I can tell my grandchildren that I have played 
 roulette, and know the feeling which is excited by 
 gambling. 
 
 Beside the Casino where roulette is played there is 
 another swindle — the restaurants. They fleece one 
 frightfully and feed one magnificently. Every dish 
 is a regular work of art, before which one is expected 
 to bow one's knee in homage and to be too awe- 
 stricken to eat it. Every morsel is rigged out with 
 lots of artichokes, truffles, and nightingales' tongues 
 of all sorts. And, good Lord! how contemptible and 
 loathsome this life is with its artichokes, its palms, 
 and its smell of orange blossoms ! I love wealth and
 
 250 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 luxury, but the luxury here, the luxury of the gam- 
 bling saloon, reminds one of a luxurious water-closet. 
 There is something in the atmosphere that offends 
 one's sense of decency and vulgarizes the scenery, the 
 sound of the sea, the moon. 
 
 Yesterday — Sunday — I went to the Russian church 
 here. What was peculiar was the use of palm- 
 branches instead of willows ; and instead of boy chor- 
 isters a choir of ladies, which gives the singing an 
 operatic effect. They put foreign money in the plate ; 
 the verger and beadle speak French, and so on. . . . 
 
 Of all the places I have been in hitherto Venice has 
 left me the loveliest memories. Rome on the whole 
 is rather like Harkov, and Naples is filthy. And the 
 sea does not attract me, as I got tired of it last Novem- 
 ber and December. 
 
 I feel as though I have been travelling for a whole 
 year. I had scarcely got back from Sahalin when I 
 went to Petersburg, and then to Petersburg again, 
 and to Italy. . . . 
 
 If I don't manage to get home by Easter, when you 
 break the fast, remember me in your prayers, and 
 receive my congratulations from a distance, and my 
 assurance that I shall miss you all horribly on Easter 
 night. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Paris, 
 April 21, 1891. 
 
 To-day is Easter. So Christ is risen! It's my 
 first Easter away from home. 
 
 I arrived in Paris on Friday morning and at once 
 went to the Exhibition. Yes, the Eiffel Tower is very
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 251 
 
 very high. The other exhibition buildings I saw 
 only from the outside, as they were occupied by 
 cavalry brought there in anticipation of disorders. 
 On Friday they expected riots. The people flocked 
 in crowds about the streets, shouting and whistling, 
 greatly excited, while the police kept dispersing them. 
 To disperse a big crowd a dozen policemen are suffi- 
 cient here. The police make a combined attack, and 
 the crowd runs like mad. In one of these attacks the 
 honour was vouchsafed to me — a policeman caught 
 hold of me under my shoulder, and pushed me in front 
 of him. 
 
 There was a great deal of movement, the streets 
 were swarming and surging. Noise, hubbub. The 
 pavements are filled with little tables, and at the 
 tables sit Frenchmen who feel as though they were at 
 home in the street. A magnificent people. There is 
 no describing Paris, though ; I will put off the descrip- 
 tion of it till I get home. 
 
 I heard the midnight service in the Church of the 
 Embassy. . . . 
 
 I am afraid you have no money. 
 
 Misha, get my pince-nez mended, for the salvation 
 of your soul! I am simply a martyr without spec- 
 tacles. I went to the Salon and couldn't see half the 
 pictures, thanks to my short sight. By the way, the 
 Russian artists are far more serious than the French. 
 ... In comparison with the landscape painters I 
 saw here yesterday Levitan is a king. . . .
 
 252 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Paris, 
 
 April 24. 
 
 A change again. One of the Russian sculptors liv- 
 ing in Paris has undertaken to do a bust of Suvorin^ 
 and this will keep us till Saturday. 
 
 . . . How are you managing without money? 
 Bear it till Thursday. 
 
 Imagine my delight. I was in the Chamber of 
 Deputies just at the time of the sitting when the 
 Minister for Internal Affairs was called to account for 
 the irregularities which the government had ventured 
 upon in putting down the riots in Fourmis (there were 
 many killed and wounded) . It was a stormy and ex- 
 tremely interesting sitting. 
 
 Men who tie boa-constrictors round their bodies, 
 ladies who kick up to the ceiling, flying people, lions, 
 cafe-chantants^ dinners and lunches begin to sicken 
 me. It is time I was home. I am longing to work. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Alexin, 
 May 7, 1891. 
 
 The summer villa is all right. There are w^oods 
 and the Oka: it is far away in the wilds, it is warm, 
 nightingales sing, and so on. It is quiet and peace- 
 ful, and in bad weather it will be dull and depressing 
 here. After travelling abroad, life at a summer villa 
 seems a little mawkish. I feel as though I had been 
 taken prisoner and put into a fortress. But I am con- 
 tented all the same. In Moscow I received from the 
 Society of Dramatic Authors not two hundred roubles, 
 as I expected, but three hundred. It's very kind on 
 the part of fortune.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 253 
 
 Well, my clear sir, I owe you, even if we adopt your 
 reckoning, not less than eight hundred roubles. In 
 June or July, when my money will be at the shop, I 
 will write to Zandrok to send all that comes to me to 
 you in Feodosia, and do not try and prevent me. I 
 give you my word of honour that when I have paid 
 my debts and settled with you, I'll accept a loan of 
 2,000 from you. Do not imagine that it is dis- 
 agreeable to me to be in your debt. I lend other 
 people money, and so I feel I have the right to borrow 
 money, but I am afraid of getting into difficulties and 
 the habit of being in debt. You know I owe your 
 firm a devilish lot. 
 
 There is a fine view from my window. Trains are 
 continually passing. There is a bridge across the Oka. 
 
 Alexin, 
 May 10, 1891. 
 
 Yes, you are right, my soul needs balsam. I 
 should read now with pleasure, even with joy, some- 
 thing serious, not merely about myself but things in 
 general. I pine for serious reading, and recent Rus- 
 sian criticism does not nourish but simply irritates 
 me. I could read with enthusiasm something new 
 about Pushkin or Tolstoy. That would be balsam 
 for my idle mind. 
 
 I am homesick for Venice and Florence too, and 
 am ready to climb Vesuvius again ; Bologna has been 
 effaced from my memory and grown dim. As for 
 Nice and Paris, when I recall them 'T look on my 
 life with loathing." 
 
 In the last number of The Messenger of Foreign 
 Literature there is a story by Ouida, translated from 
 the English by our Mihail. Why don't I know
 
 254 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 foreign languages? It seems to me I could translate 
 magnificently. When I read anyone else's transla- 
 tion I keep altering and transposing the words in my 
 brain, and the result is something light, ethereal, like 
 lace work. 
 
 On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays I write 
 my Sahalin book, on the other days, except Sunday, 
 my novel, and on Sundays, short stories. I work with 
 zest. The weather has been superb every day; the 
 site of our summer villa is dry and healthy. There is 
 a lot of woodland. There are a lot of fish and cray- 
 fish in the Oka. I see the trains and the steamers. 
 Altogether if it were not for being somewhat cramped 
 I should be very very much pleased with it. 
 
 * 4f * * * * 
 
 I don't intend to get married. I should like to be 
 a little bald old man sitting at a big table in a fine 
 study. . . . 
 
 Alexin, 
 May 13, 1891. 
 
 I am going to write you a Christmas story — that's 
 certain. Two, indeed, if you like. I sit and write 
 and write . . .; at last I have set to work. I am 
 only sorry that my cursed teeth are aching and my 
 stomach is out of order. 
 
 I am a dilatory but productive author. By the 
 time I am forty I shall have hundreds of volumes, 
 so that I can open a bookshop with nothing but my 
 own works. To have a lot of books and to have 
 nothing else is a horrible disgrace. 
 
 My dear friend, haven't you in your library 
 Tagantsev's "Criminal Law"? If you have, couldn't 
 you send it me? I would buy it, but I am now
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 255 
 
 "a poor relation" — a beggar and as poor as Sidor's 
 goat. Would you telephone to your shop, too, to 
 send me, on account of favours to come, two books: 
 "The Laws relating to Exiles," and "The Laws re- 
 lating to Persons under Police Control." Don't im- 
 agine that I want to become a procurator; I want 
 these works for my Sahalin book. I am going to- 
 direct my attack chiefly against life sentences, in 
 which I see the root of all the evils; and against the 
 laws dealing with exiles, which are fearfully out of 
 date and contradictory. 
 
 To L. S. MiziNOv. 
 
 Alexin, 
 May 17, 1891. 
 
 Golden, mother-of-pearl, and fil d'Ecosse Likal 
 The mongoose ran away the day before yesterday, 
 and will never come back again. It is dead. That 
 is the first thing. 
 
 The second thing is, that we are moving our resi- 
 dence to the upper storey of the house of B. K. — the 
 man who gave you milk to drink and forgot to give you 
 strawberries. We will let you know the day we move 
 in due time. Come to smell the flowers, to walk, to 
 fish, and to blubber. Ah, lovely Lika! When you 
 bedewed my right shoulder with your tears (I have 
 taken out the spots with benzine), and when slice 
 after slice you ate our bread and meat, we greedily 
 devoured your face and head with our eyes. Ah, 
 Lika, Lika, diabolical beauty! . . . 
 
 When you are at the Alhambra with Trofimov I 
 hope you may accidentally jab out his eye with your 
 fork.
 
 256 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Alexin, 
 May 18, 1891. 
 
 ... I get up at five o'clock in the morning; evi- 
 dently when I am old I shall get up at four. My 
 forefathers all got up very early, before the cock. 
 And I notice people who get up very early are horribly 
 fussy. So I suppose I shall be a fussy, restless old 
 man. . . . 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 
 May 20. 
 
 . . . The carp bite capitally. I forgot all my sor- 
 rows yesterday; first I sat by the pond and caught 
 carp, and then by the old mill and caught perch. 
 
 . . . The last two proclamations — about the 
 Siberian railway and the exiles — pleased me very 
 much. The Siberian railway is called a national con- 
 cern, and the tone of the proclamation guarantees 
 its speedy completion; and convicts who have com- 
 pleted such and such terms as settlers are allowed 
 to return to Russia without the right to live in the 
 provinces of Petersburg and Moscow. The news- 
 papers have let this pass unnoticed, and yet it is 
 something which has never been in Russia before — it 
 is the first step towards abolishing the life sentence 
 which has so long weighed on the public conscience 
 as unjust and cruel in the extreme. . . . 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 May 27, 4 o'clock in the Morning. 
 
 The mongoose has run away into the woods and 
 has not come back. It is cold. I have no money. 
 But nevertheless, I don't envy you. One cannot live 
 in town now, it is both dreary and unwholesome. I
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 257 
 
 should like you to be sitting from morning till din- 
 ner-time in this verandah, drinking tea and writing 
 something artistic, a play or something; and after 
 dinner till evening, fishing and thinking peaceful 
 thoughts. You have long ago earned the right which 
 is denied you now by all sorts of chance circum- 
 stances, and it seems to me shameful and unjust that 
 1 should live more peacefully than you. Is it pos- 
 sible that you will stay all June in town? It's really 
 terrible. . . . 
 
 ... By the way, read Grigorovitch's letter to 
 my enemy Anna Ivanovna. Let her soul rejoice. 
 "Chekhov belongs to the generation which has 
 perceptibly begun to turn away from the West and 
 concentrate more closely on their own world. . . ." 
 "Venice and Florence are nothing else than dull 
 towns for a man of any intelligence. . . ." Merci, 
 but I don't understand persons of such intelligence. 
 One would have to be a bull to "turn away from 
 the West" on arriving for the first time in Venice or 
 Florence. There is very little intelligence in doing 
 so. But I should like to know who is taking the 
 trouble to announce to the whole universe that I did 
 not like foreign parts. Good Lord! I never let drop 
 one word about it. " I liked even Bologna. What- 
 ever ought I to have done? Howled with rapture? 
 Broken the windows? Embraced Frenchmen? Do 
 they say I gained no ideas? But I fancy I 
 did. . . . 
 
 We must see each other — or more correctly, I must 
 see you. I am missing you already, although to-day 
 I caught two hundred and fifty-two carp and one 
 crayfish.
 
 258 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 
 June 4, 1891. 
 
 Why did you go away so soon? I was very dull, 
 and could not get back into my usual petty routine 
 very quickly afterwards. As luck would have it, 
 after you went away the weather became warm and 
 magnificent, and the fish began to bite. 
 
 . . . The mongoose has been found. A sports- 
 man with dogs found him on this side of the Oka in 
 a quarry ; if there had not been a crevice in the quarry 
 the dogs would have torn the mongoose to pieces. 
 It had been astray in the woods for eighteen days. 
 In spite of the climatic conditions, which are awful 
 for it, it had grown fat — such is the effect of freedom. 
 Yes, my dear sir, freedom is a grand thing. 
 
 I advise you again to go to Feodosia by the Volga. 
 Anna Ivanovna and you will enjoy it, and it will be 
 new and interesting for the children. If I were free 
 I would come with you. It's snug now on those 
 Volga steamers, they feed you well and the passengers 
 are interesting. 
 
 Forgive me for your having been so uncomfortable 
 with us. When I am grown up and order furniture 
 from Venice, as I certainly shall do, you won't have 
 such a cold and rough time with me. 
 
 To L. S. MiziNOv. 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 
 June 12, 1891. 
 Enchanting, amazing Lika! 
 
 Captivated by the Circassian Levitan, you have 
 completely forgotten that you promised my brother
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 259 
 
 Ivan you would come on the 1st of June, and you 
 do not answer my sister's letter at all. I wrote to 
 you from Moscow to invite you, but my letter, too, 
 remained a voice crying in the wilderness. Though 
 you are received in aristocratic society, you have been 
 badly brought up all the same, and I don't regret hav- 
 ing once chastised you with a switch. You must un- 
 derstand that expecting your arrival from day to day 
 not only wearies us, but puts us to expense. In an 
 ordinary way we only have for dinner what is left of 
 yesterday's soup, but when we expect visitors we have 
 also a dish of boiled beef, which we buy from the 
 neighbouring cooks. 
 
 We have a magnificent garden, dark avenues, snug 
 corners, a river, a mill, a boat, moonlight, nightin- 
 gales, turkeys. In the pond and river there are very 
 intelligent frogs. We often go for walks, during 
 which I usually close my eyes and crook my right arm 
 in the shape of a bread-ring, imagining that you are 
 walking by my side. 
 
 . . . Give my greetings to Levitan. Please ask 
 him not to write about you in every letter. In the 
 first place it is not magnanimous on his part, and 
 in the second, I have no interest whatever in his 
 happiness. 
 
 Be well and happy and don't forget us. I have 
 just received your letter, it is filled from top to bot- 
 tom with such charming expressions as: "The devil 
 choke you!" "The devil flay you ! " "Anathema!" 
 "A good smack," "rabble," "overeaten myself." 
 Your friends — such as Trophim — with their cab- 
 men's talk certainly have an improving influence on 
 you. 
 
 You may bathe and go for evening walks. That's
 
 260 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 all nonsense. All my inside is full of coughs, wet 
 and dry, but I bathe and walk about, and yet I am 
 alive. . . . 
 
 To L. S. MiziNOv. 
 
 (Enclosing a photograph of a young man inscribed 
 "To Lida from Petya") 
 
 Precious Lida! 
 
 Why these reproaches! I send you my por- 
 trait. To-morrow we shall meet. Do not forget 
 your Petya. A thousand kisses ! ! ! 
 
 I have bought Chekhov's stories. How delightful ! 
 Mind you buy them. Remember me to Masha 
 Chekhov. What a darling you are! 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 My dear Lidia Stahievna, 
 
 I love you passionately like a tiger, and I offer 
 you my hand. 
 
 Marshal of Nobility, 
 GoLOViN Rtishtchev. 
 
 P. S. — Answer me by signs. You do squint. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 
 June, 1891. 
 
 Masha! Make haste and come home, as without 
 you our intensive culture is going to complete ruin. 
 There is nothing to eat, the flies are sickening. The
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 261 
 
 mongoose has broken a jar of jam, and so on, and so 
 on. 
 
 All the summer visitors sigh and lament over your 
 absence. There is no news. . . . The spiderman 
 is busy from morning to night with his spiders. He 
 has already described five of the spider's legs, and 
 has only three left to do. When he has finished with 
 spiders he will begin upon fleas, which he will catch 
 on his aunt. The K.s sit every evening at the club, 
 and no hints from me will prevail on them to move 
 from the spot. 
 
 It is hot, there are no mushrooms. Suvorin has 
 not come yet. . . . 
 
 Come soon for it is devilishly dull. We have just 
 caught a frog and given it to the mongoose. It has 
 eaten it. 
 
 To Madame Kiselyov. 
 
 Alexin, 
 July 20, 1891. 
 
 Greetings, honoured Marya Vladimirovna. 
 
 For God's sake write what you are doing, whether 
 you are all well and how things are in regard to mush- 
 rooms and gudgeon. 
 
 We are living at Bogimovo in the province of 
 Kaluga. . . . It's a huge house, a fine park, the 
 inevitable views, at the sight of which I am for some 
 reason expected to say "Ach!" A river, a pond 
 with hungry carp who love to get on to the hook, a 
 mass of sick people, a smell of iodoform, and walks 
 in the evenings. I am busy with my Sahalin; and 
 in the intervals, that I may not let my family starve, 
 I cherish the muse and write stories. Everything
 
 262 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 goes on in the old way, there is nothing new. I get 
 up every day at five o'clock, and prepare my coffee 
 with my own hands — a sign that I have already got 
 into old bachelor habits and am resigned to them. 
 Masha is painting, Misha wears his cockade credita- 
 bly, father talks about bishops, mother bustles about 
 the house, Ivan fishes. On the same estate with us 
 there is living a zoologist called Wagner and his 
 family, and some Kisilyovs — not the Kisilyovs, but 
 others, not the real ones. 
 
 Wagner catches ladybirds and spiders, and Kisilyov 
 the father sketches, as he is an artist. We get up 
 performances, tableaux-vivants, and picnics. It is 
 very gay and amusing, but I have only to catch a 
 perch or find a mushroom for my head to droop, and 
 my thoughts to be carried back to the past, and my 
 brain and soul begin in a funereal voice to sing the 
 duet "We are parted." The "deposed idol and the 
 deserted temple" rise up before my imagination, and 
 I think devoutly: "I would exchange all the zoolo- 
 gists and great artists in the world for one little 
 Idiotik." * The weather has all the while been hot 
 and dry, and only to-day there has been a crash of 
 thunder and the gates of heaven are open. One longs 
 to get away somewhere — for instance, to America, or 
 Norway. ... Be well and happy, and may the 
 good spirits, of whom there are so many at Babkino, 
 have you in their keeping. 
 
 * Madame Kisilyov's son.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 263 
 
 To HIS Brother Alexandr. 
 
 Alexin, 
 July, 1891. 
 
 My Photographic and Prolific Brother! 
 
 I got a letter from you a long time ago with 
 the photographs of Semashko, but I haven't answered 
 till now, because I have been all the time trying to 
 formulate the great thoughts befitting my answer. 
 All our people are alive and well, we often talk of 
 you, and regret that your prolificness prevents you 
 from coming to us here where you would be very 
 welcome. Father, as I have written to you already, 
 has thrown up Ivanygortch, and is living with us. 
 Suvorin has been here twice; he talked about you, 
 and caught fish. I am up to my neck in work with 
 Sahalin, and other things no less wearisome and hard 
 labour. I dream of winning forty thousand, so as 
 to cut myself off completely from writing, which I 
 am sick of, to buy a little bit of land and live like 
 a hermit in idle seclusion, with you and Ivan in the 
 neighbourhood — I dream of presenting you with 
 fifteen acres each as poor relations. Altogether I 
 have a dreary existence, I am sick of toiling over 
 lines and halfpence, and old age is creeping nearer 
 and nearer. 
 
 Your last story, in my opinion, shared by Suvorin, 
 is good. Why do you write so little? 
 
 The zoologist V. A. Wagner, who took his degree 
 with you, is staying in the same courtyard. He is 
 writing a very solid dissertation. Kisilyov, the artist, 
 is living in the same yard too. We go walks to- 
 gether in the evenings and discuss philosophy. . . .
 
 264 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 BOGIMOVO, 
 
 July 24, 1891. 
 
 . . . Thanks for the five kopecks addition. Alas, 
 it will not settle my difficulties! To save up a re- 
 serve, as you write, and extricate myself from the 
 abyss of halfpenny anxieties and petty terrors, there 
 is only one resource left me — an immoral one. To 
 marry a rich woman or give out Anna Karenin as my 
 work. And as that is impossible I dismiss my diffi- 
 culties in despair and let things go as they please. 
 
 You once praised Rod, a French writer, and told 
 me Tolstoy liked him. The other day I happened to 
 read a novel of his and flung up my hands in amaze- 
 ment. He is equivalent to our Matchtet, only a lit- 
 tle more intelligent. There is a terrible deal of af- 
 fectation, dreariness, straining after originality, and 
 as little of anything artistic as there was salt in that 
 porridge we cooked in the evening at Bogimovo. In 
 the preface this Rod regrets that he was in the past 
 a "naturalist," and rejoices that the spiritualism of 
 the latest recruits of literature has replaced material- 
 ism. Boyish boastfulness which is at the same time 
 coarse and clumsy. . . . "If we are not as talented 
 as you, Monsieur Zola, to make up for it we believe 
 in God." . . . 
 
 July 29. 
 
 Well, thank God! To-day I have received from 
 the bookshop notice that there is 690 roubles 
 6 kopecks coming to me. I have written in answer 
 that they are to send five hundred roubles to Feo- 
 dosia and the other one hundred and ninety to me. 
 And so I am left owing you only one hundred and
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 265 
 
 seventy. That is comforting, it's an advance any- 
 way. To meet the debt to the newspaper I am arm- 
 ing myself with an immense story which I shall finish 
 in a day or two and send. I ought to knock three 
 hundred roubles off the debt, and get as much for 
 myself. Ough! . . . 
 
 August 6. 
 
 . . . The death of a servant in the house makes 
 a strange impression, doesn't it? The man while he 
 was alive attracted attention only so far as he was 
 one's "man"; but when he is dead he suddenly en- 
 grosses the attention of all, lies like a weight on the 
 whole house, and becomes the despotic master who is 
 talked of to the exclusion of everything. 
 
 ... I shall finish my story to-morrow or the day 
 after, but not to-day, for it has exhausted me fiend- 
 ishly towards the end. Thanks to the haste with 
 which I have worked at it, I have wasted a pound 
 of nerves over it. The composition of it is a little 
 complicated. I got into difficulties and often tore up 
 what I had written, and for days at a time was dis- 
 satisfied with my work — that is why I have not fin- 
 ished it till now. How awful it is! I must rewrite 
 it! It's impossible to leave it, for it is in a devil of 
 a mess. My God! if the public likes my works as 
 little as I do those of other people which I am reading, 
 what an ass I am ! There is something asinine about 
 our writing. . . . 
 
 To my great pleasure the amazing astronomer has 
 arrived. She is angry with you, and calls you for 
 some reason an "eloquent gossip." To begin with, 
 she is free and independent; and then she has a poor 
 opinion of men ; and further, according to her, every- 
 one is a savage or a ninny — and you dared to give
 
 266 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 her my address with the words "the being you adore 
 lives at . . . ," and so on. Upon my word, as 
 though one could suspect earthly feelings in astron- 
 omers who soar among the clouds! She talks and 
 laughs all day, is a capital mushroom-gatherer, and 
 dreams of the Caucasus to which she is departing to- 
 day. 
 
 August 18. 
 
 At last I have finished my long, wearisome story* 
 and am sending it to you in Feodosia. Please read 
 it. It is too long for the paper, and not suitable for 
 dividing into parts. Do as you think best, how- 
 ever. . . . 
 
 There are more than four signatures of print in the 
 story. It's awful. I am exhausted, and dragged the 
 end, like a train of waggons on a muddy night in 
 autumn, at a walking pace with halts — that is why 
 I am late with it. . . . 
 
 August 18. 
 
 Speaking of Nikolay and the doctor who attends 
 him, you emphasize that "all that is done without 
 love, without self-sacrifice, even in regard to trifling 
 conveniences." You are right, speaking of people 
 generally, but what would you have the doctors do? 
 If, as your old nurse says, "The bowel has burst," 
 what's one to do, even if one is ready to give one's 
 life to the sufferer? As a rule, while the family, the 
 relations, and the servants are doing "everything they 
 can" and are straining every nerve, the doctor sits 
 and looks like a fool, with his hands folded, discon- 
 solately ashamed of himself and his science, and try- 
 ing to preserve external tranquillity. . . . 
 
 * "The Duel."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 267 
 
 Doctors have loathsome days and hours, such as 
 I would not wish my worst enemy. It is true that 
 ignoramuses and coarse louts are no rarity among 
 doctors, nor are they among writers, engineers, peo- 
 ple in general; but those loathsome days and hours 
 of which I speak fall to the lot of doctors only, and 
 for that, truly, much may be forgiven them. . . . 
 
 The amazing astronomer is at Batum now. As 
 I told her I should go to Batum too, she will send her 
 address to Feodosia. She has grown cleverer than 
 ever of late. One day I overheard a learned discus- 
 sion between her and the zoologist Wagner, whom 
 you know. It seemed to me that in comparison with 
 her the learned professor was simply a schoolboy. 
 She has excellent logic and plenty of good common 
 sense, but no rudder, ... so that she drifts and 
 drifts, and doesn't know where she is going. . . . 
 
 A woman was carting rye, and she fell off the wag- 
 gon head downwards. She was terribly injured: 
 concussion of the brain, straining of the vertebrae of 
 the neck, sickness, fearful pains, and so on. She 
 was brought to me. She was moaning and groaning 
 and praying for death, and yet she looked at the man 
 who brought her and muttered: "Let the lentils go, 
 Kirila, you can thresh them later, but thresh the oats 
 now." I told her that she could talk about oats 
 afterwards, that there was something more serious 
 to talk about, but she said to me: "His oats are ever 
 so good!" A managing, vigilant woman. Death 
 comes easy to such people. . . . 
 
 August 28. 
 
 I send you Mihailovsky's article on Tolstoy. Read 
 it and grow perfect. It's a good article, but it's 
 strange ; one might write a thousand such articles and
 
 268 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 things would not be one step forwarder, and it would 
 still remain unintelligible why such articles are writ- 
 ten. . . . 
 
 I am writing my Sahalin, and I am bored, I am 
 bored. ... I am utterly sick of life. 
 
 Judging from your telegram I have not satisfied 
 you with my story. You should not have hesitated 
 to send it back to me. 
 
 Oh, how weary I am of sick people ! A neighbour- 
 ing landowner had a nervous stroke and they trundled 
 me off to him in a scurvy jolting britchka. Most of 
 all I am sick of peasant women with babies, and of 
 powders which it is so tedious to weigh out. 
 
 There is a famine year coming. I suppose there 
 
 will be epidemics of all sorts and risings on a small 
 
 scale. ... 
 
 August 28. 
 
 So you like my story?* Well, thank God! Of 
 late I have become devilishly suspicious and uneasy. 
 I am constantly fancying that my trousers are horrid, 
 and that I am writing not as I want to, and that I 
 am giving my patients the wrong powders. It must 
 be a special neurosis. 
 
 If Ladzievsky's surname is really horrible, you can 
 call him something else. Let him be Lagievsky, let 
 von Koren remain von Koren. The multitude of 
 Wagners, Brandts, and so on, in all the scientific 
 world, make a Russian name out of the question for 
 a zoologist — though there is Kovalevsky. And by 
 the way, Russian life is so mixed up nowadays that 
 any surnames will do. 
 
 Sahalin is progressing. There are times when I 
 long to sit over it from three to five years, and work 
 
 * "The Duel."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 269 
 
 at it furiously; but at times, in moments of doubt, I 
 could spit on it. It would be a good thing, by God! 
 to devote three years to it. I shall write a great 
 deal of rubbish, because I am not a specialist, but 
 really I shall write something sensible too. It is such 
 a good subject, because it would live for a hundred 
 years after me, as it would be the literary source and 
 aid for all who are studying prison organization, or 
 are interested in it. 
 
 You are right, your Excellency, I have done a 
 great deal this summer. Another such summer and 
 I may perhaps have written a novel and bought an 
 estate. I have not only paid my way, but even paid 
 off a thousand roubles of debt. 
 
 . . . Tell your son that I envy him. And I envy 
 you too, and not because your wives have gone awav, 
 but because you are bathing in the sea and living in 
 a warm house. I am cold in my barn. I should like 
 new carpets, an open fireplace, bronzes, and learned 
 conversations. Alas! I shall never be a Tolstovan. 
 In women I love beautv above all things; and in the 
 history of mankind, culture, expressed in carpets, 
 carriages with springs, and keenness of wit. Ach! 
 To make haste and become an old man and sit at a 
 big table! . . . 
 
 P. S. — If we were to cut the zoological conversa- 
 tions out of "The Duel" wouldn't it make it more 
 living? . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 
 September 8. 
 
 I have returned to Moscow and am keeping in- 
 doors. My family is busy trying to find a new flat 
 but I say nothing because I am too lazy to turn round
 
 270 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 They want to move to Devitchye Polye for the sake of 
 cheapness. 
 
 The title you recommend for my novel — "Decep- 
 tion" — will not do: it would only be appropriate if 
 it were a question of conscious lying. Unconscious 
 lying is not deception but a mistake. Tolstoy calls 
 our having money and eating meat lying — that's too 
 much. . . . 
 
 Death gathers men little by little, he knows what 
 he is about. One might write a play : an old chemist 
 invents the elixir of life — take fifteen drops and you 
 live for ever; but he breaks the phial from terror, lest 
 such carrion as himself and his wife might live for 
 ever. Tolstoy denies mankind immortality, but my 
 God ! how much that is personal there is in it ! The 
 day before yesterday I read his "Afterword." 
 Strike me dead! but it is stupider and stuffier than 
 "Letters to a Governor's Wife," which I despise. 
 The devil take the philosophy of the great ones of 
 this world! All the great sages are as despotic 
 as generals, and as ignorant and as indelicate as gen- 
 erals, because they feel secure of impunity. Diog- 
 enes spat in people's faces, knowing that he would 
 not suffer for it. Tolstoy abuses doctors as 
 scoundrels, and displays his ignorance in great 
 questions because he's just such a Diogenes who 
 won't be locked up or abused in the newspapers. 
 And so to the devil with the philosophy of all the 
 great ones of this world! The whole of it with its 
 fanatical "Afterwords" and "Letters to a Governor's 
 Wife" is not worth one little mare in his "Story of 
 a Horse. ..."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 271 
 
 To E. M. S. 
 
 Moscow, 
 September 16. 
 
 So we old bachelors smell of dogs? So be it. But 
 as for specialists in feminine diseases being at heart 
 rakes and cynics, allow me to differ. Gynaecologists 
 have to do with deadly prose such as you have never 
 dreamed of, and to which perhaps, if you knew it, 
 you would, with the ferocity characteristic of your 
 imagination, attribute a worse smell than that of 
 dogs. One who is always swimming in the sea loves- 
 dry land; one who for ever is plunged in prose 
 passionately longs for poetry. All gynaecologists 
 are idealists. Your doctor reads poems, your instinct 
 prompted you right; I would add that he is a great 
 liberal, a bit of a mystic, and that he dreams of a 
 wife in the style of the Nekrassov Russian woman. 
 The famous Snyegirev cannot speak of the "Russian 
 woman" without a quiver in his voice. Another 
 gynaecologist whom I know is in love with a 
 mysterious lady in a veil whom he has only seen from 
 a distance. Another one goes to all the first per- 
 formances at the theatre and then is loud in his 
 abuse, declaring that authors ought to represent 
 only ideal women, and so on. You have omitted to 
 consider also that a good gynaecologist cannot be a 
 stupid man or a mediocrity. Intellect has a brighter 
 lustre than baldness, but you have noticed the bald- 
 ness and emphasized it — and have flung the intellect 
 overboard. You have noticed, too, and emphasized 
 that a fat man — brrr! — exudes a sort of greasiness, 
 but you completely lose sight of the fact that he is a 
 professor — that is, that he has spent several years in
 
 272 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 thinking and doing something which sets him high 
 above millions of men, high above all the Verotchkas 
 and Taganrog Greek girls, high above dinners and 
 wines of all sorts. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, 
 and Japheth. Ham only noticed that his father was 
 a drunkard, and completely lost sight of the fact that 
 he was a genius, that he had built an ark and saved 
 the world. 
 
 Writers must not imitate Ham, bear that in mind. 
 
 I do not venture to ask you to love the gynaecolo- 
 gist and the professor, but I venture to remind you 
 of the justice which for an objective writer is more 
 precious than the air he breathes. 
 
 The girl of the merchant class is admirably drawn. 
 That is a good passage in the doctor's speech in 
 which he speaks of his lack of faith in medicine, but 
 there is no need to make him drink after every sen- 
 tence. . . . 
 
 Then from the particular to the general! Let 
 me warn you. This is not a story and not a novel 
 and not a work of art, but a long row of heavy, 
 gloomy barrack buildings. Where is your construc- 
 tion which at first so enchanted your humble servant? 
 Where is the lightness, the freshness, the grace? 
 Read your story through: a description of a dinner, 
 then a description of passing ladies and girls, then 
 a description of a company, then a description of a 
 dmner, . . . and so on endlessly. Descriptions 
 and descriptions and no action at all. You ought to 
 begin straight away with the merchant's daughter, 
 and keep to her, and chuck out Verotchka and the 
 Greek girls and all the rest, except the doctor and 
 the merchant family. 
 
 Excuse this long letter. '<
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 273 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 16, 1891. 
 
 I congratulate you on your new cook, and wish you 
 an excellent appetite. Wish me the same, for I am 
 coming to see you soon — sooner than I had intended 
 — and shall eat for three. I simply must get away 
 from home, if only for a fortnight. From morning 
 till night I am unpleasantly irritable, I feel as though 
 someone were drawing a blunt knife over my soul, 
 and this irritability finds external expression in my 
 hurrying off to bed early and avoiding conversation. 
 Nothing I do succeeds. I began a story for the 
 Sbornik; I wrote half and threw it up, and then be- 
 gan another; I have been struggling for more than 
 a week with this story, and the time when I shall 
 finish it and when I shall set to work and finish the 
 first story, for which I am to be paid, seems to me far 
 away. I have not been to the province of Nizhni 
 Novgorod yet, for reasons not under my control, and 
 I don't know when I shall go. In fact it's a hopeless 
 mess — a silly muddle and not life. And I desire 
 nothing now so much as to win two hundred thou- 
 sand. . . . 
 
 Ah, I have such a subject for a novel ! If I were 
 in a tolerable humour I could begin it on the first of 
 November and finish it on the first of December. I 
 would make five signatures of print. And I long 
 to write as I did at Bogimovo — i.e., from morning 
 till night and in my sleep. 
 
 Don't tell anyone I am coming to Petersburg. I 
 shall live incognito. In my letters I write vaguely 
 that I am coming in November. . . . 
 
 Shall I remind you of Kashtanka, or forget about
 
 274 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 her? Won't she lose her childhood and youth if we 
 don't print her? However, you know best. . . . 
 
 P. S. — If you see my brother Alexandr, tell him 
 that our aunt is dying of consumption. Her days 
 are numbered. She was a splendid woman, a saint. 
 
 If you want to visit the famine-stricken provinces, 
 let us go together in January, it will be more con- 
 spicuous then. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 19, 1891. 
 
 What a splendid little letter has come from you! 
 It is warmly and eloquently written, and every 
 thought in it is true. To talk now of laziness and 
 drunkenness, and so on, is as strange and tactless as to 
 lecture a man on the conduct of life at a moment 
 when he is being sick or lying ill of typhus. There 
 is always a certain element of insolence in being 
 well-fed, as in every kind of force, and that element 
 finds expression chiefly in the well-fed man preaching 
 to the hungry. If consolation is revolting at a time 
 of real sorrow, what must be the effect of preaching 
 morality ; and how stupid and insulting that preaching 
 must seem. These moral people imagine that if a 
 man is fifteen roubles in arrears with his taxes he 
 must be a wastrel, and ought not to drink; but they 
 ought to reckon up how much states are in debt, 
 and prime ministers, and what the debts of all the 
 marshals of nobility and all the bishops taken to- 
 gether come to. What do the Guards owe! Only 
 their tailors could tell us that. ... 
 
 You have told them to send me four hundred? 
 Vivat dominus Suvorin ! So I have already received 
 from your firm 400 + 100 + 400. Altogether I
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 275 
 
 shall get for "The Duel," as I calculated, about four- 
 teen hundred, so five hundred will go towards my 
 debt. Well, and for that thank God ! By the spring 
 I must pay off all my debt or I shall go into a decline, 
 for in the spring I want another advance from all 
 my editors. I shall take it and escape to Java. . . . 
 
 Ah, my friends, how bored I am ! If I am a doctor 
 I ought to have patients and a hospital; if I am a 
 literary man I ought to live among people instead 
 of in a flat with a mongoose, I ought to have at least 
 a scrap of social and political life — but this life be- 
 tween four walls, without nature, without people, 
 without a country, without health and appetite, is not 
 life, but some sort of . . . and nothing more. 
 
 For the sake of all the perch and pike you are going 
 to catch on your Zaraish estate, I entreat you to pub- 
 lish the English humorist Bernard.* . . . 
 
 To Madame Lintvaryov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 25, 1891. 
 
 Honoured Natalya Mihailovna, 
 
 I have not gone to Nizhni as I meant to, but am 
 sitting at home, writing and sneezing. Madame 
 Morozov has seen the Minister, he has absolutely 
 prohibited private initiative in the work of famine 
 relief, and actually waved her out of his presence. 
 This has reduced me to apathy at once. Add to 
 that, complete lack of money, sneezing, a mass of 
 work, the illness of my aunt who died to-day, the 
 indefiniteness, the uncertainty in fact — everything 
 has come together to hinder a lazy person like me. 
 
 * ? Bernard Shaw. — Translator's Note.
 
 276 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I have put off my going away till the first of 
 December. 
 
 We felt dull without you for a long time, and when 
 the Shah of Persia* went away it was duller still. 
 I have given orders that no one is to be admitted, 
 and sit in my room like a heron in the reeds ; I see no 
 one, and no one sees me. And it is better so, or the 
 public would pull the bell off, and my study would 
 be turned into a smoking and talking room. It's 
 dull to live like this, but what am I to do? I shall 
 wait till the summer and then let myself go. 
 
 I shall sell the mongoose by auction. I should be 
 glad to sell N. and his poems too, but no one would 
 buy him. He dashes in to see me almost every evening 
 as he used to do, and bores me with his doubts, his 
 struggles, his volcanoes, slit nostrils, atamans, the life 
 of the free, and such tosh, for which God forgive him. 
 
 Russkiya Vyedomosti is printing a Sbornik for the 
 famine fund. With your permission, I shall send you 
 a copy. 
 
 Well, good health and happiness to you; respects 
 and greetings to all yours from 
 
 the Geographer, 
 
 A. Chekhov. 
 
 P. S. — All my family send their regards. 
 
 We are all well but sorrowful. Our aunt was a 
 general favourite, and was considered among us the 
 incarnation of goodness, kindness, and justice, if 
 only all that can be incarnated. Of course we shall 
 all die, but still it is sad. 
 
 In April I shall be in your parts. By the spring 
 I hope I shall have heaps of money. I judge by the 
 omen : no money is a sign of money coming. 
 
 * A. I. Smagin.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 277 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 25, 1891. 
 
 Print "The Duel" not twice a week but only once. 
 To print it twice is breaking a long-established custom 
 of the paper, and it would seem as though I were 
 robbing the other contributors of one day a week; 
 and meanwhile it makes no difference to me or my 
 novel whether it is printed once a week or twice. 
 The literary brotherhood in Petersburg seems to talk 
 of nothing but the uncleanness of my motives. I 
 have just received the good news that I am to be mar- 
 ried to the rich Madame Sibiryakov. I get a lot of 
 agreeable news altogether. 
 
 I wake up every night and read "War and Peace." 
 One reads it with the same interest and naive wonder 
 as though one had never read it before. It's 
 amazingly good. Only I don't like the passages in 
 which Napoleon appears. As soon as Napoleon 
 comes on the scene there are forced explanations and 
 tricks of all sorts to prove that he was stupider than 
 he really was. Everything that is said and done by 
 Pierre, Prince Audrey, or the absolutely insignificant 
 Nikolay Rostov — all that is good, clever, natural, and 
 touching; everything that is thought and done by 
 Napoleon is not natural, not clever, inflated and 
 worthless. 
 
 When I live in the provinces (of which I dream 
 now day and night), I shall practice as a doctor and 
 read novels. 
 
 I am not coming to Petersburg. 
 
 If I had been by Prince Audrey I should have saved 
 him. It is strange to read that the wound of a
 
 278 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 prince, a rich man spending his days and nights with 
 a doctor and being nursed by Natasha and Sonya, 
 should have smelt hke a corpse. What a scurvy 
 affair medicine was in those days! Tolstoy could 
 not help getting soaked through with hatred for 
 medicine while he was writing his thick novel. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 18, 1891. 
 
 ... I have read your letter about the influenza 
 and Solovyov. I was unexpectedly aware of a dash 
 of cruelty in it. The phrase 'T hate" does not suit 
 you at all; and a public confession 'T am a sinner^ 
 a sinner, a sinner," is such pride that it made me 
 feel uncomfortable. When the pope took the title 
 "holiness," the head of the Eastern church, in pique, 
 called himself "The servant of God's servants." So 
 you publicly expatiate on your sinfulness from pique 
 of Solovyov, who has the impudence to call himself 
 orthodox. But does a word like orthodoxy, Judaism, 
 or Catholicism contain any implication of exceptional 
 personal merit or virtue? To my thinking every- 
 body is bound to call himself orthodox if he has that 
 word inscribed on his passport. Whether you be- 
 lieve or not, whether you are a prince of this world 
 or an exile in penal servitude, you are, for practical 
 purposes, orthodox. And Solov}"ov made no sort of 
 pretension when he said he was no Jew or Chaldean 
 but orthodox. . . . 
 
 I still feel dull, blighted, foolish, and indifferent, 
 and I am still sneezing and coughing, and I am 
 beginning to think I shall not get back to my former 
 health. But that's all in God's hands. Medical 
 treatment and anxiety about one's physical existence
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 279 
 
 arouse in me a feeling not far from loathing. I am 
 not going to be doctored. I will take water and 
 quinine, but I am not going to let myself be 
 sounded. . . . 
 
 I had only just finished this letter when I received 
 yours. You say that if I go into the wilds I shall 
 be quite cut off from you. But I am going to live 
 in the country in order to be nearer Petersburg. If 
 I have no flat in Moscow you must understand, my 
 dear sir, I shall spend November, December, and 
 January in Petersburg: that will be possible then. 
 I shall be able to be idle all the summer too; I shall 
 look out for a house in the country for you, but you 
 are wrong in disliking Little Russians, they are not 
 children or actors in the province of Poltava, but 
 genuine people, and cheerful and well-fed into the 
 bargain. 
 
 Do you know what relieves my cough? When I 
 am working I sprinkle the edge of the table with 
 turpentine with a sprayer and inhale its vapour. 
 When I go to bed I spray my little table and other 
 objects near me. The fine drops evaporate sooner 
 than the liquid itself. And the smell of turpentine 
 is pleasant. I drink Obersalzbrunnen, avoid hot 
 things, talk little, and blame myself for smoking so 
 much. I repeat, dress as warmly as possible, even 
 at home. Avoid draughts at the theatre. Treat 
 yourself like a hothouse plant or you will not soon 
 be rid of your cough. If you want to try turpentine, 
 buy the French kind. Take quinine once a day, and 
 be careful to avoid constipation. Influenza has 
 completely taken away from me any desire to drink 
 spirituous liquors. They are disgusting to my taste. 
 I don't drink my two glasses at night, and so it is a
 
 280 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 long time before I can get to sleep. I want to take 
 ether. 
 
 I await your story. In the summer let us each 
 write a play. Yes, by God! why the devil should 
 we waste our time. . . . 
 
 To E. M. S. 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 19, 1891. 
 
 Honoured Elena Mihailovna, 
 
 I am at home to all commencing, continuing, and 
 concluding authors — that is my rule, and apart from 
 your authorship and mine, I regard a visit from you 
 as a great honour to me. Even if it were not so, even 
 if for some reason I did not desire your visit, even 
 then I should have received you, as I have enjoyed 
 the greatest hospitality from your family. I did not 
 receive you, and at once asked my brother to go to 
 you and explain the cause. At the moment your card 
 was handed me I was ill and undressed — forgive these 
 homely details — I was in my bedroom, while there 
 were persons in my study whose presence would not 
 have been welcome to you. And so — to see you was 
 physically impossible, and this my brother was to 
 have explained to you, and you, a decent and good- 
 hearted person, ought to have understood it; but you 
 were offended. Well, I can't help it. . . . 
 
 But can you really have written only fifteen 
 stories? — at this rate you won't learn to write till 
 you are fifty. 
 
 I am in bad health; for over a month I have had 
 to keep indoors — influenza and cough. 
 
 All good wishes.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 281 
 
 Write another twenty stories and send them. I 
 shall always read them with pleasure, and practice 
 is essential for you. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 22, 1891. 
 
 My health is on the road to improvement. My 
 cough is less, my strength is greater. My mood is 
 livelier, and there is sunrise in my head. I wake up 
 in the morning in good spirits, go to bed without 
 gloomy thoughts, and at dinner I am not ill-humoured 
 and don't say nasty things to my mother. 
 
 I don't know when I shall come to you. I have 
 heaps of work pour manger. Till the spring I must 
 work — that is, at senseless grind. A ray of liberty 
 has beamed upon my horizon. There has come a 
 whiff of freedom. Yesterday I got a letter from the 
 province of Poltava. They write they have found 
 me a suitable place. A brick house of seven rooms 
 with an iron roof, lately built and needing no repairs, 
 a stable, a cellar, an icehouse, eighteen acres of land, 
 an excellent meadow for hay, an old shady garden on 
 the bank of the river Psyol. The river bank is mine ; 
 on that side there is a marvellous view over a wide 
 expanse. The price is merciful. Three thousand, 
 and tv/o thousand deferred payment over several 
 years. Five in all. If heaven has mercy upon me, 
 and the purchase comes off, I shall move there in 
 March for good, to live quietly in the lap of nature for 
 nine months and the rest of the year in Petersburg. 
 I am sending my sister to look at the place. 
 
 Ach! liberty, liberty! If I can live on not more
 
 282 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 than two thousand a year, which is only possible 
 
 in the country, I shall be absolutely free from all 
 
 anxieties over money coming in and going out. Then 
 
 I shall work and read, read . . . in a word it will be 
 
 marmelad.^ . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 November 30, 1891. 
 
 I return you the two manuscripts you sent me. 
 One story is an Indian Legend — The Lotus Flower, 
 Wreaths of Laurel, A Summer Night, The Humming 
 Bird — that in India! He begins with Faust thirst- 
 ing for youth and ends with "the bliss of the true 
 life," in the style of Tolstoy. I have cut out parts, 
 polished it up, and the result is a legend of no great 
 value, indeed, but light, and it may be read with 
 interest. The other story is illiterate, clumsy, and 
 womanish in structure, but there is a story and a 
 certain raciness. I have cut it down to half as you 
 see. Both stories could be printed. . . . 
 
 I keep dreaming and dreaming. I dream of mov- 
 ing from Moscow into the country in March, and in 
 the autumn coming to Petersburg to stay till the 
 spring. I long to spend at least one winter in Peters- 
 burg, and that's only possible on condition I have no 
 perch in Moscow. And I dream of how I shall spend 
 five months talking to you about literature, and do as 
 I think best in the Novoye Vremya, while in the coun- 
 try I shall go in for medicine heart and soul. 
 
 Boborykin has been to see me. He is dreaming 
 
 too. He told me that he wants to write something 
 
 in the way of the physiology of the Russian novel, its 
 
 origin among us, and the natural course of its develop- 
 
 * A kind of sweetmeat made by boiling down fruit to the con- 
 sistency of damson cheese. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 283 
 
 ment. While he was talking I could not get rid of 
 the feeling that I had a maniac before me, but a 
 literary maniac who put literature far above every- 
 thing in life. I so rarely see genuine literar)^ people 
 at home in Moscow that a conversation with Bobory- 
 kin seemed like heavenly manna, though I don't 
 believe in the physiology of the novel and the natural 
 course of its development — that is, there may exist 
 such a physiology in nature, but I don't believe with 
 existing methods it can be detected. Boborykin 
 dismisses Gogol absolutely and refuses to recognize 
 him as a forerunner of Turgenev, Gontcharov, and 
 Tolstoy. ... He puts him apart, outside the cur- 
 rent in which the Russian novel has flowed. Well, 
 I don't understand that. If one takes the standpoint 
 of natural development, it's impossible to put not only 
 Gogol, but even a dog barking, outside the current, 
 for all things in nature influence one another, and 
 even the fact that I have just sneezed is not without 
 its influence on surrounding nature. . . . 
 
 Good health to you! I am reading Shtchedrin's 
 "Diary of a Provincial." How long and boring it 
 is ! And at the same time how like real life ! 
 
 To N. A. Leikin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 2, 1891. 
 
 I am writing to ask you a great favour, dear 
 Nikolay Alexandrovitch. This is what it is. Until 
 last year I have always lived with my university 
 diploma, which by land and by sea has served me for 
 a passport; but every time it has been vise the police 
 have warned me that one cannot live with a diploma.
 
 284 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and that I ought to get a passport from "the proper de- 
 partment." I have asked everyone what this 
 "proper department" means, and no one has given 
 me an answer. A year ago the Moscow head police 
 officer gave me a passport on the condition that 
 within a year I should get a passport from "the proper 
 department." I can't make head or tail of it ! The 
 other day I learned that as I have never been in the 
 government service and by education am a doctor, 
 I ought to be registered in the class of professional 
 citizens, and that a certain department, I believe the 
 heraldic, will furnish me with a certificate which will 
 serve me as a passport for all the days of my life. 
 I remembered that you had lately received the grade 
 of professional citizen, and with it a certificate, and 
 that therefore you must have applied somewhere and 
 to someone and so, in a sense, are an old campaigner. 
 For God's sake advise me to what department I ought 
 to apply. What petition ought I to write, and how 
 many stamps ought I to put on it? What documents 
 must be enclosed with the petition? and so on, and 
 so on. In the town hall there is a "passport bureau." 
 Could not that bureau reveal the mystery if it is not 
 sufficiently clear to you? 
 
 Forgive me for troubling you, but I really don't 
 know to whom to apply, and I am a very poor lawyer 
 myself. . . . 
 
 Your "Medal" is often given at Korsh's Theatre, 
 and with success. It is played together with Myas- 
 nitsky's "Hare." I haven't seen them, but friends 
 tell me that a great difference is felt between the two 
 plays: that "The Medal" in comparison with "The 
 Hare" seems something clean, artistic, and having 
 form and semblance. There you have it! Literary
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 285 
 
 men are swept out of the theatre, and plays are writ- 
 ten by nondescript people, old and young, while the 
 journals and newspapers are edited by tradesmen, 
 government clerks, and young ladies. But there, 
 the de\dl take them! . . . 
 
 To E. P. Yegorov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 11, 1891. 
 
 Honoured Evgraf Petrovitch, 
 
 I write to explain why my journey to you did not 
 come off. I was intending to come to you not as a 
 special correspondent, but on a commission from, 
 or more correctly by agreement with, a small circle 
 of people who want to do something for the famine- 
 stricken peasants. The point is that the public does 
 not trust the administration and so is deterred from 
 subscribing. There are a thousand legends and 
 fables about the waste, the shameless theft, and so on. 
 People hold aloof from the Episcopal department 
 and are indignant with the Red Cross. The owner 
 of our beloved Babkino, the Zemsky Natchalnik, 
 rapped out to me, bluntly and definitely: "The Red 
 Cross in Moscow are thieves." Such being the state 
 of feeling, the government can scarcely expect serious 
 help from the public. And yet the public wants to 
 help and its conscience is uneasy. In September the 
 educated and wealthy classes of Moscow formed 
 themselves into circles, thought, talked, and applied 
 for advice to leading persons; evei'yone was talking 
 of how to get round the government and organize 
 independently. They decided to send to the famine- 
 stricken provinces their own agents, who should make
 
 286 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 acquaintance with the position on the spot, open feed- 
 ing centres, and so on. Some of the leaders of 
 these circles, persons of weight, went to Durnovo 
 to ask permission, and Durnovo refused it, declaring 
 that the organization of relief must be left to the 
 Episcopal department and the Red Cross. In short, 
 private initiative was suppressed at its first efforts. 
 Everyone was cast down and dispirited; some were 
 furious, some simply washed their hands of the whole 
 business. One must have the courage and authority 
 of Tolstoy to act in opposition to all prohibitions and 
 prevailing sentiments, and to follow the dictates of 
 duty. 
 
 Well, now about myself. I am in complete 
 sympathy with individual initiative, for every man 
 has the right to do good in the way he thinks best; 
 but all the discussion concerning the government, 
 the Red Cross, and so on, seemed to me inopportune 
 and impractical. I imagined that with coolness and 
 good humour, one might get round all the terrors 
 and delicacy of the position, and that there was no 
 need to go to the Minister about it. I went to 
 Sahalin without a single letter of recommendation, 
 and yet I did everything I wanted to. Why cannot 
 I go to the famine-stricken provinces? I remem- 
 bered, too, such representatives of the government as 
 you, Kiselyov, and all the Zemsky Natchalniks and 
 tax inspectors of my acquaintance — all extremely 
 decent people, worthy of complete confidence. And 
 I resolved — if only for a small region — to combine 
 the two elements of officialdom and private initia- 
 tive. I want to come and consult you as soon as 
 I can. The public trusts me; it would trust you, 
 too, and I might reckon on succeeding. Do you re-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 287 
 
 member I wrote to you? Suvorin came to Moscow 
 at the time; I complained to him that I did not know 
 your address. He telegraphed to Baranov, and 
 Baranov was so kind as to send it to me. Suvorin was 
 ill with influenza ; as a rule when he comes to Moscow 
 we spend whole days together discussing literature, of 
 which he has a wide knowledge; we did the same 
 on this occasion, and in consequence I caught his 
 influenza, was laid up, and had a raging cough. 
 Korolenko was in Moscow, and he found me ill. 
 Lung complications kept me ill for a whole month, 
 confined to the house and unable to do anything. 
 Now I am on the way to recovery, though I still cough 
 and am thin. There is the whole story for you. If 
 it had not been for the influenza we might together 
 perhaps have succeeded in extracting two or three 
 thousand or more from the public. 
 
 Your exasperation with the press I can quite 
 understand. The lucubrations of the journalists 
 annoy you who know the true position of affairs, in 
 the same way as the lucubrations of the profane about 
 diphtheria annoy me as a doctor. But what would 
 you have? Russia is not England and is not France. 
 Our newspapers are not rich and they have very few 
 men at their disposal. To send to the Volga a profes- 
 sor of the Petrovsky Academy or an Engelhardt is 
 expensive: to send a talented and business-like 
 member of the staff is impossible too — he is wanted 
 at home. The Times could organize a census in the 
 famine-stricken provinces at its own expense, could 
 settle a Kennan in every district, paying him forty 
 roubles a day, and then something sensible could be 
 done; but what can the Russkiya Vyedomosd or the 
 Novoye Vremya do, who consider an income of a hun-
 
 288 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 dred thousand as the weahh of Croesus? As for the 
 correspondents themselves, they are townsmen who 
 know the country only from Glyeb Uspensky. Their 
 position is an utterly false one, they must fly into 
 a district, sniff about, write, and dash on further. 
 The Russian correspondent has neither material 
 resources, nor freedom, nor authority. For two 
 hundred roubles a month he gallops on and on, and 
 only prays they may not be angry with him for his 
 involuntary and inevitable misrepresentations. He 
 feels guilty — though it is not he that is to blame but 
 Russian darkness. The newspaper correspondents 
 of the west have excellent maps, encyclopaedias, and 
 statistics; in the west they could write their reports, 
 sitting at home, but among us a correspondent can 
 extract information only from talk and rumour. 
 Among us in Russia only three districts have been 
 investigated: the Tcherepov district, the Tambov 
 district, and one other. That is all in the whole of 
 Russia. The newspapers tell lies, the correspondents 
 are duff"ers, but what's to be done? If our press said 
 nothing the position would be still more awful, you'll 
 admit that. 
 
 Your letter and your scheme for buying the cattle 
 from the peasants has stirred me up. I am ready 
 with all my heart and all my strength to follow your 
 lead and do whatever you think best. I have 
 thought it over for a long time, and this is my opinion: 
 it is no use to reckon upon the rich. It is too late. 
 Every wealthy man has by now forked out as many 
 thousands as he is destined to. Our one resource 
 now is the middle-class man who subscribes by the 
 rouble and the half-rouble. Those who in Septem- 
 ber Were talking about private initiative will by now
 
 , LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 289 
 
 have found themselves a niche in various boards 
 and committees and are already at work. So only 
 the middle-class man is left. Let us open a sub- 
 scription list. You shall write a letter to the editors, 
 and I will get it printed in Russkiya Vyedomosti and 
 Novoye Vremya. To combine the two elements above 
 mentioned, we might both sign the letter. If that is 
 inconvenient to you from an official point of view, one 
 might write in the third person as a communication 
 that in the fifth section of the Nizhni Novgorod dis- 
 trict this and that had been organized, that things 
 were, thank God! going successfully and that sub- 
 scriptions could be sent to the Zemsky Natchalnik, 
 E. P. Yegorov, or to A. P. Chekhov, or to the editor 
 of such and such papers. We need only to write at 
 some length. Write in full detail, I will add some- 
 thing, and the thing will be done. We must ask for 
 subscriptions and not for loans. No one will come 
 forward with a loan; it is uncomfortable. It is hard 
 to give, but it is harder still to take back. 
 
 I have only one rich acquaintance in Moscow, 
 V. A. Morozov, a lady well-known for her philan- 
 thropy. I went to see her yesterday with your letter. 
 I talked with her and dined with her. She is 
 absorbed now in the committee of education, which 
 is organizing relief centres for the school-children, 
 and is giving everything to that. As education and 
 horses are incommensurables, V. A. promised me the 
 co-operation of the committee if we would start 
 centres for feeding the school-children and send 
 detailed information about it. I felt it awkward 
 to ask her for money on the spot, for people beg and 
 beg of her and fleece her like a fox. I only asked 
 her when she had any committees and board meetings
 
 290 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 not to forget us, and she promised she would 
 not. . . . 
 
 If any roubles or half-roubles come in I will send 
 them on to you without delay. Dispose of me and 
 believe me that it would be a real happiness to me 
 to do at least something, for so far I have done abso- 
 lutely nothing for the famine-stricken peasants and 
 for those who are helping them. 
 
 To A. I. Smagin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 11, 1891. 
 
 . . . Well, now I have something to tell you, my 
 good sir. I am sitting at home in Moscow, but mean- 
 time my enterprise in the Nizhni Novgorod province 
 is in full swing already! Together with my friend 
 the Zemsky Natchalnik, an excellent man, we are 
 hatching a little scheme, on which we expect to spend 
 a hundred thousand or so, in the most remote section 
 of the province, where there are no landowners nor 
 doctors, nor even well-educated young ladies who are 
 now to be found in numbers even in hell. Apart 
 from famine relief of all sorts, we are making it our 
 chief object to save the crops of next year. Owing 
 to the fact that the peasants are selling their horses 
 for next to nothing, there is a grave danger that the 
 fields will not be ploughed for the spring corn, so 
 that the famine will be repeated next year. So we 
 are going to buy up the horses and feed them, and 
 in spring give them back to their owners; our work 
 is already firmly established, and in January I am 
 going there to behold its fruits. Here is my object 
 in writing to you. If in the course of some noisy
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 291 
 
 banquet you or anyone else should chance to collect, 
 if only half a rouble, for the famine fund, or if some 
 Korobotchka bequeaths a rouble for that object, or 
 if you yourself should win a hundred roubles, remem- 
 ber us sinners in your prayers, and spare us a part of 
 your wealth! Not at once but when you like, only 
 not later than in the spring. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 11, 1891. 
 
 ... I am coming to you. My lying is uninten- 
 tional. I have no money at all. I shall come when 
 I get the various sums owing to me. Yesterday I 
 got one hundred and fifty roubles, I shall soon get 
 more, then I shall fly to you. 
 
 In January I am going to Nizhni Novgorod prov- 
 ince : there my scheme is working already. I am very, 
 very glad. I am going to write to Anna Pavlovna. 
 
 Ah, if you knew how agonizingly my head 
 aches to-day! I want to come to Petersburg if only 
 to lie motionless indoors for two days and only go out 
 to dinner. For some reason I feel utterly exhausted. 
 It's all this cursed influenza. 
 
 How many persons could you and would you 
 undertake to feed? Tolstoy! ah, Tolstoy! In 
 these days he is not a man but a super-man, a Jupiter. 
 In the Sbornik he has published an article about the 
 relief centres, and the article consists of advice and 
 practical instructions. So business-like, simple, and 
 sensible that, as the editor of Russkiya Vyedo- 
 mosti said, it ought to be printed in the Govern- 
 ment Gazette^ instead of in the Sbornik. . . .
 
 292 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 December 13, 1891. 
 
 Now I understand why you don't sleep well at 
 night. If I had written a story like that I should not 
 have slept for ten nights in succession. The most 
 terrible passage is where Varya strangles the hero 
 and initiates him into the mysteries of the life beyond 
 the grave. It's terrifying and consistent with spirit- 
 ualism. You mustn't cut out a single word from 
 Varya's speeches, especially where they are both 
 riding on horseback. Don't touch it. The idea of 
 the story is good, and the incidents are fantastic and 
 interesting. . . . 
 
 But why do you talk of our "nervous age"? 
 There really is no nervous age. As people lived in 
 the past so they live now, and the nerves of to-day 
 are no worse than the nerves of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob. Since you have already written the ending 
 I shall not put you out by sending you mine. I was 
 inspired and could not resist writing it. You can 
 read it if you like. Stories are good in this way, 
 that one can sit over them, pen in hand, for days 
 together, and not notice how time passes, and at the 
 same time be conscious of life of a sort. That's 
 from the hygienic point of view. And from the point 
 of view of usefulness and so on, to write a fairly good 
 story and give the reader ten to twenty interesting 
 minutes — that, as Gilyarovsky says, is not a sheep 
 sneezing. . . . 
 
 I have a horrible headache again to-day. I don't 
 know what to do. Yes, I suppose it's old age, or if 
 it's not that it's something worse. 
 
 A little old gentleman brought me one hundred 
 roubles to-day for the famine.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 293 
 
 To A. I. Smagin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 16, 1891. 
 
 . . . Alas! if I don't move into the country this 
 year, and if the purchase of the house and land for 
 some reason does not come off, I shall be playing the 
 part of a great villain in regard to my health. It 
 seems to me that I am dried and warped like an old 
 cupboard, and that if I go on living in Moscow next 
 season, and give myself up to scribbling excesses, 
 Gilyarovsky will read an excellent poem to welcome 
 my entrance into that country place where there is 
 neither sitting nor standing nor sneezing, but only 
 lying down and nothing more. Do you know why 
 you have no success with women ? Because you have 
 the most hideous, heathenish, desperate, tragic hand- 
 writing. . . . 
 
 To A. N. Pleshtcheyev. 
 
 Moscow, 
 December 25, 1891. 
 
 Dear Alexey Nikolaevitch, 
 
 Yesterday I chanced to learn your address, 
 and I write to you. If you have a free minute please 
 write to me how you are in health, and how you are 
 getting on altogether. Write, if only a couple of lines. 
 
 I have had influenza for the last six weeks. There 
 has been a complication of the lungs and I have a 
 cruel cough. In March I am going south to the prov- 
 ince of Poltava, and shall stay there till my cough 
 is gone. My sister has gone down there to buy a 
 house and garden.
 
 294 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Literary doings here are quiet but life is bustling. 
 There is a great deal of talk about the famine, and 
 a great deal of work resulting from the said talk. 
 The theatres are empty, the weather is wretched, there 
 are no frosts at all. Jean Shtcheglov is captivated 
 by the Tolstoyans. Merezhkovsky sits at home as of 
 old, lost in a labyrinth of deep researches, and as of 
 old is very nice ; of Chekhov they say he has married 
 the heiress Sibiryakov and got five millions dowry — 
 all Petersburg is talking of it. For whose benefit 
 and for what object this slander, I am utterly unable 
 to imagine. It's positively sickening to read letters 
 from Petersburg. 
 
 I have not seen Ostrovsky this year. . . . 
 
 We shall probably not meet very soon, as I am 
 going away in March and shall not return to the North 
 before November. I shall not keep a flat in Moscow, 
 as that pleasure is beyond my means. I shall stay 
 in Petersburg. 
 
 I embrace you warmly. By the way, a little 
 explanation in private. One day at dinner in Paris, 
 persuading me to remain there, you offered to lend 
 me money. I refused, and it seemed to me my refusal 
 hurt and vexed you, and I fancied that when we 
 parted there was a touch of coldness on your side. 
 Possibly I am mistaken, but if I am right I assure 
 you, my dear friend, on my word of honour, that I 
 refused not because I did not care to be under an 
 obligation to you, but simply from a feeling of self- 
 preservation; I was behaving stupidly in Paris, and 
 an extra thousand francs would only have been bad for 
 my health. Believe me that if I had needed it, I 
 would have asked you for a loan as readily as Suvorin. 
 
 God keep you.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 295 
 
 To V. A. TiHONOv. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 22, 1892. 
 
 . . . You are mistaken in thinking you were 
 drunk at Shtcheglov's name-day party. You had had 
 a drop, that was all. You danced when they all 
 danced, and your jigitivka on the cabman's box 
 excited nothing but general delight. As for your 
 criticism, it was most likely far from severe, as I don't 
 remember it. I only remember that Vvedensky and 
 I for some reason roared with laughter as we listened 
 to you. 
 
 Do you want my biography? Here it is. I was 
 born in Taganrog in 1860. I finished the course at 
 Taganrog high school in 1879. In 1884 I took my 
 degree in medicine at the University of Moscow. In 
 1888 I gained the Pushkin prize. In 1890 I made a 
 journey to Sahalin across Siberia and back by sea. 
 In 1891 I made a tour in Europe, where I drank 
 excellent wine and ate o\"sters. In 1892 I took part 
 in an orgy in the company of V. A. Tihonov at a 
 name-day party. I began writing in 1879. The 
 published collections of my works are: "Motley 
 Tales," "In the Twihght," "Stories," "Surly 
 People," and a novel, "The Duel." I have sinned 
 in the dramatic line too, though with moderation. 
 I have been translated into all the languages with 
 the exception of the foreign ones, though I have 
 indeed long ago been translated by the Germans. 
 The Czechs and the Serbs approve of me also, and 
 the French are not indifferent. The mysteries of 
 love I fathomed at the age of thirteen. With my
 
 296 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 colleagues, doctors, and literary men alike, I am on 
 the best of terms. I am a bachelor. I should like 
 to receive a pension. I practice medicine, and so 
 much so that sometimes in the summer I perform 
 post-mortems, though I have not done so for two or 
 three years. Of authors my favourite is Tolstoy, of 
 doctors Zaharin. 
 
 All that is nonsense though. Write what you like. 
 If you haven't facts make up with lyricism. 
 
 To A. S. KiSELYOV. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 Station Lopasnya, 
 
 Moscow-Kursk Line.. 
 March 7, 1892. 
 
 This is our new address. And here are the details 
 for you. If a peasant woman has no troubles she 
 buys a pig. We have bought a pig, too, a big 
 cumbersome estate, the owner of which would in 
 Germany infallibly be made a herzog. Six hundred 
 and thirty-nine acres in two parts with land not ours 
 in between. Three hundred acres of young copse, 
 which in twenty years will look like a wood, at present 
 is a thicket of bushes. They call it "shaft wood," 
 but to my mind the name of "switch wood" would be 
 more appropriate, since one could make nothing of 
 it at present but switches. There is a fruit-garden, 
 a park, big trees, long avenues of limes. The barns 
 and sheds have been recently built, and have a 
 fairly presentable appearance. The poultry house 
 is made in accordance with the latest deductions of 
 science, the well has an iron pump. The whole place 
 is shut off from the world by a fence in the style of a
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 297 
 
 palisade. The yard, the garden, the park, and the 
 threshing-floor are shut off from each other in the 
 same way. The house is good and bad. It's more 
 roomy than our Moscow flat, it's light and warm, 
 roofed with iron, and stands in a hne position, has 
 a verandah into the garden, French windows, and so 
 on, but it is bad in not being lofty, not sufficiently 
 new, having outside a very stupid and naive appear- 
 ance, and inside swarms with bugs and beetles which 
 could only be got rid of by one means — a fire : noth- 
 ing else would do for them. 
 
 There are flower-beds. In the garden fifteen 
 paces from the house is a pond (thirty-five yards long, 
 and thirty-five feet wide) , with carp and tench in it, so 
 that you can catch fish from the window. Beyond 
 the yard there is another pond, which I have not yet 
 seen. In the other part of the estate there is a river, 
 probably a nasty one. Two miles away there is a 
 broad river full of fish. We shall sow oats and clover. 
 We have bought clover seed at ten roubles a pood, 
 but we have no money left for oats. The estate has 
 been bought for thirteen thousand. The legal for- 
 malities cost about seven hundred and fifty roubles, 
 total fourteen thousand. The artist who sold it was 
 paid four thousand down, and received a mortgage 
 for five thousand at five per cent, for five years. 
 The remaining four thousand the artist will receive 
 from the Land Bank when in the spring I mortgage the 
 estate to a bank. You see what a good arrangement. 
 In two or three years I shall have five thousand, and 
 shall pay off the mortgage, and shall be left with only 
 the four thousand debt to the bank; but I have got to 
 live those two of three years, hang it all! What 
 matters is not the interest — that is small, not more
 
 298 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 than five hundred roubles a year — but that I shall 
 be obliged all the time to think about quarter-days 
 and all sorts of horrors attendant on being in debt. 
 Moreover, your honour, as long as I am alive and 
 earning four or five thousand a year, the debts will 
 seem a trifle, and even a convenience, for to pay four 
 hundred and seventy interest is much easier than to 
 pay a thousand for a flat in Moscow; that is all true. 
 But what if I depart from you sinners to another 
 world — that is, give up the ghost? Then the ducal 
 estate with the debts would seem to my parents in 
 their green old age and to my sister such a burden 
 that they would raise a wail to heaven. 
 
 I was completely cleaned out over the move. 
 
 Ah, if you could come and see us! In the first 
 place it would be very delightful and interesting to 
 see you; and in the second, your advice would save 
 us from a thousand idiocies. You know we don't 
 understand a thing about it. Like Raspluev, all I 
 know about agriculture is that the earth is black, 
 and nothing more. Write. How is it best to sow 
 clover? — among the rye, or among the spring 
 wheat? . . . 
 
 To L L. Shtcheglov. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 9, 1892. 
 
 . . . Yes, such men as Ratchinsky are very rare 
 in this world. I understand your enthusiasm, my 
 dear fellow. After the suffocation one feels in the 
 proximity of A. and B. — and the world is full of 
 them — Ratchinsky with his ideas, his humanity, and 
 his purity, seems like a breath of spring. I am ready
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 299 
 
 to lay down my life for Ratchinsky; but, dear friend, 
 — allow me that "but" and don't be vexed — I would 
 not send my children to his school. Why? I re- 
 ceived a religious education in my childhood — with 
 church singing, with reading of the "apostles" and 
 the psalms in church, with regular attendance at 
 matins, with obligation to assist at the altar and ring 
 the bells. And, do you know, when I think now of 
 my childhood, it seems to me rather gloomy. I have 
 no religion now. Do you know, when my brothers 
 and I used to stand in the middle of the church and 
 sing the trio "May my prayer be exalted," or "The 
 Archangel's Voice," everyone looked at us with 
 emotion and envied our parents, but we at that mo- 
 ment felt like little convicts. Yes, dear boy! 
 Ratchinsky I understand, but the children who are 
 trained by him I don't know. Their souls are dark 
 for me. If there is joy in their souls, then they are 
 happier than I and my brothers, whose childhood was 
 suffering. 
 
 It is nice to be a lord. There is plenty of room, 
 it's warm, people are not continually pulling at the 
 bell; and it is easy to descend from one's lordship 
 and serve as concierge or porter. My estate, sir, cost 
 thirteen thousand, and I have only paid a third, the 
 rest is a debt which will keep me long years on the 
 chain. 
 
 Come and see me, Jean, together with Suvorin. 
 Make a plan with him. I have such a garden! 
 Such a naive courtyard, such geese! Write a little 
 oftener.
 
 300 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 17, 1892. 
 
 . . . Ah, my dear fellow, if only you could take 
 a holiday! Living in the country is inconvenient^ 
 The insufferable time of thaw and mud is beginning, 
 but something marvellous and moving is taking 
 place in nature, the poetry and novelty of which 
 makes up for all the discomforts of life. Every day 
 there are surprises, one better than another. The 
 starlings have returned, everywhere there is the 
 gurgling of water, in places where the snow has 
 thawed the grass is already green. The day drags 
 on like eternity. One lives as though in Australia, 
 somewhere at the ends of the earth; one's mood is 
 calm, contemplative, and animal, in the sense that 
 one does not regret yesterday or look forward to to- 
 morrow. From here, far away, people seem very 
 good, and that is natural, for in going away into the 
 country we are not hiding from people but from 
 our vanity, which in town among people is un- 
 just and active beyond measure. Looking at the 
 spring, I have a dreadful longing that there should 
 be paradise in the other world. In fact, at moments 
 I am so happy that I superstitiously pull myself up 
 and remind myself of my creditors, who will one day 
 drive me out of the Australia I have so happily 
 won. 
 
 • • •
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 301 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 19, 1892. 
 
 Honoured Lidya Alexyevna, 
 
 I have read your story "On the Road." If I 
 were the editor of an illustrated magazine, I should 
 publish the story with great pleasure ; but here is my 
 advice as a reader: when you depict sad or unlucky 
 people, and want to touch the reader's heart, try to 
 be colder — it gives their grief as it were a background, 
 against which it stands out in greater relief. As it 
 is, your heroes weep and you sigh. Yes, you must 
 be cold. 
 
 But don't listen to me, I am a bad critic. I have 
 not the faculty of forming my critical ideas clearly. 
 Sometimes I make a regular hash of it. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 March, 1892. 
 
 The cost of labour is almost nil, and so I am very 
 well off. I begin to see the charms of capitalism. 
 To pull down the stove in the servants' quarters and 
 build up there a kitchen stove with all its accessories, 
 then to pull down the kitchen stove in the house and 
 put up a Dutch stove instead, costs twenty roubles 
 altogether. The price of two men to dig, twenty- 
 five kopecks. To fill the ice cellar it costs thirty 
 kopecks a day to the workmen. A young labourer 
 who does not drink or smoke, and can read and 
 write, whose duties are to work the land and clean
 
 302 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 the boots and look after the flower-garden, costs five 
 roubles a month. Floors, partitions, papering walls 
 — all that is cheaper than mushrooms. And I am 
 at ease. But if I were to pay for labour a quarter 
 of what I get for my leisure I should be ruined in 
 a month, as the number of stove-builders, carpenters, 
 joiners, and so on, threatens to go for ever after the 
 fashion of a recurring decimal. A spacious life not 
 cramped within four walls requires a spacious pocket 
 too. I have bored you already, but I must tell you 
 one thing more: the clover seed costs one hundred 
 roubles a pood^ and the oats needed for seed cost 
 more than a hundred. Think of that ! Tliey proph- 
 esy a harvest and wealth for me, but what is that 
 to me! Better five kopecks in the present than a 
 rouble in the future. I must sit and work. I must 
 earn at least five hundred roubles for all these trifles. 
 I have earned half already. And the snow is melt- 
 ing, it is warm, the birds are singing, the sky is bright 
 and spring-like. 
 
 I am reading a mass of things. I have read 
 Lyeskov's "Legendary Characters," religious and 
 piquant — a combination of virtue, piety, and lewd- 
 ness, but very interesting. Read it if you haven't 
 read it. I have read again Pisarev's "Criticism of 
 Pushkin." Awfully naive. The man pulls Onye- 
 gin and Tatyana down from their pedestals, but 
 Pushkin remains unhurt. Pisarev is the grandfather 
 and father of all the critics of to-day, including 
 Burenin — the same pettiness in disparagement, the 
 same cold and conceited wit, and the same coarseness 
 and indelicacy in their attitude to people. It is not 
 Pisarev's ideas that are brutalizing, for he has none, 
 but his coarse tone. His attitude to Tatyana, es-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV ^ 303 
 
 pecially to her charming letter, which I love tenderly, 
 seems to me simply abominable. The critic has the 
 foul aroma of an insolent captious procurator. 
 
 We have almost finished furnishing; only the 
 shelves for my books are not done yet. When we 
 take out the double windows we shall begin painting 
 everything afresh, and then the house will have a very 
 presentable appearance. 
 
 There are avenues of lime-trees, apple-trees, 
 cherries, plums, and raspberries in the garden. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 April 6, 1892. 
 
 It is Easter. There is a church here, but no clergy. 
 We collected eleven roubles from the whole parish 
 and got a priest from the Davydov Monastery, who be- 
 gan celebrating the service on Friday. The church 
 is very old and chilly, with lattice windows. We 
 sang the Easter service — that is, my family and my 
 visitors, young people. The effect was very good 
 and harmonious, particularly the mass. The peas- 
 ants were very much pleased, and they say they have 
 never had such a grand service. Yesterday the sun 
 shone all day, it was warm. In the morning I went 
 into the fields, from which the snow has gone already, 
 and spent half an hour in the happiest frame of mind: 
 it was amazingly nice! The winter corn is green 
 already, and there is grass in the copse. 
 
 You will not like Melihovo, at least at first. Here 
 everything is in miniature; a little avenue of lime- 
 trees, a pond the size of an aquarium, a little garden 
 and park, little trees; but when you have walked 
 about it once or twice the impression of littleness
 
 304 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 goes off. There is great feeling of space in spite of 
 the village being so near. There is a great deal of 
 forest around. There are numbers of starlings, and 
 the starling has the right to say of itself: "I sing to 
 my God all the days of my life." It sings all day 
 long without stopping. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 April 8, 1892. 
 
 If Shapiro were to present me with the gigantic 
 photograph of which you write, I should not know 
 what to do with it. A cumbersome present. You 
 say that I used to be younger. Yes, imagine! 
 Strange as it may seem, I have passed thirty some 
 time ago, and I already feel forty close at hand. I 
 have grown old not in body only, but in spirit. I 
 have become stupidly indifferent to everything in the 
 world, and for some reason or other the beginning of 
 this indifference coincided with my tour abroad. I 
 get up and go to bed feeling as though interest in 
 life had dried up in me. This is either the illness 
 called in the newspapers nervous exhaustion, or some 
 working of the spirit not clear to the consciousness, 
 'which is called in novels a spiritual revulsion. If it 
 is the latter it is all for the best, I suppose. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The artist Levitan is staying with me. Yesterday 
 evening I went out with him shooting. He shot at a 
 snipe; the bird, shot in the wing, fell into a pool. I 
 picked it up: a long beak, big black eyes, and beau- 
 tiful plumage. It looked at me with surprise. What 
 was I to do with it? Levitan scowled, shut his eyes, 
 and begged me, with a quiver in his voice: "My dear
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 305 
 
 fellow, hit him on the head with the butt-end of your 
 gun." I said: "I can't." He went on nervously, 
 shrugging his shoulders, twitching his head and beg- 
 ging me to; and the snipe went on looking at me in 
 wonder. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. One 
 beautiful creature in love the less, while two fools 
 went home and sat down to supper. 
 
 Jean Shtcheglov, in whose company you were so 
 bored for a whole evening, is a great opponent of 
 every sort of heresy, and amongst others of feminine 
 intellect; and yet if one compares him with K., for 
 instance, beside her he seems like a foolish little 
 monk. By the way, if you see K., give her my greet- 
 ings, and tell her that we are expecting her here. 
 She is very interesting in the open air and far more 
 intelligent than in town. . . . 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 April 29, 1892. 
 
 . . . Yes, it is nice now in the country, not only 
 nice but positively amazing. It's real spring, the 
 trees are coming out, it is hot. The nightingales are 
 singing, and the frogs are croaking in all sorts of 
 tones. I haven't a halfpenny, but the way I look at it 
 is this: the rich man is not he who has plenty of 
 money, but he who has the means to live now in the 
 luxurious surroundings given us by early spring. 
 Yesterday I was in Moscow, but I almost expired there 
 of boredom and all manner of disasters. Would you 
 believe it, a lady of my acquaintance, aged forty-two, 
 recognized herself in the twenty-year-old heroine of
 
 306 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 my story, "The Grasshopper," and all Moscow is ac- 
 cusing me of libelling her. The chief proof is the 
 external likeness. The lady paints, her husband is 
 a doctor, and she is living with an artist. 
 
 I am finishing a story ("Ward No. 6"), a very dull 
 one, owing to a complete absence of woman and the 
 element of love. I can't endure such stories. I 
 write it as it were by accident, thoughtlessly. 
 
 Yes, I wrote to you once that you must be uncon- 
 cerned when you write pathetic stories. And you did 
 not understand me. You may weep and moan over 
 your stories, you may suffer together with your heroes, 
 but I consider one must do this so that the reader 
 does not notice it. The more objective, the stronger 
 will be the effect. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 May 15, 1892. 
 
 ... I have got hold of the peasants and the shop- 
 keepers here. One had a haemorrhage from the 
 throat, another had his arm crushed by a tree, a 
 third had his little daughter sick. ... It seems 
 they would be in a desperate case without me. They 
 bow respectfully to me as Germans do to their pastor, 
 I am friends with them, and all goes well. . . . 
 
 May 28, 1892. 
 
 Life is short, and Chekhov, from whom you are ex- 
 pecting an answer, would like it to flash by brilliantly 
 and with dash. He would go to Prince's Island, to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 307 
 
 Constantinople, and again to India and Sahalin. . . . 
 But in the first place he is not free, he has a respect- 
 able family who need his protection. In the second, 
 he has a large dose of cowardice. Looking towards 
 the future I call nothing but cowardice. I am afraid 
 of getting into a muddle, and every journey compli- 
 cates my financial position. No, don't tempt me 
 without need. Don't write to me of the sea. 
 
 It is hot here. There are warm rains, the evenings 
 are enchanting. Three-quarters of a mile from here 
 there is a good bathing place and good sport for 
 picnics, but no time to bathe or go to picnics. Either 
 I am writing and gnashing my teeth, or settling 
 questions of halfpence with carpenters and labourers. 
 Misha was cruelly reprimanded by his superiors for 
 coming to me every week instead of staying at home, 
 and now there is no one but me to look after the 
 farming, in which I have no faith, as it is on a petty 
 scale, and more like a gentlemanly hobby than real 
 work. I have bought three mousetraps, and catch 
 twenty-five mice a day and carry them away to the 
 copse. It is lovely in the copse. . . . 
 
 Our starlings, old and young, suddenly flew away. 
 This puzzled us, for it won't be time for their migra- 
 tion for ever so long; but suddenly we learn that the 
 other day clouds of grasshoppers from the south, 
 which were taken for locusts, flew over Moscow. 
 One wonders how did our starlings find out that on 
 precisely such a day and so many miles from Melihovo 
 these insects would fly past? Who told them about 
 it? Truly this is a great mystery. . . . 
 
 s
 
 308 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 June 16. 
 
 . . . You want me to write my impressions to you. 
 
 My soul longs for breadth and altitude, but I am 
 forced to lead a narrow life spent over trashy roubles 
 and kopecks. There is nothing more vulgar than a 
 petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, 
 its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue ; my 
 heart aches from the consciousness that I am working 
 for money, and money is the centre of all I do. This 
 aching feeling, together with a sense of justice, makes 
 my writing a contemptible pursuit in my eyes: I don't 
 respect what I write, I am apathetic and bored with 
 myself, and glad that I have medicine which, any- 
 way, I practise not for the sake of money. I ought 
 to have a bath in sulphuric acid and flay off my skin, 
 and then grow a new hide. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 1 August 1. 
 
 My letters chase you, but do not catch you. I have 
 written to you often, and among other places to St. 
 Moritz. Judging from your letters you have had 
 nothing from me. In the first place, there is cholera 
 in Moscow and about Moscow, and it will be in our 
 parts some day soon. In the second place, I have 
 been appointed cholera doctor, and my section in- 
 cludes twenty-five villages, four factories, and one 
 monastery. I am organizing the building of bar- 
 racks, and so on, and I feel lonely, for all the cholera 
 business is alien to my heart, and the work, which in- 
 volves continual driving about, talking, and attention 
 to petty details, is exhausting for me. I have no time 
 to write. Literature has been thrown aside for a long 
 time now, and I am poverty-stricken, as I thought it
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 309 
 
 convenient for myself and my independence to refuse 
 the remuneration received by the section doctors. I 
 am bored, but there is a great deal that is interesting 
 in cholera if you look at it from a detached point 
 of view. I am sorry you are not in Russia. Material 
 for short letters is being wasted. There is more 
 good than bad, and in that cholera is a great contrast 
 to the famine which we watched in the winter. Now 
 all are working — they are working furiously. At 
 the fair at Nizhni they are doing marvels which might 
 force even Tolstoy to take a respectful attitude to 
 medicine and the intervention of cultured people 
 generally in life. It seems as though they had got a 
 hold on the cholera. They have not only decreased 
 the number of cases, but also the percentage of 
 deaths. In immense Moscow the cholera does not 
 exceed fifty cases a week, while on the Don it is a 
 thousand a day — an impressive difference. We 
 district doctors are getting ready; our plan of action 
 is definite, and there are grounds for supposing that 
 in our parts we too shall decrease the percentage of 
 mortality from cholera. We have no assistants, one 
 has to be doctor and sanitary attendant at one and 
 the same time. The peasants are rude, dirty in their 
 habits, and mistrustful; but the thought that our 
 labours are not thrown away makes all that scarcely 
 noticeable. Of all the Serpuhovo doctors I am the 
 most pitiable; I have a scurvy carriage and horses, 
 I don't know the roads, I see nothing by evening light, 
 I have no money, I am very quickly exhausted, and 
 worst of all, I can never forget that I ought to be 
 writing, and I long to spit on the cholera and sit down 
 and write to you, and I long to talk to you. I am 
 in absolute loneliness.
 
 310 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Our farming labours have been crowned with 
 complete success. The harvest is considerable, 
 and when we sell the corn Melihovo will bring us 
 more than a thousand roubles. The kitchen garden 
 is magnificent. There are perfect mountains of 
 cucumbers and the cabbage is wonderful. If it 
 were not for the accursed cholera I might say that 
 I have never spent a summer so happily as this one. 
 
 Nothing has been heard of cholera riots yet. 
 There is talk of some arrests, some manifestoes, and 
 so on. They say that A., the writer, has been con- 
 demned to fifteen years' penal servitude. If the 
 socialists are really going to exploit the cholera for 
 their own ends I shall despise them. Revolting 
 means for good ends make the ends themselves re- 
 volting. Let them get a lift on the backs of the doc- 
 tors and f eldshers, but why lie to the peasants ? Why 
 persuade them that they are right in their ignorance 
 and that their coarse prejudices are the holy truth? 
 If I were a politician I could never bring myself to 
 disgrace my present for the sake of the future, even 
 though I were promised tons of felicity for an ounce 
 of mean lying. Write to me as often as possible in 
 consideration of my exceptional position. I cannot 
 be in a good mood now, and your letters snatch me 
 away from cholera concerns, and carry me for a brief 
 space to another world. . . . 
 
 August 16. 
 
 I'll be damned if I write to you again. I have 
 written to Abbazzio, to St. Moritz. I have written a 
 dozen times at least, so far you have not sent 
 me one correct address, and so not one of my 
 letters has reached and my long description and lee-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 311 
 
 tures about the cholera have been wasted. It's mor- 
 tifying. But what is most mortifying is that after a 
 whole series of letters from me about our exertions 
 against the cholera, you all at once write me from gay 
 Biarritz that you envy my leisure! Well, Allah for- 
 give you ! 
 
 Well, I am alive and in good health. The summer 
 was a splendid one, dry, warm, abounding in the 
 fruits of the earth, but its whole charm was from 
 July onwards, spoilt by news of the cholera. While 
 you were inviting me in your letters first to Vienna, 
 and then to Abbazzio I was already one of the 
 doctors of the Serpuhovo Zemstvo, was trying to 
 catch the cholera by its tail and organizing a new 
 section full steam. In the morning I have to see 
 patients, and in the afternoon drive about. I drive, 
 I give lectures to the natives, treat them, get angry 
 with them, and as the Zemstvo has not granted me a 
 single kopeck for organizing the medical centres I 
 cadge from the wealthy, first from one and then 
 from another. I turn out to be an excellent beggar; 
 thanks to my beggarly eloquence, my section has 
 two excellent barracks with all the necessaries, and 
 five barracks that are not excellent, but horrid. 
 I have saved the Zemstvo from expenditure even on 
 disinfectants. Lime, vitriol, and all sorts of stinking 
 stuff I have begged from the manufacturers for all 
 my twenty-five villages. In fact Kolomin ought to 
 be proud of having been at the same high school with 
 me. My soul is exhausted. I am bored. Not 
 to belong to oneself, to think about nothing but 
 diarrhoea, to start up in the night at a dog's barking 
 and a knock at the gate ("Haven't they come 
 for me?"), to drive with disgusting horses along
 
 312 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 unknown roads; to read about nothing but cholera, 
 and to expect nothing but cholera, and at the same 
 time to be utterly uninterested in that disease, and 
 in the people whom one is serving — that, my good 
 sir, is a hash which w^ouldn't agree with anyone. 
 The cholera is already in Moscow and in the Moscow 
 district. One must expect it from hour to hour. 
 Judging from its course in Moscow one must suppose 
 that it is already declining and that the bacillus is 
 losing its strength. One is bound to think, too, 
 that it is powerfully affected by the measures that 
 have been taken in Moscow and among us. The 
 educated classes are working vigorously, sparing 
 neither themselves nor their purses; I see them every 
 day, and am touched, and when I remember how 
 Zhitel and Burenin used to vent their acrid spleen on 
 these same educated people I feel almost suffocated. 
 In Nizhni the doctors and the cultured people gener- 
 ally have done marvels. I was overwhelmed with 
 enthusiasm when I read about the cholera. In the 
 good old times, when people were infected and died 
 by thousands, the amazing conquests that are being 
 made before our eyes could not even be dreamed of. 
 It's a pity you are not a doctor and cannot share my 
 delight — that is, fully feel and recognize and appre- 
 ciate all that is being done. But one cannot tell 
 about it brieflv. 
 
 The treatment of cholera requires of the doctor 
 deliberation before all things — that is, one has to 
 devote to each patient from five to ten hours or even 
 longer. As I mean to employ Kantani's treatment — 
 that is clysters of tannin and sub-cutaneous injection 
 of a solution of common salt — my position will be 
 w^orse than foolish; while I am busying myself over
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 313 
 
 one patient, a dozen can fall ill and die. You see I 
 am the only man for twenty-five villages, apart 
 from a feldsher who calls me " your honour," does 
 not venture to smoke in my presence, and cannot take 
 a step without me. If there are isolated cases I shall 
 be capital; but if there is an epidemic of only five 
 cases a day, then I shall do nothing but be irritable 
 and exhausted and feel myself guilty. 
 
 Of course there is no time even to think of litera- 
 ture. I am writing nothing. I refused remunera- 
 tion so as to preserve some little freedom of action 
 for myself, and so I have not a halfpenny. I am 
 waiting till they have threshed and sold the rye. 
 Until then I shall be living on "The Bear" and mush- 
 rooms, of which there are endless masses here. By 
 the way, I have never lived so cheaply as now. We 
 have everything of our own, even our own bread. I 
 believe in a couple of years all my household ex- 
 penses will not exceed a thousand roubles a year. 
 
 When you learn from the newspapers that the 
 cholera is over, you will know that I have gone back 
 to writing again. Don't think of me as a literary 
 man while I am in the service of the Zemstvo. One 
 can't do two things at once. 
 
 You write that I have given up Sahalin. I cannot 
 abandon that child of mine. When I am oppressed 
 by the boredom of belles-lettres I am glad to turn 
 to something else. The question when I shall finish 
 Sahalin and when I shall print does not strike me as 
 being important. While Galkin-Vrasskoy reigns 
 over the prison system I feel very much disinclined 
 to bring out my book. Of course if I am driven to 
 it by need, that is a different matter. 
 
 In all my letters I have pertinaciously asked you
 
 314 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 one question, which of course you are not obliged to 
 answer: "Where are you going to be in the autumn, 
 and wouldn't you like to spend part of September and 
 October with me in Feodosia or the Crimea?" I 
 have an impatient desire to eat, drink, and sleep, and 
 talk about literature — that is, do nothing, and at the 
 same time feel like a decent person. However, if 
 my idleness annoys you, I can promise to write with 
 or beside you, a play or a story. ... Eh? Won't 
 you? Well, God be with you, then. 
 
 The astronomer has been here twice. I felt bored 
 with her on both occasions. Svobodin has been 
 here too. He grows better and better. His serious 
 illness has made him pass through a spiritual meta- 
 morphosis. 
 
 See what a long letter I have written, even though 
 I don't feel sure that the letter will reach you. 
 Imagine my cholera-boredom, my cholera-loneliness, 
 and compulsory literary inactivity, and write to me 
 more, and oftener. Your contemptuous feeling for 
 France I share. The Germans are far above them, 
 though for some reason they are called stupid. And 
 the Franco-Russian Entente Cordiale I am as fond 
 of as Tolstoy is. There's something nastily sugges- 
 tive about these cordialities. On the other hand I 
 was awfully pleased at Virchow's visit to us. 
 
 We have raised a very nice potato and a divine 
 cabbage. How do you manage to get on without 
 cabbage-soup? I don't envy you your sea, nor your 
 freedom, nor the happy frame of mind you are in 
 abroad. The Russian summer is better than any- 
 thing. And by the way, I don't feel any great long- 
 ing to be abroad. After Singapore, Ceylon, and 
 perhaps even our Amur, Italy and even the crater
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 315 
 
 of Vesuvius do not seem fascinating. After being in 
 India and China I did not see a great difference be- 
 tween other European countries and Russia. 
 
 A neighbour of ours, the owner of the renowned 
 Otrad, Count X, is staying now at Biarritz, having run 
 away from the cholera; he gave his doctor only five 
 hundred roubles for the campaign against the cholera. 
 His sister, the countess, who is living in my section, 
 when I went to discuss the provision of barracks for 
 her workmen, treated me as though I had come to ap- 
 ply for a situation. It mortified me, and I told her a 
 lie, pretending to be a rich man. I told the same lie 
 to the Archimandrite, who refuses to provide quarters 
 for the cases which may occur in the monastery. To 
 my question what would he do with the cases that 
 might be taken ill in his hostel, he answered me: 
 "They are persons of means and will pay you them- 
 selves. . . ." Do you understand? And I flared 
 up, and said I did not care about payment, as I was 
 well off, and that all I wanted was the security of 
 the monastery. . . . There are sometimes very 
 stupid and humiliating positions. . . . Before the 
 count went away I met his wife. Huge diamonds in 
 her ears, wearing a bustle, and not knowing how to 
 hold herself. A millionaire. In the company of 
 such persons one has a stupid schoolboy feeling of 
 wanting to be rude. 
 
 The village priest often comes and pays me long 
 visits; he is a very good fellow, a widower, and has 
 some illegitimate children. 
 
 Write or there will be trouble. . . .
 
 316 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Melihovo, 
 October 10, 1892. 
 
 Your telegram telling me of Svobodin's death 
 caught me just as I was going out of the yard to see 
 patients. You can imagine my feelings. Svobodin 
 stayed with me this summer; he was very sweet and 
 gentle, in a serene and affectionate mood, and became 
 very much attached to me. It was evident to me that 
 he had not very long to live, it was evident to him 
 too. He had the thirst of the aged for everyday 
 peace and quiet, and had grown to detest the stage 
 and everything to do with the stage and dreaded 
 returning to Petersburg. Of course I ought to go to 
 the funeral, but to begin with, your telegram came 
 towards evening, and the funeral is most likely to- 
 morrow, and secondly the cholera is twenty miles 
 away, and I cannot leave my centre. There are seven 
 cases in one village, and two have died already. 
 The cholera may break out in my section. It is 
 strange that with winter coming on the cholera is 
 spreading over a wider and wider region. 
 
 I have undertaken to be the section doctor till 
 the fifteenth of October — my section will be officially 
 closed on that day. I shall dismiss my feldsher, 
 close the barracks, and if the cholera comes, I shall 
 cut rather a comic figure. Add to that the doctor 
 of the next section is ill with pleurisy and so, if the 
 cholera appears in his section, I shall be bound, 
 from a feeling of comradeship, to undertake his 
 section. 
 
 So far I have not had a single case of cholera, but 
 I have had epidemics of typhus, diphtheria, scarla- 
 tina, and so on,. At the beginning of summer I had
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 317 
 
 a great deal of work, then towards the autumn less 
 
 and less. 
 
 ^ * * * * * 
 
 The sum of my Uterary achievement this summer, 
 thanks to the cholera, has been almost nil. I have 
 written little, and have thought about literature 
 even less. However, I have written two small stories 
 — one tolerable, one bad. 
 
 Life has been hard work this summer, but it seems^ 
 to me now that I have never spent a summer so well 
 as this one. In spite of the turmoil of the cholera, 
 and the poverty which has kept tight hold of me all 
 the summer, I have liked the life and wanted to 
 live. How many trees I have planted! Thanks to 
 our system of cultivation, Melihovo has become un- 
 recognizable, and seems now extraordinarily snug and 
 beautiful, though very likely it is good for nothing. 
 Great is the power of habit and the sense of property* 
 And it's marvellous how pleasant it is not to have to- 
 pay rent. We have made new acquaintances audi, 
 formed new relations. Our old terrors in facing 
 the peasants now seem ludicrous. I have served in 
 the Zemstvo, have presided at the Sanitary Council 
 and visited the factories, and I liked all that. They 
 think of me now as one of themselves, and stay the 
 night with me when they pass through Melihovo. 
 Add to that, that we have bought ourselves a new 
 comfortable covered carriage, have made a new road, 
 so that now we don't drive through the village. We 
 are digging a pond. . . . Anything else? In fact 
 hitherto everything has been new and interesting^ 
 but how it will be later on, I don't know. There is 
 snow already, it is cold, but I don't feel drawn to 
 Moscow. So far I have not had any feeling of dulness.. 
 
 * 4f -X- -X- -Jf -x-
 
 318 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 The educated people here are very charming and 
 interesting. What matters most, they are honest. 
 Only the police are unattractive. 
 
 We have seven horses, a broad-faced calf, and 
 puppies, called Muir and Merrilees. . . . 
 
 November 22, 1892. 
 
 Snow is falling by day, while at night the moon is 
 shining its utmost, a gorgeous amazing moon. It 
 is magnificent. But nevertheless, I marvel at the 
 fortitude of landowners who spend the winter in the 
 country; there's so little to do that if anyone is not 
 in one way or another engaged in intellectual work, 
 he is inevitably bound to become a glutton or a 
 drunkard, or a man like Turgenev's Pigasov. The 
 monotony of the snowdrifts and the bare trees, the 
 long nights, the moonlight, the deathlike stillness 
 day and night, the peasant women and the old ladies 
 — all that disposes one to indolence, indifference, and 
 an enlarged liver. . . . 
 
 November 25, 1892. 
 
 It is easy to understand you, and there is no need 
 for you to abuse yourself for obscurity of expression. 
 You are a hard drinker, and I have regaled you with 
 sweet lemonade, and you, after giving the lemonade 
 its due, justly observe that there is no spirit in it. 
 That is just what is lacking in our productions — 
 the alcohol which could intoxicate and subjugate, 
 and you state that very well. Why not? Putting 
 aside "Ward No. 6" and mvself, let us discuss the 
 matter in general, for that is more interesting. Let 
 us discuss the general causes, if that won't bore you, 
 and let us include the whole age. Tell me honestly,
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 319 
 
 who of my contemporaries — that is, men between 
 thirty and forty-five — have given the world one single 
 drop of alcohol? Are not Korolenko, Nadson, and 
 all the playwrights of to-day, lemonade? Have 
 Ryepin's or Shishkin's pictures turned your head? 
 Charming, talented, you are enthusiastic; but at 
 the same time you can't forget that you want to 
 smoke. Science and technical knowledge are passing 
 through a great period now, but for our sort it is a 
 flabby, stale, and dull time. We are stale and dull 
 ourselves, we can only beget gutta-percha boys,* 
 and the only person who does not see that is Stassov, 
 to whom nature has given a rare faculty for getting 
 drunk on slops. The causes of this are not to be 
 found in our stupidity, our lack of talent, or our 
 insolence, as Burenin imagines, but in a disease which 
 for the artist is worse than syphilis or sexual exhaus- 
 tion. We lack "something," that is true, and that 
 means that, lift the robe of our muse, and you will 
 find within an empty void. Let me remind you that 
 the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply 
 good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and 
 very important characteristic; they are going towards 
 something and are summoning you towards it, too, 
 and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole 
 being, that they have some object, just like the ghost 
 of Hamlet's father, who did not come and disturb 
 the imagination for nothing. Some have more 
 immediate objects — the abolition of serfdom, the 
 liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply 
 vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote 
 objects — God, life beyond the grave, the happiness 
 of humanity, and so on. The best of them are 
 
 * An allusion to Grigorovitch's well-known story.
 
 320 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 realists and paint life as it is, but, through every 
 line's being soaked in the consciousness of an object, 
 you feel, besides life as it is, the life which ought 
 to be, and that captivates you. And we? We! 
 We paint life as it is, but beyond that — nothing at 
 all. . . . Flog us and we can do no more! We 
 have neither immediate nor remote aims, and in our 
 soul there is a great empty space. We have no 
 politics, we do not believe in revolution, we have no 
 God, we are not afraid of ghosts, and I personally 
 am not afraid even of death and blindness. One 
 who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears 
 nothing, cannot be an artist. Whether it is a disease 
 or not — what it is does not matter; but we ought to 
 recognize that our position is worse than a governor's. 
 I don't know how it will be with us in ten or twenty 
 years — then circumstances may be different, but 
 meanwhile it would be rash to expect of us anything 
 of real value, apart from the question whether we 
 have talent or not. We write mechanically, merely 
 obeying the long-established arrangement in accord- 
 ance with which some men go into the government 
 service, others into trade, others write. . . . Grigoro- 
 vitch and you think I am clever. Yes, I am at least 
 so far clever as not to conceal from myself my disease, 
 and not to deceive myself, and not to cover up my 
 own emptiness with other people's rags, such as the 
 ideas of the sixties, and so on. I am not going to 
 throw myself like Garshin over the banisters, but I 
 am not going to flatter myself with hopes of a better 
 future either. I am not to blame for my disease, and 
 it's not for me to cure myself, for this disease, it must 
 be supposed, has some good purpose hidden from us, 
 and is not sent in vain. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 321 
 
 February, 1893. 
 
 My God! What a glorious thing "Fathers and 
 Children" is ! It is positively terrifying. Bazarov's 
 illness is so powerfully done that I felt ill and had a 
 sensation as though I had caught the infection from 
 him. And the end of Bazarov? And the old men? 
 And Kukshina? It's beyond words. It's simply 
 a work of genius. I don't like the whole of "On the 
 Eve," only Elena's father and the end. The end 
 is full of tragedy. "The Dog" is very good, the 
 language is wonderful in it. Please read it if you 
 have forgotten it. "Acia" is charming, "A Quiet 
 Backwater" is too compressed and not satisfactory. 
 I don't like "Smoke" at all. "The House of Gentle- 
 folk" is weaker than "Fathers and Children," but the 
 end is like a miracle, too. Except for the old woman 
 in "Fathers and Children" — that is, Bazarov's 
 mother — and the mothers as a rule, especially 
 the society ladies, who are, however, all alike (Liza's 
 mother, Elena's mother), and Lavretsky's mother, 
 who had been a serf, and the humble peasant woman, 
 all Turgenev's girls and women are insufferable in 
 their artificiality, and — forgive my saying it — falsity. 
 Liza and Elena are not Russian girls, but some sort of 
 Pythian prophetesses, full of extravagant pretensions. 
 Irina in "Smoke," Madame Odintsov in "Fathers 
 and Children," all the lionesses, in fact, fiery, allur- 
 ing, insatiable creatures for ever craving for some- 
 thing, are all nonsensical. When one thinks of Tol- 
 stoy's "Anna Karenin," all these young ladies of 
 Turgenev's, with their seductive shoulders, fade away 
 into nothing. The negative types of women where 
 Turgenev is slightly caricaturing (Kukshina) or jest-
 
 322 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 ing (the descriptions of balls) are wonderfully drawn, 
 and so successful, that, as the saying is, you can't 
 pick a hole in it. 
 
 The descriptions of nature are fine, but ... I 
 feel that we have already got out of the way of 
 such descriptions and that we need something differ- 
 ent. . . . 
 
 April 26, 1893. 
 
 ... I am reading Pisemsky. His is a great, very 
 great talent ! The best of his works is "The Carpen- 
 ters' Guild." His novels are exhausting in their 
 minute detail. Everything in him that has a tem- 
 porary character, all his digs at the critics and liberals 
 of the period, all his critical observations with their 
 assumption of smartness and modernity, and all the 
 so-called profound reflections scattered here and there 
 — how petty and naive it all is to our modem ideas ! 
 The fact of the matter is this: a novelist, an artist, 
 ought to pass by everything that has only a temporary 
 value. Pisemsky's people are living, his tempera- 
 ment is vigorous. Skabitchevsky in his history 
 attacks him for obscurantism and treachery, but, my 
 God ! of all contemporary writers I don't know a single 
 one so passionately and earnestly liberal as Pisem- 
 sky. All his priests, officials, and generals are regular 
 blackguards. No one was so down on the old legal 
 and military set as he. 
 
 By the way, I have read also Bourget's "Cosmo- 
 polis." Rome and the Pope and Correggio and 
 Michael Angelo and Titian and doges and a fifty- 
 year-old beauty and Russians and Poles are all in 
 Bourget, but how thin and strained and mawkish and 
 false it is in comparison even with our coarse and 
 simple Pisemsky! . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 323 
 
 What a good thing I gave up the town ! Tell all 
 the Fofanovs, Tchermnys, et tutti quanti who live by 
 literature, that living in the country is immensely 
 cheaper than living in the town. I experience this 
 now every day. My family costs me nothing now, 
 for lodging, bread, vegetables, milk, butter, horses, 
 are all our own. And there is so much to do, there 
 is not time to get through it all. Of the whole family 
 of Chekhovs, I am the only one to lie down, or sit at 
 the table: all the rest are working from morning till 
 night. Drive the poets and literary men into the 
 country. Why should they live in starvation and 
 beggary? Town life cannot give a poor man rich 
 material in the sense of poetry and art. He lives 
 within four walls and sees people only at the editors' 
 offices and in eating-shops. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 January 25, 1894. 
 
 I believe I am mentally sound. It is true I have 
 no special desire to live, but that is not, so far, disease, 
 but something probably passing and natural. It 
 does not follow every time that an author describes 
 someone mentally deranged, that he is himself 
 deranged. I wrote "The Black Monk" without 
 any melancholy ideas, through cool reflection. I 
 simply had a desire to describe megalomania. The 
 monk floating across the country was a dream, and 
 when I woke I told Misha about it. So you can tell 
 Anna Ivanovna that poor Anton Pavlovitch, thank 
 God! has not gone out of his mind yet, but that he 
 eats a great deal at supper and so he dreams of 
 monks. 
 
 I keep forgetting to write to you: read Ertel's
 
 324 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 story "The Seers" in "Russkaya Mysl." There is 
 poetry and something terrible in the old-fashioned 
 fairy-tale style about it. It is one of the best new 
 things that has come out in Moscow. . . . 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 27, 1894. 
 
 I am in good health generally, ill in certain parts. 
 For instance, a cough, palpitations of the heart, 
 haemorrhoids. I had palpitations of the heart 
 incessantly for six days, and the sensation all the 
 time was loathsome. Since I have quite given up 
 smoking I have been free from gloomy and anxious 
 moods. Perhaps because I am not smoking, Tol- 
 stoy's morality has ceased to touch me ; at the bottom 
 of my heart I take up a hostile attitude towards it, 
 and that of course is not just. I have peasant 
 blood in my veins, and you won't astonish me with 
 peasant virtues. From my childhood I have believed 
 in progress, and I could not help believing in it 
 since the difference between the time when I used 
 to be thrashed and when they gave up thrashing 
 me was tremendous. . . . But Tolstoy's philosophy 
 touched me profoundly and took possession of me 
 for six or seven years, and what affected me 
 was not its general propositions, with which I 
 was familiar beforehand, but Tolstoy's manner of 
 expressing it, his reasonableness, and probably 
 a sort of hypnotism. Now something in me pro- 
 tests, reason and justice tell me that in the electricity 
 and heat of love for man there is something 
 greater than chastity and abstinence from meat. 
 War is an evil and legal justice is an evil; but
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 325 
 
 it does not follow from that that I ought to wear 
 bark shoes and sleep on the stove with the labourer, 
 and so on, and so on. But that is not the point, it is 
 not a matter of pro and con; the thing is that in one 
 way or another Tolstoy has passed for me, he is not 
 in my soul, and he has departed from me, saying: 
 *T leave this your house empty." I am untenanted. 
 I am sick of theorizing of all sorts, and such 
 bounders as Max Nordau I read with positive disgust. 
 Patients in a fever do not want food, but they do 
 want something, and that vague craving they express 
 as "longing for something sour." I, too, want 
 something sour, and that's not a mere chance feeling, 
 for I notice the same mood in others around me. It 
 is just as if they had all been in love, had fallen 
 out of love, and now were looking for some new 
 distraction. It is very possible and very likely 
 that the Russians will pass through another period 
 of enthusiasm for the natural sciences, and that the 
 materialistic movement will be fashionable. Natural 
 science is performing miracles now. And it may act 
 upon people like Mamay, and dominate them by its 
 mass and grandeur. All that is in the hands of God, 
 however. And theorizing about it makes one's head 
 go round. 
 
 To L. S. MiziNOv. 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 27, 1894. 
 
 Dear Lika, 
 
 Thanks for your letter. Though you do 
 scare me in your letter saying you are soon going to 
 die, though you do taunt me with having rejected you.
 
 326 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 yet thank you all the same ; I know perfectly well you 
 are not going to die, and that no one has rejected 
 you. 
 
 I am in Yalta and I am dreary, very dreary indeed. 
 The aristocracy, so to call it, are performing '"Faust," 
 and I go to the rehearsals and there I enjoy the 
 spectacle of a perfect flower-bed of black, red, 
 flaxen, and brown heads; I listen to the singing and 
 I eat. At the house of the principal of the high 
 school I eat tchibureks, and saddle of lamb with 
 boiled grain ; in various estimable families I eat green 
 soup; at the confectioner's I eat — in my hotel also. 
 I go to bed at ten and I get up at ten, and after dinner 
 I lie down and rest, and yet I am bored, dear Lika. 
 I am not bored because "my ladies" are not with 
 me, but because the northern spring is better than 
 the spring here, and because the thought that I 
 must, that I ought to write never leaves me for an 
 instant. To write and write and write! It is my 
 opinion that true happiness is impossible without 
 idleness. My ideal is to be idle and to love a plump 
 girl. My loftiest happiness is to walk or to sit 
 doing nothing; my favourite occupation is to gather 
 up what is not wanted (leaves, straws, and so on) 
 and to do what is useless. Meanwhile, I am a literary 
 man, and have to write here in Yalta. Dear Lika, 
 when you become a great singer and are paid a 
 handsome salary, then be charitable to me, marry me, 
 and keep me at your expense, that I may be free to 
 do nothing. If you really are going to die, it might 
 be undertaken by Varya Eberly, whom, as you know, 
 I love. I am so all to pieces with the perpetual 
 thought of work I ought to do and can't avoid that 
 for the last week I have been continually tormented
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 327 
 
 with palpitations of the heart. It's a loathsome 
 sensation. 
 
 I have sold my fox-skin greatcoat for twenty 
 roubles! It cost sixty, but as forty roubles' worth 
 of fur has peeled off it, twenty roubles was not too low 
 a price. The gooseberries are not ripe here yet, but 
 it is warm and bright, the trees are coming out, the 
 sea looks like summer, the young ladies are yearning 
 for sensations: but yet the north is better than the 
 south of Russia, in spring at any rate. In our part 
 nature is more melancholy, more lyrical, more 
 Levitanesque ; here it is neither one thing nor the 
 other, like good, sonorous, but frigid verse. Thanks to 
 my palpitations I haven't drunk wine for a week, and 
 that makes the surroundings seem even poorer. . . . 
 
 M. gave a concert here, and made one hundred 
 and fifty roubles clear profit. He roared like a 
 grampus but had an immense success. I am awfully 
 sorry I did not study singing; I could have roared 
 too, as my throat is rich in husky elements, and they 
 say I have a real octave. I should have earned 
 money, and been a favourite with the ladies. . . . 
 
 To HIS Brother Alexandr. 
 
 Meuhovo, 
 
 April 15, 1894. 
 
 ... I have come back from the Haming Tavrida 
 and am already sitting on the cool banks of my pond. 
 It's very warm, however: the thermometer runs up 
 to twenty-six. . . . 
 
 I am busy looking after the land: I am making 
 new avenues, planting flowers, chopping down dead
 
 328 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 trees, and chasing the hens and the dogs out of the 
 garden. Literature plays the part of Erakit, wha 
 was always in the background. I don't want to 
 write, and indeed, it's hard to combine a desire to 
 live and a desire to write. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 April 21, 1894. 
 
 Of course it is very nice in the country; in fine 
 weather Russia is an extraordinarily beautiful and 
 enchanting country, especially for those who have 
 been born and spent their childhood in the country. 
 But you will never buy yourself an estate, as you don't 
 know what you want. To like an estate you must 
 make up your mind to buy it; so long as it is not yours 
 it will seem comfortless and full of defects. My 
 cough is considerably better, I am sunburnt, and they 
 tell me I am fatter, but the other day I almost fell 
 down and I fancied for a minute that I was dying. 
 I was walking along the avenue with the prince, 
 our neighbour, and was talking when all at once 
 something seemed to break in my chest, I had a feel- 
 ing of warmth and suffocation, there was a singing 
 in my ears, I remembered that I had been having 
 palpitations for a long time and thought — "they 
 must have meant something then." I went rapidly 
 towards the verandah on which visitors were 
 sitting, and had one thought — that it would be 
 awkward to fall down and die before strangers; 
 but I went into my bedroom, drank some water, 
 and recovered.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 329 
 
 So you are not the only one who suffers from 
 staggering ! 
 
 I am beginning to build a pretty lodge. . . . 
 
 May 9. 
 
 I have no news. The weather is most exquisite, 
 and in the foliage near the house a nightingale is 
 building and shouting incessantly. About twelve 
 miles from me there is the village of Pokrovskoe- 
 Meshtcherskoe ; the old manor house there is now the 
 lunatic asylum of the province. The Zemsky doc- 
 tors from the whole Moscow province met there on 
 the fourth of May, to the number of about seventy- 
 five ; I was there too. There are a great many patients 
 but all that is interesting material for alienists 
 and not for psychologists. One patient, a mystic, 
 preaches that the Holy Trinity has come upon earth 
 in the form of the metropolitan of Kiev, loannikiy. 
 *'A limit of ten years has been given us; eight have 
 passed, only two years are left. If we do not want 
 Russia to fall into ruins like Sodom, all Russia must 
 go in a procession with the Cross to Kiev, as Moscow 
 went to Troitsa, and pray there to the divine martyr 
 in the noble form of the metropolitan loannikiy." 
 This queer fellow is convinced that the doctors in 
 the asylum are poisoning him, and that he is being 
 saved by the miraculous intervention of Christ in the 
 form of the metropolitan. He is continually praying 
 to the East and singing, and, addressing himself to 
 God, invariably adds the words, "in the noble form 
 of the metropolitan loannikiy." He has a lovely 
 expression of face. . . . 
 
 From the madhouse I returned late at night in my 
 troika. Two-thirds of the wav I had to drive
 
 330 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 through the forest in the moonhght, and I had a 
 wonderful feeling such as I have not had for a long 
 time, as though I had come back from a tryst. I 
 think that nearness to nature and idleness are 
 essential elements of happiness; without them it is 
 impossible. . . . 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 July, 1894. 
 
 I have so many visitors that I cannot answer your 
 last letter. I want to write at length but am pulled 
 up at the thought that any minute they may come 
 in and hinder me. And in fact while I write the 
 word "hinder," a girl has come in and announced 
 that a patient has arrived; I must go. . . . I have 
 grown to detest writing, and I don't know what to do. 
 I would gladly take up medicine and would accept 
 any sort of post, but I no longer have the physical 
 elasticity for it. When I write now or think I ought 
 to write I feel as much disgust as though I were eat- 
 ing soup from which I had just removed a beetle — 
 forgive the comparison. What I hate is not the writ- 
 ing itself, but the literary entourage from which one 
 cannot escape, and which one takes everywhere as 
 the earth takes its atmosphere. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 August 15, 1894. 
 
 Our trip on the Volga turned out rather a queer 
 one in the end. Potapenko and I went to Yaroslav 
 to take a steamer from there to Tsaritsvn, then to
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 331 
 
 Kalatch, from there by the Don to Taganrog. The 
 journey from Yaroslav to Nizhni is beautiful, but 
 I had seen it before. Moreover, it was very hot in 
 the cabin and the wind lashed in our faces on deck. 
 The passengers were an uneducated set, whose 
 presence was irritating. At Nizhni we were met by 
 N., Tolstoy's friend. The heat, the dry wind, the 
 noise of the fair and the conversation of N. suddenly 
 made me feel so suffocated, so ill at ease, and so sick, 
 that I took my portmanteau and ignominiously 
 fled to the railway station. . . . Potapenko fol- 
 lowed me. We took the train for Moscow, but we 
 were ashamed to go home without having done any- 
 thing, and we decided to go somewhere if it had to be 
 to Lapland. If it had not been for his wife our choice 
 would have fallen on Feodosia, but . . . alas! we 
 have a wife living at Feodosia. We thought it over, 
 we talked it over, we counted over our money, and 
 came to the Psyol to Suma, which you know. . . . 
 Well, the Psyol is magnificent. There is warmth, 
 there is space, an immensity of water and of greenery 
 and delightful people. We spent six days on the 
 Psyol, ate and drank, walked and did nothing: my 
 ideal of happiness, as you know, is idleness. Now I 
 am at Melihovo again. There is a cold rain, a leaden 
 sky, mud. 
 
 W W TT TT w w 
 
 It sometimes happens that one passes a third-class 
 refreshment room and sees a cold fish, cooked long 
 before, and wonders carelessly who wants that unap- 
 petising fish. And yet undoubtedly that fish is 
 wanted, and will be eaten, and there are people who 
 will think it nice. One may say the same of the
 
 332 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 works of N. He is a bourgeois writer, writing for 
 the unsophisticated pubhc who travel third class. 
 For that public Tolstoy and Turgenev are too 
 luxurious, too aristocratic, somewhat alien and not 
 easily digested. There is a public which eats salt 
 beef and horse-radish sauce with relish, and does not 
 care for artichokes and asparagus. Put yourself at 
 its point of view, imagine the grey, dreary courtyard, 
 the educated ladies who look like cooks, the smell of 
 paraffin, the scantiness of interests and tasks — and 
 you will understand N. and his readers. He is 
 colourless ; that is partly because the life he describes 
 lacks colour. He is false because bourgeois writers 
 cannot help being false. They are vulgar writers 
 perfected. The vulgarians sin together with their 
 public, while the bourgeois are hypocritical with them 
 and flatter their narrow virtue. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 February 25, 1895. 
 
 ... I should like to meet a philosopher like 
 Nietzsche somewhere in a train or a steamer, and to 
 spend the whole night talking to him. I consider 
 his philosophy won't last long, however. It's more 
 showy than convincing. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 16, 1895. 
 
 Instead of you, heaven has sent me N., who has 
 come to see me with E. and Z., two young duffers 
 who never miss a single word but induce in the whole 
 household a desperate boredom. N. looks flabby 
 and physically slack ; he has gone off, but has become 
 warmer and more good-natured; he must be going
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 335 
 
 to die. When my mother was ordering meat from 
 the butcher, she said he must let us have better meat, 
 as N. was staying with us from Petersburg. 
 
 "What N.?" asked the butcher in surprise — "the 
 one who writes books?" and he sent us excellent 
 meat. So the butcher does not know that I write 
 books, for he never sends anything but gristle for my 
 benefit. . . . 
 
 Your little letter about physical games for students 
 will do good if only you will go on insisting on the 
 subject. Games are absolutely essential. Playing 
 games is good for health and beauty and liberalism, 
 since nothing is so conducive to the blending of 
 classes, et cetera, as public games. Games would 
 give our solitary young people acquaintances; young 
 people would more frequently fall in love ; but games 
 should not be instituted before the Russian student 
 ceases to be hungry. No skating, no croquet, can 
 keep the student cheerful and confident on an empty 
 stomach. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 23, 1895. 
 
 I told you that Potapenko was a man very full of 
 life, but you did not believe me. In the entrails of 
 every Little Russian lie hidden many treasures. I 
 fancy when our generation grows old, Potapenko will 
 be the gayest and jolliest old man of us all. 
 
 By all means I will be married if you wish it. But 
 on these conditions: everything must be as it has 
 been hitherto — that is, she must live in Moscow while 
 I live in the country, and I will come and see her. 
 Happiness continued from day to day, from morning 
 to morning, I cannot stand. When every day I am
 
 334 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 told of the same thing, in the same tone of voice, I 
 become furious. I am furious, for instance, in the 
 society of S., because he is very much Hke a woman 
 ("a clever and responsive woman") and because in 
 his presence the idea occurs to me that my wife might 
 be like him. I promise you to be a splendid husband, 
 but give me a wife who, like the moon, won't appear 
 in my sky every day; I shan't write any better for 
 being married. . . . 
 
 Mamin-Sibiryak is a very nice fellow and an excel- 
 lent writer. His last novel "Bread" is praised; 
 Lyeskov was particularly enthusiastic about it. 
 There are undoubtedly fine things in his work, and 
 in his more successful stories the peasants are 
 depicted every bit as well as in "Master and Man." 
 
 This is the fourth year I have been living at 
 Melihovo. My calves have turned into cows, my 
 copse has grown at least a yard higher, my heirs will 
 make a capital bargain over the timber and will call 
 me an ass, for heirs are never satisfied. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 March 30, 1895. 
 
 . . . We have spring here but there are regular 
 mountains of snow, and there is no knowing when 
 it will thaw. As soon as the sun hides behind a 
 cloud there begins to be a chill breath from the snow, 
 and it is horrible. Masha is already busy in the 
 flower-beds and borders. She tires herself out and 
 is constantly cross, so there is no need for her to read 
 Madame Smirnov's article. The advice given is 
 excellent; the young ladies will read it, and it will 
 be their salvation. Only one point is not clear: 
 how are they going to get rid of the apples and cab-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 335 
 
 bages if the estate is far from the town, and of what 
 stuff are they going to make their own dresses if their 
 rye does not sell at all, and they have not a halfpenny? 
 To live on one's land by the labour of one's own hands 
 and the sweat of one's brow is only possible on one 
 condition ; that is, if one works oneself like a peasant, 
 without regard for class or sex. There is no making 
 use of slaves nowadays, one must take the scythe and 
 axe oneself, and if one can't do that, no gardens will 
 help one. Even the smallest success in farming 
 is only gained in Russia at the price of a cruel 
 struggle with nature, and wishing is not enough 
 for the struggle, you need bodily strength and grit, 
 you want traditions — and have young ladies all that? 
 To advise young ladies to take up farming is much 
 the same as to advise them to be bears, and to bend 
 yokes. . . . 
 
 I have no money, but I live in the country: there 
 are no restaurants and no cabmen, and money does 
 not seem to be needed. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 
 April 13, 1895. 
 
 I am sick of Sienkiewicz's "The Family of the 
 Polonetskys." It's the Polish Easter cake with 
 saffron. Add Potapenko to Paul Bourget, sprinkle 
 with Warsaw eau-de-Cologne, divide in two, and you 
 get Sienkiewicz. "The Polonetskys" is unmistak- 
 ably inspired by Bourget's "Cosmopolis," by Rome 
 and by marriage (Sienkiewicz has lately got mar- 
 ried). We have the catacombs and a queer old 
 professor sighing after idealism, and Leo XHL 
 wdth the unearthly face among the saints, and the 
 advice to return to the prayer-book, and the libel 
 on the decadent who dies of morphinism after con-
 
 336 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 fessing and taking the sacrament — that is, after 
 repenting of his errors in the name of the Church. 
 There is a devihsh lot of family happiness and talk- 
 ing about love, and the hero's wife is so faithful to 
 her husband and so subtly comprehends "with her 
 heart" the mysteries of God and life, that in the 
 end one feels mawkish and uncomfortable as after 
 a slobbering kiss. Sienkiewicz has evidently not 
 read Tolstoy, and does not know Nietzsche, he talks 
 about hypnotism like a shopman; on the other hand 
 every page is positively sprinkled with Rubens, 
 Borghesi, Correggio, Botticelli — and that is done to 
 show off his culture to the bourgeois reader and make 
 a long nose on the sly at materialism. The object 
 of the novel is to lull the bourgeoisie to sleep in its 
 golden dreams. Be faithful to your wife, pray with 
 her over the prayer-book, save money, love sport, 
 and all is well with you in this world and the next. 
 The bourgeoisie is very fond of so-called practical 
 types and novels with happy endings, since they 
 soothe it with the idea that one can both accumulate 
 capital and preserve innocence, be a beast and at the 
 same time be happy. . . . 
 
 I wish you every sort of blessing. I congratulate 
 you on the peace between Japan and China, and hope 
 we may quickly obtain a Feodosia free from ice on 
 the East Coast, and may make a railway to it. 
 
 The peasant woman had not troubles enough so 
 she bought a pig. And I fancy we are saving up a 
 lot of trouble for ourselves with this ice-free port.* 
 It will cost us dearer than if we were to take it into 
 our heads to wage war on all Japan. However, fu- 
 tura sunt in manibus deorum. 
 
 * Prophetic of Port Arthur and the Japanese War.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 337 
 
 Meuhovo, 
 October 21, 1895. 
 
 Thanks for your letter, for your warm words and 
 your invitation. I will come, but most likely not be- 
 fore the end of November, as I have a devilish lot to 
 do. First in the spring I am going to build a new 
 school in the village where I am school warden; be- 
 fore beginning I have to make a plan and calculations, 
 and to drive off here and there, and so on. Secondly 
 — can you imagine it — I am writing a play which I 
 shall probably not finish before the end of November. 
 I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear 
 fearfully at the conventions of the stage. It's a 
 comedy, there are three women's parts, six men's, 
 four acts, landscapes (view over a lake) ; a great deal 
 of conversation about literature, little action, tons of 
 love.* I read of Ozerova's failure and was sorry, 
 for nothing is more painful than failing. ... I 
 have read of the success of the "Powers of Darkness" 
 in your theatre. . . . When I was at Tolstoy's in 
 August, he told me, as he was wiping his hands after 
 washing, that he wouldn't alter his play. And now, 
 remembering that, I fancy that he knew even then 
 that his play would be passed by the censor in toto. 
 I spent two days and a night with him. He made 
 a delightful impression, I felt as much at ease as 
 though I were at home, and our talks were easy. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 26, 1895. 
 
 Tolstoy's daughters are very nice. They adore 
 their father and have a fanatical faith in him and 
 that means that Tolstoy really is a great moral force, 
 
 * "The Seagull."
 
 338 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 for if he were insincere and not irreproachable his 
 daughters would be the first to take up a sceptical at- 
 titude to him, for daughters are like sparrows: you 
 don't catch them with empty chaff. ... A man 
 can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as 
 he likes, and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass 
 may pass for a philosopher; but a daughter is a dif- 
 ferent matter. . . . 
 
 Melihovo, 
 November 21, 1895. 
 
 Well, I have finished with the play. I began it 
 forte and ended it pianissimo — contrary to all the 
 rules of dramatic art. It has turned into a novel. 
 I am rather dissatisfied than satisfied with it, and 
 reading over my new-born play, I am more con- 
 vinced than ever that I am not a dramatist. The 
 acts are veiy short. There are four of them. 
 Though it is so far only the skeleton of a play, a 
 plan which will be altered a million times before the 
 coming season, I have ordered two copies to be typed 
 and will send you one, only don't let anyone read 
 
 J.L* • • • 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 October 15, 1896. 
 
 . . . My "Seagull" comes on on the seventeenth 
 of October. Madame Kommissarzhevsky acts amaz- 
 ingly. There is no news. I am alive and well. I 
 shall be at Melihovo about the twenty-fifth or towards 
 the end of October, On the twenty-ninth is the meet- 
 ing of the Zemstvo, at which I must be present as 
 there will be a discussion about roads. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 339 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 October 18, 1896. 
 
 I am off to Melihovo. All good wishes. . . . 
 Stop the printing of the plays. I shall never forget 
 yesterday evening, but still I slept well, and am set- 
 ting off in a very tolerable good humour. 
 
 Write to me. ... I have received your letter. 
 I am not going to produce the play in Moscow. I 
 shall never either write plays or have them acted. 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 October 18, 1896. 
 
 I am setting off to Melihovo. I shall be there to- 
 morrow between one or two o'clock in the afternoon. 
 Yesterday's adventure did not astonish or greatly dis- 
 appoint me, for I was prepared for it by the rehearsals 
 — and I don't feel particularly bad. 
 
 When you come to Melihovo bring Lika with you. 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Petersburg, 
 October 18, 1896. 
 
 The play has fallen flat, and come down with a 
 crash. There was an oppressive strained feeling of 
 disgrace and bewilderment in the theatre. The 
 actors played abominably stupidly. The moral of it 
 is, one ought not to write plays.
 
 340 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 October 22, 1896. 
 
 In your last letter (of October 18) you three times 
 call me womanish, and say that I was in a funk. Why 
 this libel? After the performance I had supper at 
 Romanov's. On my word of honour. Then I went 
 to bed, slept soundly, and next day went home with- 
 out uttering a sound of complaint. If I had been 
 in a funk I should have run from editor to editor and 
 actor to actor, should have nervouslv entreated them 
 to be considerate, should nervously have inserted 
 useless corrections and should have spent two or 
 three weeks in Petersburg fussing over my "Seagull," 
 in excitement, in a cold perspiration, in lamenta- 
 tion. . . . When you were with me the night after 
 the performance you told me yourself that it would 
 be the best thing for me to go away; and next morn- 
 ing I got a letter from you to say good-bye. How 
 did I show funk? I acted as coldly and reason- 
 ably as a man who has made an offer, received a re- 
 fusal, and has nothing left but to go. Yes, my vanity 
 was stung, but you know it was not a bolt from 
 the blue; I was expecting a failure, and was pre- 
 pared for it, as I warned you with perfect sincerity 
 beforehand. 
 
 When I got home I took a dose of castor oil, and 
 had a cold bath, and now I am ready to write another 
 play. I no longer feel exhausted and irritable, and 
 am not afraid that Davydov and Jean will come to 
 me and talk about the play. I agree with your cor- 
 rections, and a thousand thanks for them. Only
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 341 
 
 please don't regret that you were not at the rehearsals. 
 You know there was in reality only one rehearsal, at 
 which one could make out nothing. One could not 
 see the play at all through the loathsome acting. 
 
 I have got a telegram from Potapenko — "A co- 
 lossal success." I have had a letter from Mile. 
 Veselitsky (Mikulitch) whom I don't know. She 
 expresses her sympathy in a tone as if one of my 
 family were dead. It's really quite inappropriate; 
 that's all nonsense, though. 
 
 My sister is delighted with you and Anna Ivanovna, 
 and I am inexpressibly glad of it, for I love your 
 family like my own. She hastened home from 
 Petersburg, possibly imagining that I would hang 
 myself. . . . 
 
 To E. M. S. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 November, 1896. 
 
 If, honoured "One of the Audience," you are 
 writing of the first performance, then allow — oh, 
 allow me to doubt your sincerity. You hasten to 
 pour healing balsam on the author's wounds, sup- 
 posing that, under the circumstances, that is more 
 necessary and better than sincerity; you are kind, 
 very kind, and it does credit to your heart. At the 
 first performance I did not see all, but what I did see 
 was dingy, grey, dismal and wooden. I did not dis- 
 tribute the parts and was not given new scenery. 
 There were only two rehearsals, the actors did not 
 know their parts — and the result was a general 
 panic and utter depression; even Madame Kom- 
 missarzhevsky's acting was not up to much, though
 
 342 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 at one of the rehearsals she acted marvellously, so 
 that people sitting in the stalls wept with bowed 
 heads. 
 
 In any case I am grateful and very, very much 
 touched. All my plays are being printed, and as 
 soon as they are ready I shall send you a copy. . . . 
 
 To A. F. KoNi. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 November 11, 18%. 
 
 You cannot imagine how your letter rejoiced me. 
 I saw from the front only the two first acts of my 
 play. Afterwards I sat behind the scenes and felt 
 the whole time that "The Seagull" was a failure. 
 After the performance that night and next day, I 
 was assured that I had hatched out nothing but 
 idiots, that my play was clumsy from the stage point 
 of view, that it was not clever, that it was unin- 
 telligible, even senseless, and so on and so on. You 
 can imagine my position — it was a collapse such as 
 I had never dreamed of! I felt ashamed and vexed, 
 and I went away from Petersburg full of doubts of 
 all sorts. I thought that if I had written and put 
 on the stage a play so obviously brimming over with 
 monstrous defects, I had lost all instinct and that, 
 therefore, my machinery must have gone wrong for 
 good. After I had reached home, they wrote to me 
 from Petersburg that the second and third perform- 
 ances were a success; several letters, some signed, 
 some anonymous, came praising the play and abusing 
 the critics. I read them with pleasure, but still I 
 felt vexed and ashamed, and the idea forced itself 
 upon me that if kind-hearted people thought it was
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 343 
 
 necessary to comfort me, it meant that I was in a 
 bad way. But your letter has acted upon me in a 
 most definite way. I have known you a long time, I 
 have a deep respect for you, and I believe in you more 
 than in all the critics taken together — you felt that 
 when you wrote your letter, and that is why it is so 
 excellent and convincing. My mind is at rest now, 
 and I can think of the play and the performance with- 
 out loathing. Kommissarzhevskaia is a wonderful 
 actress. At one of the rehearsals many people 
 were moved to tears as they looked at her, and said 
 that she was the first actress in Russia to-day; but 
 at the first performance she was affected by the gen- 
 eral attitude of hostility to my "Seagull," and was, 
 as it were, intimidated by it and lost her voice. Our 
 press takes a cold tone to her that doesn't do 
 justice to her merits, and I am sorry for her. Allow 
 me to thank you with all my heart for your letter. 
 Believe me, I value the feelings that prompted you 
 to write it far more than I can express in words, and 
 the sympathy you call "unnecessary" at the end 
 of your letter I shall never never forget, whatever 
 happens. 
 
 To V. I. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 November 26, 1896. 
 
 Dear friend, 
 
 I am answering the chief substance of your 
 letter — the question why we so rarely talk of serious 
 subjects. When people are silent, it is because they 
 have nothing to talk about or because they are ill at 
 ease. What is there to talk about? We have no
 
 344 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 politics, we have neither public life nor club life, 
 nor even a life of the streets; our civic existence is 
 poor, monotonous, burdensome, and uninteresting — 
 and to talk is as boring as corresponding with L. 
 You say that we are literary men, and that of itself 
 makes our life a rich one. Is that so? We are 
 stuck in our profession up to our ears, it has gradually 
 isolated us from the external world, and the upshot 
 of it is that we have little free time, little money, 
 few books, we read little and reluctantly, we hear lit- 
 tle, we rarely go anywhere. Should we talk about 
 literature? . . . But we have talked about it 
 already. Every year it's the same thing again and 
 again, and all we usually say about literature may 
 be reduced to discussing who write better, and who 
 write worse. Conversations upon wider and more 
 general topics never catch on, because when you have 
 tundras and Esquimaux all round you, general ideas, 
 being so inappropriate to the reality, quickly lose 
 shape and slip away like thoughts of eternal bliss. 
 Should we talk of personal life? Yes, that may 
 sometimes be interesting and we might perhaps talk 
 about it; but there again we are constrained, we are 
 reserved and insincere: we are restrained by an 
 instinct of self-preservation and we are afraid. We 
 are afraid of being overheard by some uncultured 
 Esquimaux who does not like us, and whom we don't 
 like either. I personally am afraid that my acquaint- 
 ance, N., whose cleverness attracts us, will hold forth 
 with raised finger, in every railway carriage and 
 every house about me, settling the question why I 
 became so intimate with X. while I was beloved by 
 Z. I am afraid of our morals, I am afraid of our 
 ladies. ... In short, for our silence, for the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 345 
 
 frivolity and dulness of our conversations, don't 
 blame yourself or me, blame what the critics call 
 "the age," blame the climate, the vast distances, 
 what you will, and let circumstances go on their 
 own fateful, relentless course, hoping for a better 
 future. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 January 11, 1897. 
 
 We are having a census. They have served out to 
 the numerators detestable inkpots, detestable clumsy 
 badges like the labels of a brewery, and portfolios 
 into which the census forms will not fit — giving the 
 effect of a sword that won't go into its sheath. It 
 is a disgrace. From early morning I go from hut to 
 hut, and knock my head in the low doorways which 
 I can't get used to, and as ill-luck will have it my 
 head aches hellishly; I have migraine and influenza. 
 In one hut a little girl of nine years old, boarded 
 out from the foundling hospital, wept bitterly because 
 all the other little girls in the hut were Mihailovnas 
 while she was called Lvovna after her godfather. 
 I said call yourself Mihailovna. They were all 
 highly delighted, and began thanking me. That's 
 what's called making friends with the Mammon of 
 Unrighteousness. 
 
 The "Journal of Surgery" has been sanctioned by 
 the Censor. We are beginning to bring it out. Be 
 so good as to do us a service — have the enclosed 
 advertisement printed on your front page and charge 
 it to my account. The journal will be a very good 
 one, and this advertisement can lead to nothing but
 
 346 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 unmistakable and solid benefit. It's a great benefit, 
 you know, to cut off people's legs. 
 
 While we are on medical topics — a remedy for 
 cancer has been found. For almost a year past, 
 thanks to a Russian doctor Denisenko, they have been 
 trying the juice of the celandine, and one reads of 
 astonishing results. Cancer is a terrible unbearable 
 disease, the death from it is agonizing; you can im- 
 agine how pleasant it is for a man initiated into the 
 secrets of i^sculapius to read of such results. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 8, 1897. 
 
 The census is over. I was pretty sick of the busi- 
 ness, as I had both to enumerate and to write till my 
 fingers ached, and to give lectures to fifteen numer- 
 ators. The numerators worked excellently, with a 
 pedantic exactitude almost absurd. On the other 
 hand the Zemsky Natchalniks, to whom the census 
 was entrusted in the districts, behaved disgustingly. 
 They did nothing, understood little, and at the most 
 difficult moments used to report themselves sick. 
 The best of them turned out to be a man who drinks 
 and draws the long bow a la Hlestakov * — but was all 
 the same a character, if only from the point of view of 
 comedy, while the others were colourless beyond 
 words, and it was annoying beyond words to have any- 
 thing to do with them. 
 
 I am in Moscow at the Great Moscow Hotel. I 
 am staying a short time, ten days, and then going 
 home. The whole of Lent and the whole of April 
 after it, I shall have to be busy again with carpenters 
 
 * A character in Gogol's "Inspector General." — Translator's 
 Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 347 
 
 and so on. I am building a school again. A depu- 
 tation came to me from the peasants begging me for 
 it, and I had not the courage to refuse. The Zem- 
 stvo is giving a thousand roubles, the peasants have 
 collected three hundred, and that is all, while the 
 school will not cost less than three thousand. So 
 again I shall have all the summer to be thinking about 
 money, and scraping it together here and there. Al- 
 together life in the country is full of work and 
 care. ... 
 
 The police have made a raid upon Tchertkov, the 
 well-known Tolstoyan, have carried off all that the 
 Tolstoyans had collected relating to the Duhobors 
 and sectarians — and so all at once as though by magic 
 all evidence against Pobyedonostsev and his angels 
 has vanished. Goremykin called upon Tchertkov's 
 mother and said: "Your son must make the choice — 
 either the Baltic Province where Prince Hilkov is al- 
 ready living in exile, or a foreign country." Tchert- 
 kov has chosen London. 
 
 He is setting off on the thirteenth of February. L. 
 N. Tolstoy has gone to Petersburg to see him off; 
 and yesterday they sent his winter overcoat after him. 
 A great many are going to see him off, even Sytin, 
 and I am sorry that I cannot do the same. I don't 
 cherish tender sentiments for Tchertkov, but the way 
 he has been treated fills me with intense, intense in- 
 dignation. . . . 
 
 Moscow, 
 April 1, 1897. 
 
 The doctors have diagnosed tuberculosis in the 
 upper part of the lungs, and have ordered me to 
 change my manner of life. I understand their 
 diagnosis but I don't understand their prescription,
 
 348 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 because it is almost impossible. They tell me I must 
 live in the country, but you know living permanently 
 in the country involves continual worry with peasants, 
 with animals, with elementary forces of all kinds, and 
 to escape from worries and anxieties in the country 
 is as difficult as to escape burns in hell. But still I 
 will try to change my life as far as possible, and have 
 already, through Masha, announced that I shall give 
 up medical practice in the country. This will be at 
 the same time a great relief and a great deprivation 
 to me. I shall drop all public duties in the district, 
 shall buy a dressing-gown, bask in the sun, and eat a 
 great deal. They tell me to eat six times a day and 
 are indignant with me for eating, as they think, very 
 little. I am forbidden to talk much, to swim, and so 
 on, and so on. 
 
 Except my lungs, all my organs were found to be 
 healthy. Hitherto I fancied I drank just so much 
 as not to do harm; now it turns out on investigation 
 that I was drinking less than I was entitled to. What 
 a pity! 
 
 The author of "Ward No. 6" has been moved from 
 Ward No. 16 to Ward No. 14. There is plenty of 
 room here, two windows, lighting a la Potapenko, 
 three tables. There is very little haemorrhage. 
 After the evening when Tolstoy was here (we talked 
 for a long time) at four o'clock in the morning I had 
 violent haemorrhage again. 
 
 Melihovo is a healthy place; it stands exactly on 
 a watershed, on high ground, so that there is never 
 fever or diphtheria in it. They have decided, after 
 general consultation, that I am not to go away any- 
 where but to go on living at Melihovo. I must only 
 arrange the house somewhat more comfortably. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 349 
 
 Moscow, 
 April 7, 1897. 
 
 . . . You write that my ideal is laziness. No, it is 
 not laziness. I despise laziness as I despise weak- 
 ness and lack of mental and moral energy. I was not 
 talking of laziness but of leisure, and I did not say 
 leisure was an ideal but only one of the essential con- 
 ditions of personal happiness. 
 
 If the experiments with Koch's new serum give 
 favourable results, I shall go of course to Berlin. 
 Feeding is absolutely no use to me. Here for the 
 last fortnight they have been feeding me zealously,, 
 but it's no use, I have not gained weight. 
 
 I ought to get married. Perhaps a cross wife 
 would cut down the number of my visitors by at 
 least a half. Yesterday they were coming all day 
 long, it was simply awful. They came two at a time 
 — and each one begs me not to speak and at the same 
 time asks m-e questions. . . . 
 
 To A. I. Ertel. 
 
 Melihovo, 
 April 17, 1897. 
 
 Dear Friend Alexandr Ivanovitch, 
 
 I am now at home. For a fortnight before- 
 Easter I was lying in Ostroumov's clinic and was 
 spitting blood. The doctor diagnosed tuberculosis 
 in the lungs. I feel splendid, nothing aches, nothing 
 is uneasy inside, but the doctors have forbidden me 
 vinum, movement, and conversation, they have or- 
 dered me to eat a great deal, and forbidden me ta 
 practise — and I feel as it were dreary.
 
 350 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 I hear nothing about the People's Theatre. At the 
 congress it was spoken of apathetically, without inter- 
 est, and the circle that had undertaken to write its 
 constitution and set to work have evidently cooled off 
 a little. It is due to the spring, I suppose. The only 
 one of the circle I saw was Goltsev, and I had not time 
 to talk to him about the theatre. 
 
 There is nothing new. A dead calm in literature. 
 In the editor's offices they are drinking tea and cheap 
 wine, drinking it without relish as they walk about, 
 evidently from having nothing to do. Tolstoy is 
 writing a little book about Art. He came to see me 
 in the clinic, and said that he had flung aside his novel 
 "Resurrection" as he did not like it, and was writing 
 only about Art, and had read sixty books about Art. 
 His idea is not a new one; all intelligent old men in 
 all the ages have sung the same tune in different keys. 
 Old men have always been prone to see the end of the 
 world, and have always declared that morality was de- 
 generating to the uttermost point, that Art was grow- 
 ing shallow and wearing thin, that people were grow- 
 ing feebler, and so on, and so on. 
 
 Lvov Nikolaevitch wants to persuade us in his little 
 book that at the present time Art has entered upon its 
 final phase, that it is in a blind alley, from which it 
 has no outlet (except retreat) . 
 
 I am doing nothing, I feed the sparrows with hemp- 
 seed and prune a rose-tree a day. After my pruning, 
 the roses flower magnificently. I am not looking 
 after the farming. 
 
 Keep well, dear Alexandr Ivanovitch, thank you for 
 your letter and friendly sympathy. Write to me for 
 the sake of my infirmity, and don't blame me too much 
 for my carelessness in correspondence.
 
 ii 
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 351 
 
 In future I am going to try and answer your letters 
 as soon as I have read them. 
 Warmest greetings. 
 
 To SUVORIN. 
 
 Meliiiovo, 
 
 July 12, 1897. 
 
 . . I am reading Maeterlinck, I have read his 
 Les Aveugles," "LTntrus," and am reading 
 "Aglavaine et Selysette." They are all strange 
 wonderful things, but they make an immense impres- 
 sion, and if I had a theatre I should certainly stage 
 "Les Aveugles." There is, by the way, a magnifi- 
 cent scenic effect in it, with the sea and a lighthouse 
 in the distance. The public is semi-idiotic, but one 
 might avoid the play's failing by writing the contents 
 of the play — in brief, of course — on the programme, 
 saying the play is the work of Maeterlinck, a Belgian 
 author and decadent, and that what happens in it 
 is that an old man, who leads about some blind 
 men, has died in silence and that the blind men, not 
 knowing this, are sitting and waiting for his re- 
 turn. . , . 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Nice, 
 October 6, 1897. 
 
 ... You complain that my heroes are gloomy 
 — alas! that's not my fault. This happens apart 
 from my will, and when I write it does not seem to me 
 that I am writing gloomily; in any case, as I work I 
 am always in excellent spirits. It has been observed
 
 352 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 that gloomy, melancholy people always write cheer- 
 fully, while those who enjoy life put their depression 
 into their writings. And I am a man who enjoys life ; 
 the first thirty years of my life I have lived as they say 
 in pleasure and content. . . . 
 
 To F. D. Batyushkov. 
 
 Nice, 
 December 15, 1897. 
 
 ... In one of your letters you expressed a desire 
 that I should send you an international story, taking 
 for my subject something from the life here. Such 
 a story I can write only in Russia from reminiscences. 
 I can only write from reminiscences, and I have never 
 written directly from Nature. I have let my memory 
 sift the subject, so that only what is important or 
 typical is left in it as in a filter. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Nice, 
 January 4, 1898. 
 
 . . . Judging from the extract printed in Novoye 
 Vremya, Tolstoy's article on Art does not seem in- 
 teresting. All that is old. He says about Art that 
 it is decrepit, that it has got into a blind alley, that 
 it is not what it ought to be, and so on, and so on. 
 That's just like saying the desire to eat and drink 
 has grown old, has outlived its day, and is not what 
 it ought to be. Of course hunger is an old story, in 
 the desire to eat we have got into a blind alley, but 
 still eating is necessary, and we shall go on eating 
 however the philosophers and irate old men moral- 
 
 JoC • • • • '
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 353 
 
 To F. D. Batyushkov. 
 
 Nice, 
 January 28, 1898. 
 
 . . . We talk of nothing here but Zola and Drey- 
 fus. The immense majority of educated people are 
 on Zola's side and believe that Dreyfus is innocent. 
 Zola has gained immensely in public esteem; his let- 
 ters of protest are like a breath of fresh air, and every 
 Frenchman has felt that, thank God! there is still 
 justice in the world, and that if an innocent man is 
 condemned there is still someone to champion him. 
 The French papers are extremely interesting while 
 the Russian are worthless. Novoye Vremya is simply 
 loathsome. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Nice, 
 / February 6, 1898. 
 
 . . . You write that you are annoyed with Zola, 
 and here everyone has a feeling as though a new, 
 better Zola had arisen. In his trial he has been 
 cleansed as though in turpentine from grease-spots, 
 and now shines before the French in his true bril- 
 liance. There is a purity and moral elevation that 
 was not suspected in him. You should follow the 
 whole scandal from the very beginning. The deg- 
 radation of Dreyfus, whether it was just or not, made 
 on all (you were of the number I remember) a pain- 
 ful and depressing impression. It was noticed that 
 at the time of the sentence Dreyfus behaved like a 
 decent well-disciplined officer, while those present at 
 the sentence, the journalists for instance, shouted at
 
 354 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 him, "Hold your tongue, Judas," — that is, behaved 
 badly and indecently. Everyone came back from 
 the sentence dissatisfied and with a troubled con- 
 science. Dreyfus' counsel Demange, an honest man, 
 who even during the preliminary stages of the trial 
 felt that something shifty was being done behind the 
 scenes, was particularly dissatisfied — and then the 
 experts who, to convince themselves that they had 
 not made a mistake, kept talking of nothing but 
 Dreyfus, of his being guilty, and kept wandering all 
 over Paris! . . . 
 
 Of the experts one turned out to be mad, the author 
 of a monstrously absurd project; two were eccentric 
 creatures. 
 
 People could not help talking of the Intelligence 
 Department at the War Office, that military consistory 
 which is employed in hunting for spies and reading 
 other people's letters; it began to be said that the 
 head of that Department, Sandhen, was suffering 
 from progressive paralysis; Paty de Clam has shown 
 himself to be something after the style of Tausch of 
 Berlin; Picquart suddenly took his departure mys- 
 teriously, causing a lot of talk. All at once a series 
 of gross judicial blunders came to light. By degrees 
 people became convinced that Dreyfus had been 
 condemned on the strength of a secret document, 
 which had been shown neither to the accused man 
 nor his defending counsel, and decent law-abiding 
 people saw in this a fundamental breach of justice. 
 If the latter were the work not simply of Wilhelm, 
 but of the centre of the solar system, it ought to have 
 been shown to Demange. All sorts of guesses were 
 made as to the contents of this letter, the most im- 
 possible stories circulated. Dreyfus was an officer.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 355 
 
 the military were suspect; Dreyfus was a Jew, the 
 Jews were suspect. People began talking about mil- 
 itarism, about the Jews. Such utterly disreputable 
 people as Drumont held up their heads; little by 
 little they stirred up a regular pother on a substratum 
 of anti-semitism, on a substratum that smelt of the 
 shambles. When something is wrong with us we 
 look for the causes outside ourselves, and readily find 
 them. "It's the Frenchman's nastiness, it's the 
 Jews', it's Wilhelm's." Capital, brimstone, the free- 
 masons, the Syndicate, the Jesuits — they are all 
 bogeys, but how they relieve our uneasiness ! They 
 are of course a bad sign. Since the French have 
 begun talking about the Jews, about the Syndicate, 
 it shows they are feeling uncomfortable, that there 
 is a worm gnawing at them, that they feel the need 
 of these bogeys to soothe their over-excited con- 
 science. 
 
 Then this Esterhazy, a duellist, in the style of 
 Turgenev's duellists, an insolent ruffian, who had 
 long been an object of suspicion, and was not re- 
 spected by his comrades; the striking resemblance of 
 his handwriting with that of the bordereau^ the 
 Uhlan's letters, his threats which for some reason he 
 does not carry out ; finally the judgment, utterly mys- 
 terious, strangely deciding that the bordereau was 
 written in Esterhazy 's handwriting but not by his 
 hand! . . . And the gas has been continually ac- 
 cumulating, there has come to be a feeling of acute 
 tension, of overwhelming oppression. The fighting 
 in the court was a purely nervous manifestation, 
 simply the hysterical result of that tension, and Zola's 
 letter and his trial are a manifestation of the same 
 kind. What would you have? The best people.
 
 356 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 always in advance of the nation, were bound to be the 
 first to raise an agitation — and so it has been. The 
 first to speak was Scherer-Kestner, of whom French- 
 men who know him intimately (according to Kova- 
 levsky) say that he is a "sword-blade," so spotless 
 and without blemish is he. The second is Zola, and 
 now he is being tried. 
 
 Yes, Zola is not Voltaire, and we are none of us 
 Voltaires, but there are in life conjunctions of circum- 
 stances when the reproach that we are not Voltaires 
 is least of all appropriate. Think of Korolenko, who 
 defended the Multanovsky natives and saved them 
 from penal servitude. Dr. Haas is not a Voltaire 
 either, and yet his wonderful life has been well spent 
 up to the end. 
 
 I am well acquainted with the case from the 
 stenographers' report, which is utterly different from 
 what is in the newspapers, and I have a clear view 
 of Zola. The chief point is that he is sincere — that 
 is, he bases his judgments simply on what he sees, and 
 not on phantoms like the others. And sincere peo- 
 ple can be mistaken, no doubt of it, but such mistakes 
 do less harm than calculated insincerity, prejudg- 
 ments, or political considerations. Let Dreyfus be 
 guilty, and Zola is still right, since it is the duty of 
 writers not to accuse, not to prosecute, but to cham- 
 pion even the guilty once they have been condemned 
 and are enduring punishment. I shall be told: 
 "What of the political position? The interests of 
 the State?" But great writers and artists ought to 
 take part in politics only so far as they have to pro- 
 tect themselves from pohtics. There are plenty of 
 accusers, prosecutors, and gendarmes without them, 
 and in any case, the role of Paul suits them better
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 357 
 
 than that of Saul. Whatever the verdict may be, 
 Zola will anyway experience a vivid delight after the 
 trial, his old age will be a fine old age, and he will 
 die with a conscience at peace, or at any rate greatly 
 solaced. The French are very sick. They clutch at 
 every word of comfort and at every genuine reproach 
 coming to them from outside. That is why Bern- 
 stein's letter and our Zakrevsky's article (which was 
 read here in the Novosti) have had such a great suc- 
 cess here, and why they are so disgusted by abuse 
 of Zola, such as the gutter press, which they despise, 
 flings at him every day. However neurotic Zola 
 may be, still he stands before the court of French 
 common sense, and the French love him for it and 
 are proud of him, even though they do applaud the 
 Generals who, in the simplicity of their hearts, scare 
 them first with the honour of the army, then with 
 war. . . . 
 
 To His Brother Alexandr. 
 
 Nice, 
 February 23, 1898. 
 
 . . . Novoye Vremya has behaved simply abomin- 
 ably about the Zola case. The old man and I have 
 exchanged letters on the subject (in a tone of great 
 moderation, however), and have both dropped the 
 subject. 
 
 I don't want to write and I don't want his letters, 
 in which he keeps justifying the tactlessness of his 
 paper by saying he loves the military: I don't w^ant 
 them because I have been thoroughly sick of it all 
 for a long time past. I love the military too, but I
 
 358 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 would not if I had a newspaper allow the cactuses 
 to print Zola's novel for nothing in the Supplement, 
 while they pour dirty water over this same Zola in the 
 paper — and what for? For what not one of the cac- 
 tuses has ever known — for a noble impulse and moral 
 purity. And in any case to abuse Zola when he is 
 on his trial — that is unworthy of literature. . . . 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Yalta, 
 October 26, 1898. 
 
 ... I am buying a piece of land in Yalta and am 
 going to build so as to have a place in which to spend 
 the winters. The prospect of continual wandering 
 with hotel rooms, hotel porters, chance cooking, and 
 so on, and so on, alarms my imagination. Mother 
 will spend the winter with me. There is no winter 
 here; it's the end of October, but the roses and other 
 flowers are blooming freely, the trees are green and 
 it is warm. 
 
 There is a great deal of water. Nothing will be 
 needed apart from the house, no outbuildings of any 
 sort; it will all be under one roof. The coal, wood 
 and everything will be in the basement. The hens 
 lay the whole year round, and no special house is 
 needed for them, an enclosure is enough. Close by 
 there is a baker's shop and the bazaar, so that it will 
 be very cosy for Mother and very convenient. By 
 the way, there are chanterelles and boletuses to be 
 gathered all the autumn, and that will be an amuse- 
 ment for Mother. I am not doing the building my- 
 self, the architect is doing it all. The houses will be
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 359 
 
 ready by April. The grounds, for a town house, are 
 considerable. There will be a garden and flower- 
 beds, and a vegetable garden. The railway will come 
 to Yalta next year. . . . 
 
 As for getting married, upon which you are so 
 urgent — what am I to say to you? To marry is 
 interesting only for love; to marry a girl simply be- 
 cause she is nice is like buying something one does 
 not want at the bazaar solely because it is of good 
 (juality. 
 
 The most important screw in family life is love, 
 sexual attraction, one flesh, all the rest is dreary and 
 cannot be reckoned upon, however cleverly we make 
 our calculations. So the point is not in the girl's 
 being nice but in her being loved; putting it off as 
 you see counts for little. . . . 
 
 My "Uncle Vanya" is being done all over the prov- 
 ince, and everywhere with success. So one never 
 knows where one will gain and where one will lose; 
 I had not reckoned on that play at all. . . . 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 December 3, 1898. 
 
 Your last letter has given me great pleasure. I 
 thank you with all my heart. "Uncle Vanya" was 
 written long, long ago; I have never seen it on the 
 stage. Of late years it has often been produced at 
 provincial theatres. I feel cold about my plays as a 
 rule; I gave up the theatre long ago, and feel no 
 desire now to write for the stage. 
 
 You ask what is my opinion of your stories. My 
 opinion? The talent is unmistakable and it is a real,
 
 360 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 great talent. For instance, in the story "In the 
 Steppe," it is expressed with extraordinary vigour, 
 and I actually felt a pang of envy that it was not I 
 who had written it. You are an artist, a clever man,, 
 you feel superbly, you are plastic — that is, when 
 you describe a thing you see it and you touch it w^ith 
 your hands. That is real art. There is my opinion 
 for you, and I am very glad I can express it to you. 
 I am, I repeat, very glad, and if we could meet and 
 talk for an hour or two you would be convinced of 
 my high appreciation of you and of the hopes I am 
 building on your gifts. 
 
 Shall I speak now of defects? But that is not 
 so easy. To speak of the defects of a talent is like 
 speaking of the defects of a great tree growing in 
 the garden; what is chiefly in question, you see, is 
 not the tree itself but the tastes of the man who is 
 looking at it. Is not that so? 
 
 I will begin by saying that to my mind you have 
 not enough restraint. You are like a spectator at 
 the theatre who expresses his transports with so 
 little restraint that he prevents himself and other 
 people from listening. Tliis lack of restraint is par- 
 ticularly felt in the descriptions of nature with which 
 you interrupt your dialogues; when one reads those 
 descriptions one wishes they were more compact, 
 shorter, put into two or three lines. The frequent 
 mention of tenderness, whispering, velvetiness, and 
 so on, give those descriptions a rhetorical and 
 monotonous character — and they make one feel cold 
 and almost exhaust one. The lack of restraint is 
 felt also in the descriptions of women ("Malva," 
 "On the Raft") and love scenes. It is not vigour, 
 not breadth of touch, but just lack of restraint. Then
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 361 
 
 there is the frequent use of words quite unsuitable in 
 stories of your type. "Accompaniment," "disc," 
 "harmony," such words spoil the effect. You often 
 talk of waves. There is a strained feeling and a sort 
 of circumspection in your descriptions of educated 
 people; that is not because you have not observed 
 educated people sufficiently, you know them, but 
 you don't seem to know from what side to approach 
 them. 
 
 How old are you? I don't know you, I don't 
 know where you came from or who you are, but it 
 seems to me that while you are still young you ought 
 to leave Nizhni and spend two or three years rubbing 
 shoulders with literature and literary people; not to 
 learn to crow like the rest of us and to sharpen your 
 wits, but to take the final plunge head first into litera- 
 ture and to grow to love it. Besides, the provinces 
 age a man early. Korolenko, Potapenko, Mamin, 
 Ertel, are first-rate men; you would perhaps at first 
 feel their company rather boring, but in a year or 
 two you would grow used to them and appreciate 
 them as they deserve, and their society would more 
 than repay you for the disagreeableness and incon- 
 venience of life in the capital. ... 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 3, 1899. 
 
 . . . Apparently you have misunderstood me a 
 little. I did not write to you of coarseness of style, 
 but only of the incongruity of foreign, not genuinely 
 Russian, or rarely used words. In other authors such
 
 362 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 words as, for instance, "fatalistically," pass unno- 
 ticed, but your things are musical, harmonious, and 
 every crude touch jars fearfully. Of course it is a 
 question of taste, and perhaps this is only a sign of 
 excessive fastidiousness in me, or the conservatism 
 of a man who has adopted definite habits for himself 
 long ago. I am resigned to "a collegiate assessor/' 
 and "a captain of the second rank,'' in descriptions, 
 but ''flirt" and ''champion' when they occur in de- 
 scriptions excite repulsion in me. 
 
 Are you self-educated? In your stories you are 
 completely an artist and at the same time an 
 "educated" man in the truest sense. 
 
 Nothing is less characteristic of you than coarse- 
 ness, you are clever and subtle and delicate in your 
 feelings. Your best things are "In the Steppe," 
 and "On the Raft," — did I write to you about that? 
 They are splendid things, masterpieces, they show 
 the artist who has passed through a very good school. 
 I don't think that I am mistaken. The only defect 
 is the lack of restraint, the lack of grace. When a 
 man spends the least possible number of movements 
 over some definite action, that is grace. One is con- 
 scious of superfluity in your expenditure. 
 
 The descriptions of nature are the work of an artist ; 
 you are a real landscape painter. Only the frequent 
 personification (anthropomorphism) when the sea 
 breathes, the sky gazes, the steppe barks, nature whis- 
 pers, speaks, mourns, and so on — such metaphors 
 make your descriptions somewhat monotonous, 
 sometimes sweetish, sometimes not clear; beauty 
 and expressiveness in nature are attained only by 
 simplicity, by such simple phrases as "The sun set," 
 "It was dark," "It began to rain," and so on —
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 363 
 
 and that simplicity is characteristic of you in the 
 highest degree, more so perhaps than of any other 
 writer. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 17, 1899. 
 
 ... I have been reading Tolstoy's son's story: 
 "The Folly of the Mir." The construction of the 
 story is poor, indeed it would have been better to 
 write it simply as an article, but the thought is 
 treated with justice and passion. I am against the 
 Commune myself. There is sense in the Commune 
 when one has to deal with external enemies who make 
 frequent invasions, and with wild animals; but now 
 it is a crowd artificially held together, like a crowd 
 of convicts. They will tell us Russia is an agricul- 
 tural country. That is so, but the Commune has 
 nothing to do with that, at any rate at the present 
 time. The commune exists by husbandry, but once 
 husbandry begins to pass into scientific agriculture 
 the commune begins to crack at every seam, as the 
 commune and culture are not compatible ideas. Our 
 national drunkenness and profound ignorance are, by 
 the way, sins of the commune system. . . . 
 
 To HIS Brother Mihail. 
 
 Yalta, 
 Februarv 6, 1899. 
 
 . . . Being bored, I am reading "The Book of my 
 Life" by Bishop Porfiry. This passage about war 
 occurs in it:
 
 364 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 "Standing armies in time of peace are locusts de- 
 vouring the people's bread and leaving a vile stench 
 in society, while in time of war they are artificial fight- 
 ing machines, and when they grow and develop, fare- 
 well to freedom, security, and national glory! . . . 
 They are the lawless defenders of unjust and partial 
 laws, of privilege and of tyranny." . . . 
 
 That was written in the forties. . . . 
 
 To I. I. Orlov. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 22, 1899. 
 
 ... In your letter there is a text from Scripture. 
 To your complaint in regard to the tutor and failures 
 of all sorts I will reply by another text: "Put not thy 
 trust in princes nor in any sons of man" . . . and I 
 recall another expression in regard to the sons of 
 man, those in particular who so annoy you: they are 
 the sons of their age. 
 
 Not the tutor but the whole educated class — that 
 is to blame, my dear sir. While the young men and 
 women are students they are a good honest set, they 
 are our hope, they are the future of Russia, but no 
 sooner do those students enter upon independent life 
 and become grown up than our hope and the future 
 of Russia vanishes in smoke, and all that is left in 
 the filter is doctors owning house property, hungry 
 government clerks, and thieving engineers. Re- 
 member that Katkov, Pobyedonostsev, Vishnegrad- 
 sky, w^ere nurselings of the Universities, that they 
 were our Professors — not military despots, but pro- 
 fessors, luminaries. ... I don't believe in our 
 educated class, which is hypocritical, false, hysteri-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 365 
 
 cal, badly educated and indolent. I don't believe 
 in it even when it's suffering and complaining, for 
 its oppressors come from its own entrails. I believe 
 in individual people, I see salvation in individual 
 personalities scattered here and there all over Rus- 
 sia — educated people or peasants — they have 
 strength though they are few. No prophet is 
 honoured in his own country, but the individual per- 
 sonalities of whom I am speaking play an unnoticed 
 part in society, they are not domineering, but their 
 work can be seen; anyway, science is advancing and 
 advancing, social self-consciousness is growing, 
 moral questions begin to take an uneasy character, 
 and so on, and so on — and all this is being done in 
 spite of the prosecutors, the engineers, and the tutors, 
 in spite of the intellectual class en masse and in spite 
 of everything. . . . 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 9, 1899. 
 
 I shall not be at the writers' congress. In the 
 autumn I shall be in the Crimea or abroad — that is, 
 of course, if I am alive and free. I am going to spend 
 the whole. summer on my own place in the Serpuhov 
 district.* 
 
 By the way, in what district of the Tula province 
 have you bought your estate? For the first two 
 years after buying an estate one has a hard time, at 
 moments it is very bad indeed, but by degrees one 
 is led to Nirvana, by sweet habit. I bought an es- 
 tate and mortgaged it, I had a very hard time the 
 
 * Melihovo.
 
 366 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 first years (famine, cholera). Afterwards every- 
 thing went well, and now it is pleasant to remember 
 that I have somewhere near the Oka a nook of my 
 own. I live in peace with the peasants, they never 
 steal anything from me, and when I walk through the 
 village the old women smile and cross themselves. 
 I use the formal address to all except children, and 
 never shout at them ; but what has done most to build 
 up our good relations is medicine. You will be 
 happy on your estate, only please don't listen to any- 
 one's advice and gloomy prognostications, and don't 
 at first be disappointed, or form an opinion about the 
 peasants. The peasants behave sullenly and not gen- 
 uinely to all new-comers, and especially so in the 
 Tula province. There is indeed a saying: "He's a 
 good man though he is from Tula." 
 
 So here's something like a sermon for you, you see, 
 madam. Are you satisfied? 
 
 Do you know L. N. Tolstoy? Will your estate 
 be far from Tolstoy's? If it is near I shall envy you. 
 I like Tolstoy very much. 
 
 Speaking of new writers, you throw Melshin in 
 with a whole lot. That's not right. Melshin stands 
 apart. He is a great and unappreciated writer, an 
 intelligent, powerful writer, though perhaps he will 
 not write more than he has written already. Kuprin 
 I have not read at all. Gorky I like, but of late he 
 has taken to writing rubbish, revolting rubbish, so 
 that I shall soon give up reading him. "Humble 
 People" is good, though one could have done 
 without Buhvostov, whose presence brings into the 
 story an element of strain, of tiresomeness and 
 even falsity. Korolenko is a delightful writer. He 
 is loved — and with good reason. Apart from
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 367 
 
 all the rest there is sobriety and purity in 
 him. 
 
 You ask whether I am sorry for Suvorin. Of 
 course I am. He is paying heavily for his mistakes. 
 But I'm not at all sorry for those who are surrounding 
 him. . . . 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Moscow, 
 April 25, 1899. 
 
 6i 
 
 . . . The day before yesterday I was at L. N. 
 Tolstoy's; he praised you very highly and said that 
 you were "a remarkable writer." He likes your 
 The Fair" and "In the Steppe," and does not like 
 Malva." He said: "You can invent anything you 
 like, but you can't invent psychology, and in Gorky 
 one comes across just psychological inventions: he 
 describes what he has never felt." So much for you I 
 I said that when you were next in Moscow we would 
 go together to see him. 
 
 When will you be in Moscow ? On Thursday there 
 will be a private performance — for me — of "The 
 Seagull." If you come to Moscow I will give 3'OU a 
 seal,. ... 
 
 From Petersburg I get painful letters, as it were 
 from the damned,* and it's painful to me as I don't 
 know what to answer, how to behave. Yes, life 
 when it is not a psychological invention is a difficult 
 business. . . . 
 
 * From Suvorin.
 
 368 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 September 30, 1899. 
 
 At your command I hasten to answer your letter 
 in which you ask me about Astrov's last scene with 
 Elena. 
 
 You write that Astrov addresses Elena in that 
 scene like the most ardent lover, "clutches at his feel- 
 ing like a drowning man at a straw." 
 
 But that's not right, not right at all ! Astrov likes 
 Elena, she attracts him by her beauty; but in the 
 last act he knows already that nothing will come of it, 
 and he talks to her in that scene in the same tone as 
 of the heat in Africa, and kisses her quite casually, to 
 pass the time. If Astrov takes that scene violently, 
 the whole mood of the fourth act — quiet and des- 
 pondent — is lost. . . . 
 
 To G. I. ROSSOLIMO. 
 
 Yalta, 
 October 11, 1899. 
 
 . , . Autobiography? I have a disease — Auto- 
 biographophobia. To read any sort of details about 
 myself, and still more to write them for print, is a 
 veritable torture to me. On a separate sheet I send 
 a few facts, very bald, but I can do no more. . . . 
 
 I, A. P. Chekhov, was born on the 17th of Jan- 
 uaiy, 1860, at Taganrog. I was educated first in the 
 Greek School near the church of Tsar Constantine; 
 then in the Taganrog high school. In 1879 1 entered 
 the Moscow University in the Faculty of Medicine.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 369 
 
 I had at the time only a slight idea of the Facul- 
 ties in general, and chose the Faculty of Medicine 
 I don't remember on what grounds, but did not re- 
 gret my choice afterwards. I began in my first year 
 to publish stories in the weekly journals and news- 
 papers, and these literary pursuits had, early in the 
 eighties, acquired a permanent professional charac- 
 ter. In 1888 I took the Pushkin prize. In 1890 
 I travelled to the Island of Sahalin, to write after- 
 wards a book upon our penal colony and prisons 
 there. Not counting reviews, feuilletons, para- 
 graphs, and all that I have written from day to day 
 for the newspapers, which it would be difficult now to 
 seek out and collect, I have, during my twenty years 
 of literary work, published more than three hundred 
 signatures of print, of tales, and novels. I have also 
 written plays for the stage. 
 
 I have no doubt that the study of medicine has 
 had an important influence on my literary work; it 
 has considerably enlarged the sphere of my observa- 
 tion, has enriched me with knowledge the true value 
 of which for me as a writer can only be understood by 
 one who is himself a doctor. It has also had a guid- 
 ing influence, and it is probably due to my close as- 
 sociation with medicine that I have succeeded in 
 avoiding many mistakes. 
 
 Familiarity with the natural sciences and with 
 scientific method has always kept me on my guard, 
 and I have always tried where it was possible to be 
 consistent with the facts of science, and where it was 
 impossible I have preferred not to write at all. I 
 may observe in passing that the conditions of artistic 
 creation do not always admit of complete harmony 
 with the facts of science. It is impossible to repre-
 
 370 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 sent upon the stage a death from poisoning exactly 
 as it takes place in reality. But harmony with the 
 facts of science must be felt even under those condi- 
 tions — i.e., it must be clear to the reader or spectator 
 that this is only due to the conditions of art, and that 
 he has to do with a writer who understands. 
 
 I do not belong to the class of literary men who 
 take up a sceptical attitude towards science; and to 
 the class of those who rush into everything with only 
 their own imagination to go upon, I should not like to 
 belong. . . . 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 October 30, 1899. 
 
 . . . You ask whether I shall be excited, but you 
 see I only heard properly that "Uncle Vanya" was to 
 be given on the twenty-sixth from your letter which 
 I got on the twenty-seventh. The telegrams began 
 coming on the evening of the twenty-seventh when I 
 was in bed. They send them on to me by telephone. 
 I woke up every time and ran with bare feet to the 
 telephone, and got very much chilled; then I had 
 scarcely dozed off when the bell rang again and again. 
 It's the first time that my own fame has kept me 
 awake. The next evening when I went to bed I put 
 my slippers and dressing-gown beside my bed, but 
 there were no more telegrams. 
 
 The telegrams were full of nothing but the number 
 of calls and the brilliant success, but there was a 
 subtle, almost elusive something in them from which 
 I could conclude that the state of mind of all of you 
 was not exactly of the very best. The newspapers 
 I have got to-day confirm my conjectures. 
 
 Yes, dear actress, ordinary medium success is not
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 371 
 
 enough now for all you artistic players: you want an 
 uproar, big guns, dynamite. You have been spoiled 
 at last, deafened by constant talk about successes, 
 full and not full houses: you are already poisoned 
 with that drug, and in another two or three years 
 you will be good for nothing ! So much for you ! 
 
 How are you getting on? How are you feeling? 
 I am still in the same place, and am still the same; 
 I am working and planting trees. 
 
 But visitors have come, I can't go on writing. 
 Visitors have been sitting here for more than an hour. 
 They have asked for tea. They have sent for the 
 samovar. Oh, how dreary! 
 
 Don't forget me, and don't let your friendship for 
 me die away, so that we may go away together 
 somewhere again this summer. Good-bye for the 
 present. We shall most likely not meet before April. 
 If you would all come in the spring to Yalta, would 
 act here and rest — that would be wonderfully artistic. 
 A visitor will take this letter and drop it into the post- 
 box. . . . 
 
 P. S. — Dear actress, write for the sake of all that's 
 holy, I am so dull and depressed. I might be in 
 prison and I rage and rage. . . . 
 
 Yalta, 
 November 1, 1899. 
 
 I understand your mood, dear actress, I under- 
 stand it very well ; but yet in your place I would not 
 be so desperately upset. Both the part of Anna * 
 
 * In Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives."
 
 372 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 and the play itself are not worth wasting so much 
 feeling and nerves over. It is an old play. It is 
 already out of date, and there are a great many de- 
 fects in it; if more than half the performers have 
 not fallen into the right tone, then naturally it is the 
 fault of the play. That's one thing, and the second 
 is, you must once and for all give up being worried 
 about successes and failures. Don't let that concern 
 you. It's your duty to go on working steadily day 
 by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes 
 which are inevitable, for failures — in short, to do your 
 job as actress and let other people count the calls 
 before the curtain. To write or to act, and to be 
 conscious at the time that one is not doing the right 
 thing — that is so usual, and for beginners so prof- 
 itable ! 
 
 The third thing is that the director has telegraphed 
 that the second performance went magnificently, that 
 everyone played splendidly, and that he was com- 
 pletely satisfied. . . . 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 2, 1900. 
 
 Precious Alexey Maximovitch, 
 
 I wish you a happy New Year ! How are you 
 getting on? How are you feeling? When are you 
 coming to Yalta? Write fully. I have received 
 the photograph, it is ver}^good; many thanks for 
 it. 
 
 Thank you, too, for the trouble you have taken in 
 regard to our committee for assisting invalids coming 
 here. Send any money there is or will be to me, or
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 373 
 
 to the executive of the Benevolent Society, no matter 
 which. * 
 
 My story (i.e., "In the Ravine") has already been 
 sent off to Zhizn. Did I tell you that I liked your 
 story "An Orphan" extremely, and sent it to 
 Moscow to first-rate readers? There is a certain 
 Professor Foht in the Medical Faculty in Moscow 
 who reads Slyeptsov capitally. I don't know a 
 better reader. So I have sent your "Orphan" to 
 him. Did I tell you how much I liked a story in your 
 third volume, "My Travelling Companion"? There 
 is the same strength in it as "In the Steppe." If I 
 were you, I would take the best things out of your 
 three volumes and republish them in one volume 
 at a rouble — and that would be something really 
 remarkable for vigour and harmony. As it is, 
 everything seems shaken up together in the three 
 volumes; there are no weak things, but it leaves an 
 impression as though the three volumes were not the 
 work of one author but of seven. 
 
 Scribble me a line or two. 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 2, 1900. 
 
 My greetings, dear actress! Are you angry that 
 I haven't written for so long? I used to write often, 
 but you didn't get my letters because our common 
 acquaintance intercepted them in the post. 
 
 I wish you all happiness in the New Year. I really 
 do wish you happiness and bow down to your little 
 feet. Be happy, wealthy, healthy, and gay.
 
 374 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 We are getting on pretty well, we eat a great deal, 
 chatter a great deal, laugh a great deal, and often 
 talk of you. Masha will tell you when she goes back 
 to Moscow how we spent Christmas. 
 
 I have not congratulated you on the success of 
 "Lonely Lives." I still dream that you will all 
 come to Yalta, that I shall see "Lonely Lives" on 
 the stage, and congratulate you really from my 
 heart. I wrote to Meierhold,* and urged him in my 
 letter not to be too violent in the part of a nervous 
 man. The immense majority of people are nervous, 
 you know: the greater number suffer, and a small 
 proportion feel acute pain ; but where — in streets and 
 in houses — do you see people tearing about, leaping 
 up, and clutching at their heads? Suffering ought 
 to be expressed as it is expressed in life — that is, 
 not by the arms and legs, but by the tone and expres- 
 sion; not by gesticulation, but by grace. Subtle 
 emotions of the soul in educated people must be 
 subtly expressed in an external way. You will say 
 — stage conditions. No conditions allow falsity. 
 
 My sister tells me that you played "Anna" 
 exquisitely. Ah, if only the Art Theatre would 
 come to Yalta ! Novoye Vremya highly praised your 
 company. There is a change of tactics in that 
 quarter; evidently they are going to praise you all 
 even in Lent. My story, a very queer one, will be in 
 the February number of Zhizn. There are a great 
 number of characters, there is scenery too, there's 
 a crescent moon, there's a bittern that cries far, far 
 awav: "Boo — oo! boo — oo!" like a cow shut up in a 
 shed. There's everything in it. 
 
 * An actor at the Art Theatre at that time playing Johannes 
 in Hauptmann's "Lonely Lives."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 375 
 
 Levitan is with us. Over my fireplace he has 
 painted a moonlight night in the hayfield, cocks of 
 hay, forest in the distance, a moon reigning on high 
 above it all. 
 
 Well, the best of health to you, dear, wonderful 
 actress. I have been pining for you. 
 
 And when are you going to send me your photo- 
 graph? What treachery! 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 January 8, 1900. 
 
 . . . My health is not so bad. I feel better than 
 I did last year, but yet the doctors won't let me leave 
 Yalta. I am as tired and sick of this charming town 
 as of a disagreeable wife. It's curing me of tuber- 
 culosis, but it's making me ten years older. If I 
 go to Nice it won't be before February. I am writ- 
 ing a little; not long ago I sent a long story to Zhizn. 
 Money is short, all I have received so far from Marks 
 for the plays is gone by now. . . . 
 
 If Prince Baryatinsky is to be judged by his paper, 
 I must own I was unjust to him, for I imagined him 
 very different from what he is. They will shut up 
 his paper, of course, but he will long maintain his 
 reputation as a good journalist. You ask me why 
 the Syeverny Kurier is successful? Because our 
 society is exhausted, hatred has turned it as rank 
 and rotten as grass in a bog, and it has a longing for 
 something fresh, free, light — a desperate longing. 
 
 •3f 4f * * * * 
 
 I often see the academician Kondakov here. We 
 talk of the Pushkin section of belles-lettres. As
 
 376 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Kondakov will take part in the elections of future 
 academicians, I am trying to hypnotize him, and 
 suggest that they should elect Barantsevitch and 
 Mihailovsky. The former is broken down and worn 
 out. He is unquestionably a literary man, is 
 poverty-stricken in his old age. . . . An income 
 and rest would be the very thing for him. The 
 latter — that is Mihailovsky — would make a good 
 foundation for the new section, and his election would 
 satisfy three-quarters of the brotherhood. But my 
 hypnotism failed, my efforts came to nothing. 
 The supplementar)^ clauses to the statute are like 
 Tolstoy's After-word to the Kreutzer Sonata. The 
 academicians have done all they can to protect 
 themselves from literary men, whose society shocks 
 them as the society of the Russian academicians 
 shocked the Germans. Literary men can only be 
 honorary academicians, and that means nothing — it is 
 just the same as being an honorary citizen of the town 
 of Vyazma or Tcherepovets, there is no salary and no 
 vote attached. A clever way out of it! The pro- 
 fessors will be elected real academicians, and those 
 of the writers will be elected honorary academicians 
 who do not live in Petersburg, and so cannot 
 be present at the sittings and abuse the pro- 
 fessors. 
 
 I hear the muezzin calling in the minaret. The 
 Turks are very religious; it's their fast now, they eat 
 nothing the whole day. They have no religious 
 ladies, that element which makes religion shallow 
 as the sand does the Volga. 
 
 You do well to print the martyrology of Russian 
 towns avoided by the extortionate railway con- 
 tractors. Here is what the famous author Chekhov
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 377 
 
 wrote on the subject in his story "My Life." ^ 
 Railway contractors are revengeful people; refuse 
 them a trifle, and they will punish you for it all your 
 life — and it's their tradition. 
 
 Thanks for your letter, thanks for your indulgence. 
 
 To P. L KURKIN. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 18, 1900. 
 
 Dear Pyotr Ivanovitch, 
 
 Thank you for your letter. I have long been 
 wanting to write to you, but have never had time, 
 under the load of business and official correspondence. 
 Yesterday was the 17th of January — my name-day, 
 and the day of my election to the Academy. What 
 a lot of telegrams! And what a lot of letters still 
 to come ! And I must answer all of them, or posterity 
 will accuse me of not knowing the laws of good 
 manners. 
 
 There is news, but I won't tell you it now (no time) , 
 but later on. I am not very well. I was ailing ail 
 yesterday. I press your hand heartily. Keep well. 
 
 To V. M. SOBOLEVSKY. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 19, 1900. 
 
 Dear Vassily Mihailovitch, 
 
 In November I wrote a story f fully intending 
 to send it to Russkiya Vyedomosti, but the story 
 lengthened out beyond the sixteen pages, and I had 
 
 * Appended to the letter was a printed cutting. 
 t "In the Ravine."
 
 378 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 to send it elsewhere. Then Elpatyevsky and I 
 decided to send you a telegram on New Year's Eve, 
 but there was such a rush and a whirl that we let the 
 right moment slip, and now I send you my New Year 
 wishes. Forgive me my many transgressions. You 
 know how deeply I love and respect you, and if the 
 intervals in our correspondence are prolonged it's 
 merely external causes that are to blame. 
 
 I am alive and almost well. I am often ill, but not 
 for long at a time; and I haven't once been kept in 
 bed this winter, I keep about though I am ill. I am 
 working harder than I did last year, and I am more 
 bored. It's bad being without Russia in every way. 
 . . . All the evergreen trees look as though they 
 were made of tin, and one gets no joy out of them. 
 And one sees nothing interesting, as one has no taste 
 for the local life. 
 
 Elpatyevsky and Kondakov are here. The former 
 has run up a huge house for himself which towers 
 above all Yalta; the latter is going to Petersburg to 
 take his seat in the Academy — and is glad to go. 
 Elpatyevsky is cheerful and hearty, always in good 
 spirits, goes out in all weathers, in a summer over- 
 coat; Kondakov is irritably sarcastic, and goes about 
 in a fur coat. Both often come and see me and we 
 speak of you. 
 
 V. A. wrote that she had bought a piece of land in 
 Tuapse. Oy-oy! but the boredom there is awful, you 
 know. There are Tchetchentsi and scorpions, and 
 worst of all there are no roads, and there won't be 
 any for a long time. Of all warm places in Russia 
 the best are on the south coast of the Crimea, there 
 is no doubt of that, whatever they may say about the 
 natural beauties of the Caucasus. I have been lately
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 379 
 
 to Gurzufa, near Pushkin's rock, and admired the 
 view, although it rained and akhough I am sick to 
 death of views. In the Crimea it is snugger and nearer 
 to Russia. Let V. A. sell her place in Tuapse or make 
 a present of it to someone, and I will find her a bit of 
 the sea-front with bathing, and a bay, in the Crimea. 
 When you are in Vosdvizhenka give my respects 
 and greetings to Varvara Alexyevna, Varya, Natasha, 
 and Glyeb. I can fancy how Glyeb and Natasha have 
 grown. Now if only you would all come here for 
 Easter, I could have a look at you all. Don't forget 
 me, please, and don't be angry with me. I send you 
 my warmest good wishes. I press your hand heartily 
 and embrace vou. 
 
 To G. L RossoLiMO. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 January 21, 1900. 
 
 Dear Grigory Ivanovitch, 
 
 ... I send you in a registered parcel what 
 I have that seems suitable for children — two stories of 
 the life of a dog. And I think I have nothing else of 
 the sort. I don't know how to write for children; I 
 write for them once in ten years, and so-called chil- 
 dren's books I don't like and don't believe in. Chil- 
 :dren ought only to be given what is suitable also for 
 grown-up people. Andersen, "The Frigate Pal- 
 lada," Gogol, are easily read by children and also 
 by grown-up people. Books should not be written 
 for children, but one ought to know how to choose 
 from what has been written for grown-up people — 
 
 that is, from real works of art. To be able to select 
 among drugs, and to administer them in suitable
 
 380 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 doses, is more direct and consistent than trying to 
 invent a special remedy for the patient because he 
 is a child. Forgive the medical comparison. It's 
 in keeping with the moment, perhaps, as for the last 
 four days I have been occupied with medicine, doctor- 
 ing my mother and myself. Influenza no doubt. 
 Fever and headache. 
 
 If I write anything, I will let you know in due time, 
 but anything I write can only be published by one 
 man — Marks! For anything published by anyone 
 else I have to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles (per signa- 
 ture). . . . 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 22, 1900. 
 
 Dear Actress, 
 
 On January 17th I had telegrams from your 
 mother and your brother, from your uncle Alexandr 
 Ivanovitch (signed Uncle Sasha), and from N. N. 
 Sokolovsky. Be so good as to give them my warm 
 thanks and the expression of my sincere feeling for 
 them. 
 
 Why don't you write? — what has happened? Or 
 are you already so fascinated? . . . Well, there is 
 no help for it. God be with you ! 
 
 I am told that in May you will be in Yalta. If that 
 is settled, why shouldn't you make inquiries before- 
 hand about the theatre? The theatre here is let on 
 lease, and you could not get hold of it without nego- 
 tiating with the tenant, Novikov the actor. If you 
 commission me to do so I would perhaps talk to him 
 about it.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 381 
 
 The 17th, my name-day and the day of my election 
 to the Academy, passed dingily and gloomily, as I 
 was unwell. Now I am better, but my mother is ail- 
 ing. And these little troubles completely took away 
 all taste and inclination for a name-day or election 
 to the Academy, and they, too, have hindered me from 
 writing to you and answering your telegram at the 
 proper time. 
 
 Mother is getting better now. 
 
 I see the Sredins at times. They come to see us, 
 and I go to them very, very rarely, but still I 
 do go. . . . 
 
 So, then, you are not writing to me and not intend- 
 ing to write very soon either. ... X. is to blame 
 for all that. I understand you ! 
 
 I kiss your little hand. 
 
 To F. D. Batyushkov. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 24, 1900. 
 
 Much respected F. D., 
 
 Roche asks me to send him the passages 
 from "Peasants" which were cut out by the Censor, 
 but there were no such passages. There is one 
 chapter which has not appeared in the magazine, 
 nor in the book. It was a conversation of the 
 peasants about religion and government. But there 
 is no need to send that chapter to Paris, as indeed 
 there was no need to translate "Peasants" into French 
 at all. 
 
 I thank you most sincerely for the photograph; 
 Ryepin's illustration is an honour I had not expected 
 oi' dreamed of. It will be very pleasant to have the
 
 382 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 original; tell Ilya Efimovitch ^ that I shall expect it 
 with impatience, and that he cannot change his mind 
 now, as I have already bequeathed the original to 
 the town of Taganrog — in which, by the way, I was 
 born. 
 
 In your letter you speak of Gorky: how do you 
 like Gorky? I don't like everything he writes, 
 but there are things I like very, very much, and to 
 my mind there is not a shadow of doubt that Gorky 
 is made of the dough of which artists are made. 
 He is the real thing. He's a fine man, clever, think- 
 ing, and thoughtful. But there is a lot of unneces- 
 sary ballast upon him and in him — for example, his 
 provincialism. . . . 
 
 Thanks very much for your letter, for remembering 
 me. I am dull here, I am sick of it, and I have a 
 feeling as though I have been thrown overboard. 
 And the weather's bad too, and I am not well. I still 
 go on coughing. All good wishes. 
 
 To M. 0. Menshikov. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 28, 1900. 
 
 ... I can't make out what Tolstoy's illness is. 
 Tcherinov has sent me no answer, and from what I 
 read in the papers and what you write me now I can 
 draw no conclusion. Ulcers in the stomach and 
 intestines would give different indications: they are 
 not present, or there have been a few bleeding wounds 
 caused by gall-stones which have passed and lacer- 
 
 * Ryepin, who was, at the request of Roche, the French 
 translator, illustrating the French edition of Chekhov's "Peas- 
 ants."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 383 
 
 ated the walls. There is no cancer either. It 
 would have shown itself first in the appetite, in 
 the general condition, and above all the face would 
 have betrayed cancer if he had had it. The most 
 likely thing is that L. N. is in good health (apart 
 from the gall-stones), and will live another twenty 
 years. His illness frightened me, and kept me on 
 tenter-hooks. I am afraid of Tolstoy's death. If 
 he were to die there would be a big empty place in 
 my life. To begin with, because I have never loved 
 any man as much as him. I am not a believing 
 man, but of all beliefs I consider his the nearest 
 and most akin to me. Secondly, while Tolstoy is in 
 literature it is easy and pleasant to be a literary 
 man; even recognizing that one has done nothing 
 and never will do anything is not so dreadful, since 
 Tolstoy will do enough for all. His work is the 
 justification of the enthusiasms and expectations 
 built upon literature. Thirdly, Tolstoy takes a firm 
 stand, he has an immense authority, and so long 
 as he is alive, bad tastes in literature, vulgarity of 
 every kind, insolent and lachrymose, all the bristling, 
 exasperated vanities will be in the far background, 
 in the shade. Nothing but his moral authority is 
 capable of maintaining a certain elevation in the 
 moods and tendencies of literature so called. With- 
 out him they would be a flock without a shepherd, 
 or a hotch-potch, in which it would be difficult to 
 discriminate anything. 
 
 To finish with Tolstoy, I have something to say 
 about "Resurrection," v/hich I have read not piece- 
 meal, in parts, but as a whole, at one go. It is a 
 remarkable artistic production. The least interest- 
 ing part is all that is said of Nehludov's relations
 
 384 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 with Katusha; and the most interesting the princes, 
 the generals, the aunts, the peasants, the convicts, 
 the warders. The scene in the house of the General 
 in command of the Peter-Paul Fortress, the spirit- 
 ualist, I read with a throbbing heart — it is so good! 
 And Madame Kortchagin in the easy chair; and the 
 peasant, the husband of Fedosya ! The peasant calls 
 his grandmother "an artful one." That's just what 
 Tolstoy's pen is — an artful one. There's no end to 
 the novel, what there is you can't call an end. To 
 write and write, and then to throw the whole weight 
 of it on a text from the Gospel, that is quite in the 
 theological style. To settle it all by a text from the 
 Gospel is as arbitrary as dividing the convicts into 
 five classes. Why into five and not into ten? He 
 must make us believe in the Gospel, in its being the 
 truth, and then settle it all by texts. 
 
 . . . They write about Tolstoy as old women 
 talk about a crazy saint, all sorts of unctuous 
 nonsense; it's a mistake for him to talk to those 
 people. . . . 
 
 They have elected Tolstoy * — against the grain. 
 According to notions there, he is a Nihilist. Any- 
 way, that's what he was called by a lady, the wife 
 of an actual privy councillor, and I heartily congratu- 
 late him upon it. . . . 
 
 To L. S. MiziNOv. 
 
 Yalta, 
 January 29, 1900. 
 
 Dear Lika, 
 
 They have written to me that you have grown 
 very fat and become dignified, and I did not expect 
 that you would remember me and write to me. 
 
 * An honorary Academician.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 385 
 
 But you have remembered me — and thank you very 
 
 much for it, dear. You write nothing about your 
 
 health: evidently it's not bad, and I am glad. I hope 
 
 your mother is well and that everything is going on 
 
 all right. I am nearly well; I am ill from time to 
 
 time, but not often, and only because I am old — the 
 
 bacilli have nothing to do with it. And when I see 
 
 a lovely woman now I smile in an aged way, and drop 
 
 my lower lip — that's all. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Lika, I am dreadfully bored in Yalta. My life 
 does not run or flow, but crawls along. Don't forget 
 me; write to me now and then, anyway. In your 
 letters just as in your life you are a very interesting 
 woman. I press your hand warmly. 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 3, 1900. 
 
 Dear Alexey Maximovitch, 
 
 Thank you for your letter, for the lines about 
 Tolstoy and about "Uncle Vanya," which I haven't 
 seen on the stage ; thanks altogether for not forgetting 
 me. Here in this blessed Yalta one could hardly 
 keep alive without letters. The idleness, the idiotic 
 winter with the temperature always above freezing- 
 point, the complete absence of interesting women, the 
 pig-faces on the sea-front — all this may spoil a man 
 and wear him out in a very short time. I am tired 
 of it; it seems to me as though the winter had been 
 going on for ten years. 
 
 You have pleurisy. If so, why do you stay on in 
 Nizhni. Why? What do you want with that
 
 386 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 Nizhni, by the way? What glue keeps you sticking 
 to that town ? If you like Moscow, as you write, why 
 don't you live in Moscow? In Moscow there are 
 theatres and all the rest of it, and, what matters most 
 of all, Moscow is handy for going abroad ; while living 
 in Nizhni you'll stick in Nizhni, and never go further 
 than Vasilsursk. You want to see more, to know 
 more, to have a wider range. Your imagination is 
 quick to seize and hold, but it is like a big oven which 
 is not provided with fuel enough. One feels this 
 in general, and in particular in the stories: you pre- 
 sent two or three figures in a story, but these figures 
 stand apart, outside the mass; one sees that these 
 figures are living in your imagination, but only these 
 figures — the mass is not grasped. I except from this 
 criticism your Crimean things (for instance, "My 
 Travelling Companion"), in which, besides the 
 figures, there is a feeling of the human mass out of 
 which they have come, and atmosphere and back- 
 ground — everything, in fact. See what a lecture I 
 am giving you — and all that you may not go on stay- 
 ing in Nizhni. You are a young man, strong and 
 tough ; if I were you I should make a tour in India and 
 all sorts of places. I would take my degree in two or 
 more faculties — I would, yes, I would! You laugh, 
 but I do feel so badly treated at being forty already, 
 at having asthma and all sorts of horrid things which 
 prevent my living freely. Anyway, be a good fellow 
 and a good comrade, and don't be angry with me for 
 preaching at you like a head priest. 
 
 Write to me. I look forward to "Foma Gorde- 
 yev," which I haven't yet read properly. 
 
 There is no news. Keep well, I press your hand 
 warmly.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 387 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 10, 1900. 
 
 Dear Actress, 
 
 The winter is very cold, I am not well, no one 
 has written to me for nearly a whole month — and 
 I had made up my mind that there was nothing left 
 for me but to go abroad, where it is not so dull; but 
 now it has begun to be warmer, and it's better, and 
 I have decided that I shall go abroad only at the end 
 of the summer, for the exhibition. 
 
 And you, why are you depressed? What are you 
 depressed about? You are living, working, hoping, 
 drinking; you laugh when your uncle reads aloud to 
 you — what more do you want? I am a different 
 matter. I am torn up by the roots, I am not living 
 a full life, I don't drink, though I am fond of drink- 
 ing; I love noise and don't hear it — in fact, I am in 
 the condition of a transplanted tree which is hesitat- 
 ing whether to take root or to begin to wither. If I 
 sometimes allow myself to complain of boredom, I 
 have some grounds for doing so — but you? And 
 Meierhold is complaining of the dulness of his life 
 too. Aie, aie! 
 
 By the way, about Meierhold — he ought to spend 
 the whole summer in the Crimea. His health needs 
 it. Only it must be for the whole summer. 
 
 Well, now I am all right again. I am doing 
 nothing because I intend to set to work. I dig in 
 the garden. You write that for you, little people, 
 the future is wrapped in mystery. I had a letter 
 from your chief Nemirovitch not long ago. He 
 writes that the company is going to be in Sevastopol,
 
 388 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 then in Yalta at the beginning of May: in Yalta there 
 will be five performances, then evening rehearsals. 
 Only the precious members of the company will 
 remain for the rehearsals, the others can have a holi- 
 day where they please. I trust that you are precious. 
 To the director you are precious, to the author you 
 are priceless. There is a pun for a titbit for you. 
 I won't write another word to you till you send me 
 your portrait. 
 
 Thank you for your good wishes in regard to my 
 marriage. I have informed my fiancee of your 
 design of coming to Yalta in order to cut her out a 
 little. She said that if "that horrid woman" 
 comes to Yalta, she will hold me tight in her embrace. 
 I observed that to be embraced for so long in hot 
 weather was not hygienic. She was offended and 
 grew thoughtful, as though she were trying to guess 
 in what surroundings I had picked up this faqon de 
 parler, and after a little while said that the theatre 
 was an evil and that my intention of writing no 
 more plays was extremely laudable — and asked 
 me to kiss her. To this I replied that it was not 
 proper for me to be so free with my kisses now that 
 I am an academician. She burst into tears, and I 
 went away. 
 
 In the spring the company will be in Harkov too. 
 I will come and meet you then, only don't talk of 
 that to anyone. Nadyezhda Ivanovna has gone off 
 to Moscow.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 389 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 12, 1900. 
 
 I have been racking my brains over your fourth act, 
 and have come to no conclusion except, perhaps, that 
 you must not end it up with NihiHsts. It's too tur- 
 bulent and screaming; a quiet, lyrical, touching end- 
 ing would be more in keeping with your play. When 
 your heroine begins to grow old without arriving at 
 anything or deciding anything for herself, and sees 
 that she is forsaken by all, that she is uninteresting 
 and superfluous, when she understands that the peo- 
 ple around her were idle, useless, bad people (her 
 father too) , and that she has let her life slip — is not 
 that more dreadful than the Nihilists? 
 
 Your letters about "The Russalka" and Korsh are 
 very good. The tone is brilliant, and they are won- 
 derfully written. But about Konovalov and the 
 jury, I think you ought not to have written, however 
 
 alluring the subject. Let A 1 write as much as 
 
 he likes about it, but not you, for it is not your affair. 
 To treat such questions boldly and with conviction, 
 one must be a man with a single purpose, while you 
 would go off at a tangent halfway through the letter 
 — as you have done — saying suddenly that we all 
 sometimes desire to kill someone, and desire the 
 death of our neighbours. When a daughter-in-law 
 feels sick and tired of an invalid mother-in-law, a 
 spiteful old woman, she, the daughter-in-law, feels 
 easier at the thought that the old woman will soon 
 die: but that's not desiring her death, but weariness, 
 an exhausted spirit, vexation, longing for peace. 
 If that daughter-in-law were ordered to kill the old
 
 390 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 woman, she would sooner kill herself, whatever desire 
 might have been brooding in her heart. 
 
 Why, of course jurymen may make a mistake, but 
 what of that? It does happen by mistake that help is 
 given to the well-fed instead of to the hungry, but 
 whatever you write on that subject, you will reach 
 no result but harm to the hungry. Whether from 
 our point of view the jury are mistaken or not mis- 
 taken, we ought to recognize that in each individual 
 case they form a conscious judgment and make an 
 effort to do so conscientiously ; and if a captain steers 
 his steamer conscientiously, continually consulting 
 the chart and the compass, and if the steamer is ship- 
 wrecked all the same, would it not be more correct 
 to put down the shipwreck not to the captain, but to 
 something else — for instance, to think that the chart 
 is out of date or that the bottom of the sea has 
 changed? Yes, there are three points the jury have 
 to take into consideration: (1) Apart from the 
 criminal law, the penal code and legal procedure, 
 there is a moral law which is always in advance of the 
 established law, and which defines our actions pre- 
 cisely when we try to act on our conscience; thus, 
 for instance, the heritage of a daughter is laid down 
 by law as a seventh part. But you, acting on the 
 dictates of purely moral principle, go beyond the law 
 and in opposition to it, and bequeath her the same 
 share as your sons, for you know that to act other- 
 wise would be acting against your conscience. In 
 the same way it sometimes happens to the jury to 
 be put in a position in which they feel that their 
 conscience is not satisfied by the established law, that 
 in the case they are judging there are fine shades and 
 subtleties which cannot be brought under the pro-
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 391 
 
 visions of the penal code, and that obviously some- 
 thing else is needed for a just judgment, and that for 
 the lack of that "something" they will be forced to 
 give a judgment in which something is lacking. (2) 
 The jury know that acquittal is not pardon, and that 
 acquittal does not deliver the prisoner from the day 
 of judgment in the other world, from the judgment 
 of his conscience, from the judgment of public 
 opinion; they decide the question only so far as it is 
 
 a judicial question, and leave A 1 to decide 
 
 whether it is good to kill children or bad. (3) The 
 prisoner comes to the court already exhausted by 
 prison and examination, and he is in an agonizing 
 position at his trial, so that even if he is acquitted he 
 does not leave the court unpunished. 
 
 Well, be that as it may, my letter is almost finished, 
 and I seem to have written nothing. We have the 
 spring here in Yalta, no news of interest. . . . 
 
 "Resurrection" is a remarkable novel. I liked it 
 very much, but it ought to be read straight off at 
 one sitting. The end is uninteresting and false — 
 false in a technical sense. 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 14, 1900. 
 
 Dear Actress, 
 
 The photographs are very, very good, 
 especially the one in which you are leaning in dejec- 
 tion with your elbows on the back of a chair, which 
 gives you a discreetly mournful, gentle expression 
 under which there lies hid a little demon. The other 
 is good too, but it looks a little like a Jewess, a very 
 musical person who attends a conservatoire, but at the
 
 392 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 same time is studying dentistry on the sly as a second 
 string, and is engaged to be married to a young man in 
 
 Mogilev, and whose fiance is a person like M . 
 
 Are you angry? Really, really angry? It's my 
 revenge for your not signing them. 
 
 Of the seventy roses I planted in the autumn only 
 three have not taken root. Lilies, irises, tulips, 
 tuberoses, hyacinths, are all pushing out of the 
 gi'ound. Tlie willow is already green. By the 
 little seat in the corner the grass is luxuriant already. 
 The almond-tree is in blossom. I have put little 
 seats all over the garden, not grand ones with iron 
 legs, but wooden ones which I paint green. I have 
 made three bridges over the stream. I am planting 
 palms. In fact, there are all sorts of novelties, so 
 much so that you won't know the house, or the gar- 
 den, or the street. Only the owner has not changed, 
 he is just the same moping creature and devoted wor- 
 shipper of the talents that reside at Nikitsky Gate.^ 
 I have heard no music nor singing since the autumn, 
 I have not seen one interesting woman. How can I 
 help being melancholy? 
 
 I had made up my mind not to write to you, but 
 since you have sent the photographs I have taken oflF 
 the ban, and here you see I am writing. I will even 
 come to Sevastopol, only I repeat, don't tell that to 
 anyone, especially not to Vishnevsky. I shall be 
 there incognito, I shall put myself down in the hotel- 
 book Count Blackphiz. 
 
 I was joking when I said that you were like a 
 Jewess in your photograph. Don't be angry, 
 precious one. Well, herewith I kiss your little hand, 
 and remain unalterably yours. 
 
 • 0. L. Knipper was living at Nikitsky Gate.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 393 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 15, 1900. 
 
 Dear Alexey Maximovitch, 
 
 Your article in the Nizhni-Novgorod Listok 
 was balm to my soul. What a talented person you 
 are! I can't write anything but belles-lettres, you 
 possess the pen of a journalist as well. I thought at 
 first I liked the article so much because you praise 
 me in it; afterwards it came out that Sredin and his 
 family and Yartsev were all delighted with it. So 
 peg away at journalism. God bless you ! 
 
 Why don't they send me "Foma Gordeyev"? I 
 have read it only in bits, and one ought to read it 
 straight through at a sitting as I have just read 
 "Resurrection." Except the relations of Nehludov 
 and Katusha, which are somewhat obscure and made 
 up, everything in the novel made the impression of 
 strength, richness, and breadth, and the insincerity 
 of a man afraid of death and refusing to admit it and 
 clutching at texts and holy Scripture. 
 
 Write to them to send me "Foma. 
 
 "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" is a good story. 
 There is a strong feeling of the environment. One 
 
 5? 
 
 smells the hot rolls. 
 
 They have just brought your letter. So you don't 
 want to go to India? That's a pity. When India 
 is in the past, a long sea voyage, you have something 
 to think about when you can't get to sleep. And a 
 tour abroad takes very little time, it need not prevent 
 your going about in Russia on foot. 
 
 I am bored, not in the sense of weltschmerz, not 
 in the sense of being weary of existence, but simply
 
 394 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 bored from want of people, from want of music which 
 I love, and from want of women, of whom there are 
 none in Yalta. I am bored without caviare and 
 pickled cabbage. 
 
 I am very sorry that apparently you have given up 
 the idea of coming to Yalta. The Art Theatre from 
 Moscow will be here in May. It will give five per- 
 formances and then remain for rehearsals. So you 
 come, study the stage at the rehearsals, and then in 
 five to eight days write a play, which I should welcome 
 joyfully with my whole heart. 
 
 Yes, I have the right now to insist on the fact that 
 I am forty, that I am a man no longer young. I used 
 to be the youngest literary man, but you have ap- 
 peared on the scene and I became more dignified at 
 once, and no one calls me the youngest now. 
 
 To V. A. Posse. 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 15, 1900. 
 
 Much respected Vladimir Alexandrovitch, 
 "Foma Gordeyev" and in a superb binding 
 too is a precious and touching present; I thank you 
 from the bottom of my heart. A thousand thanks! 
 I have read "Foma" only in bits, now I shall read 
 it properly. Gorky should not be published in parts ; 
 either he must write more briefly, or you must put 
 him in whole as the Vyestnik Evropy does with 
 Boborykin. "Foma," by the way, is very successful, 
 but only with intelligent well-read people — with the 
 young also. I once overheard in a garden the con- 
 versation of a lady (from Petersburg) with her daugh- 
 ter: the mother was abusing the book, the daughter 
 was praising it. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 395 
 
 Yalta, 
 February 29, 1900. 
 
 '(1 
 
 Toma Gordeyev" is written all in one tone like 
 a dissertation. All the characters speak alike, and 
 their way of thinking is ahke too. They all speak 
 not simply but intentionally; they all have some idea 
 in the background ; as though there is something they 
 know they don't speak out: but in reality there is 
 nothing they know, and it is simply their faqon de 
 parler. 
 
 There are wonderful passages in "Foma." Gorky 
 will make a very great writer if only he does not 
 weary, does not grow cold and lazy. 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 10, 1900. 
 
 No winter has ever dragged on so long for me as 
 this one, and time merely drags and does not move, 
 and now I realize how stupid it was of me to leave 
 Moscow. I have lost touch with the north without 
 getting into touch with the south, and one can think 
 of nothing in my position but to go abroad. After 
 the spring, winter has begun here again in Yalta — 
 snow, rain, cold, mud — simply disgusting. 
 
 The Moscow Art Theatre will be in Yalta in April ; 
 it will bring its scenery and decorations. All the 
 tickets for the four days advertised were sold in one 
 day, although the prices have been considerably 
 raised. They will give among other things Haupt- 
 mann's "Lonely Lives," a magnificent play in my 
 opinion. I read it with great pleasure, although I
 
 396 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 am not fond of plays, and the production at the Art 
 Theatre they say is marvellous. 
 
 There is no news. There is one great event, 
 though: N.'s "Socrates" is printed in the ISeva Sup- 
 plement. I have read it, but with great effort. It is 
 not Socrates but a dull-witted, captious, opinionated 
 man, the whole of whose wisdom and interest is con- 
 fined to tripping people up over words. There is 
 not a trace or vestige of talent in it, but it is quite pos- 
 sible that the play might be successful because there 
 are words in it such as ''amphora," and Karpov says 
 it would stage well. 
 
 How many consumptives there are here! What 
 poverty, and how worried one is with them! The 
 hotels and lodging-houses here won't take in 
 those who are seriously ill. You can imagine 
 the awful cases that may be seen here. People 
 are dying from exhaustion, from their surround- 
 ings, from complete neglect, and this in blessed 
 Taurida ! 
 
 One loses all relish for the sun and the sea. . . , 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 26, 1900. 
 
 There is a feeling of black melancholy about your 
 letter, dear actress ; you are gloomy, you are fearfully 
 unhappy — but not for long, one may imagine, as 
 soon, very soon, you will be sitting in the train, eating 
 your lunch with a very good appetite. It is very nice 
 that you are coming first with Masha before all the 
 others; we shall at least have time to talk a little.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 397 
 
 walk a little, see things, drink and eat. But please 
 don't bring with you . . . 
 
 I haven't a new play, it's a lie of the newspapers. 
 The newspapers never do tell the truth about me. 
 If I did begin a play, of course the first thing I should 
 do would be to inform you of the fact. 
 
 There is a great wind here; the spring has not be- 
 gun properly yet, but we go about without our 
 goloshes and fur caps. The tulips will soon be out. 
 I have a nice garden but it is untidy, moss-grown — a 
 dilettante garden. 
 
 Gorky is here. He is warm in his praises of you 
 and your theatre. I will introduce you to him. 
 
 Oh dear! Someone has arrived. A visitor has 
 come in. Good-bye for now, actress ! 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Yalta, 
 March 26, 1900. 
 
 Dear Masha, 
 
 . . . There is no news, there is no water in 
 the pipes either. I an; sick to death of visitors. Yes- 
 terday, March 25, they came in an incessant stream 
 all day; doctors keep sending people from Moscow 
 and the provinces ^vith letters asking me to find lodg- 
 ings, to "make arrangements," as though I were a 
 house-agent! Mother is well. Mind you keep well 
 too, and make haste and come home.
 
 398 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 To 0. L. Knipper. 
 
 Yalta, 
 May 20, 1900. 
 
 Greetings to you, dear enchanting actress! How 
 are you? How are you feeling? I was very unwell 
 on the way back to Yalta.* I had a bad headache 
 and temperature before I left Moscow. I was wicked 
 enough to conceal it from you, now I am all right. 
 
 How is Levitan ? I feel dreadfully worried at not 
 knowing. If you have heard, please write to me. 
 
 Keep well and be happy. I heard Masha was 
 sending you a letter, and so I hasten to write these 
 few lines. t 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Yalta, 
 September 9, 1900. 
 
 Dear Masha, 
 
 I answer the letter in which you write about 
 Mother. To my thinking it would be better for her 
 to go to Moscow now in the autumn and not after 
 December. She will be tired of Moscow and pining 
 for Yalta in a month, you know, and if you take her 
 to Moscow in the autumn she will be back in Yalta 
 before Christmas. That's how it seems to me, 
 but possibly I am mistaken; in any case you must 
 take into consideration that it is much drearier in 
 
 * Chekhov went to Moscow with the Art Theatre Company on 
 their return from Yalta. 
 
 t Chekhov's later letters to 0. L. Knipper have not been pub- 
 lished.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 399 
 
 Yalta before Christmas than it is after- — infinitely 
 drearier. 
 
 Most hkely I will be in Moscow after the 20th of 
 September, and then we will decide. From Moscow 
 I shall go I don't know where — first to Paris, and 
 then probably to Nice, from Nice to Africa. I shall 
 hang on somehow to the spring, all April or May, 
 when I shall come to Moscow again. 
 
 There is no news. There's no rain either, every- 
 thing is dried up. At home here it is quiet, peaceful, 
 satisfactory, and of course dull. 
 
 "Three Sisters" is very difficult to write, more dif- 
 ficult than my other plays. Oh well, it doesn't mat- 
 ter, perhaps something will come of it, next season 
 if not this. It's very hard to write in Yalta, by the 
 way: I am interrupted, and I feel as though I had no 
 object in writing; what I wrote yesterday I don't like 
 to-day. . . . 
 
 Well, take care of yourself. 
 
 My humblest greetings to Olga Leonardovna, to 
 Vishnevsky, and all the rest of them too. 
 
 If Gorky is in Moscow, tell him that I have sent a 
 letter to him in Nizhni-Novgorod. 
 
 To Gorky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 October 16, 1900. 
 
 Dear Alexey Maximovitch, 
 
 ... On the 21st of this month I am going to 
 Moscow, and from there abroad. Can you imagine 
 — I have written a play ; but as it will be produced not
 
 400 LETTERS OF CHEICHOV 
 
 now, but next season, I have not made a fair copy 
 of it yet. It can lie as it is. It was very difficult 
 to write "Three Sisters." Three heroines, you see, 
 each a separate type and all the daughters of a 
 general. The action is laid in a provincial town, 
 as it might be Perm, the surroundings military, 
 artillery. 
 
 The weather in Yalta is exquisite and fresh, my 
 health is improving. I don't even want to go away 
 to Moscow. I am working so well, and it is so pleas- 
 ant to be free from the irritation I suffered from all the 
 summer. I am not coughing, and am even eating 
 meat. I am living alone, quite alone. My mother 
 is in Moscow. 
 
 Thanks for your letters, my dear fellow, thanks 
 very much. I read them over twice. My warmest 
 greetings to your wife and Maxim. And so, till we 
 meet in Moscow. I hope you won't play me false, 
 and we shall see each other. 
 
 God keep you. 
 
 Moscow, 
 October 22, 1901. 
 
 Five days have passed since I read your play 
 ("The Petty Bourgeois"). I have not written to 
 you till now because I could not get hold of the 
 fourth act; I have kept waiting for it, and — I still 
 have not got it. And so I have only read three acts, 
 but that I think is enough to judge of the play. It 
 is, as I expected, very good, written a la Gorky, 
 original, very interesting; and, to begin by talking 
 of the defects, I have noticed only one, a defect 
 incorrigible as red hair in a red-haired man — the 
 conserv^atism of the form. You make new and
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 401 
 
 original people sing new songs to an accompani- 
 ment that looks second-hand, you have four acts, 
 the characters deliver edifying discourses, there is 
 a feeling of alarm before long speeches, and so on, 
 and so on. But all that is not important, and it is 
 all, so to speak, drowned in the good points of the 
 play. Pertchihin — how living! His daughter is 
 enchanting, Tatyana and Pyotr are also, and their 
 mother is a splendid old woman. The central figure 
 of the play, Nil, is vigorously drawn and extremely 
 interesting! In fact, the play takes hold of one 
 from the first act. Only God preserve you from let- 
 ting anyone act Pertchihin except Artyom, while 
 Alexeyev-Stanislavsky must certainly play Nil. 
 Those two figures will do just what's needed; Pyotr 
 — Meierhold. Only Nil's part, a wonderful part, 
 must be made two or three times as long. You ought 
 to end the play with it, to make it the leading part. 
 Only do not contrast him with Pyotr and Tatyana, 
 let him be by himself and them by themselves, all 
 wonderful, splendid people independently of each 
 other. When Nil tries to seem superior to Pyotr and 
 Tatyana, and says of himself that he is a fine fellow^ 
 the element so characteristic of our decent working 
 man, the element of modesty, is lost. He boasts, he 
 argues, but you know one can see what sort of man 
 he is without that. Let him be merry, let him play 
 pranks through the whole four acts, let him eat a 
 great deal after his work — and that will be enough 
 for him to conquer the audience with. Pyotr, I re- 
 peat, is good. Most likely you don't even suspect 
 how good he is. Tatyana, too, is a finished figure, 
 onlv (a) she ought really to be a schoolmistress^ 
 ought to be teaching children, ought to come home
 
 402 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 from school, ought to be taken up with her pupils 
 and exercise-books, and (6) it ought to be mentioned 
 in the first or second act that she has attempted to 
 poison herself; then, after that hint, the poisoning 
 in the third act will not seem so startling and will 
 be more in place. Teterev talks too much: such 
 characters ought to be shown bit by bit between 
 others, for in any case such people are everywhere 
 merely incidental — both in life and on the stage. 
 Make Elena dine with all the rest in the first act, let 
 her sit and make jokes, or else there is very little of 
 her, and she is not clear. Her avowal to Pyotr is too 
 abrupt, on the stage it would come out in too high 
 relief. Make her a passionate woman, if not loving 
 at least apt to fall in love. . . . 
 
 July 29, 1902. 
 
 I have read your play.* It is new and unmistak- 
 ably fine. The second act is very good, it is the best, 
 the strongest, and when I was reading it, especially 
 the end, I almost danced with joy. The tone is 
 gloomy, oppressive; the audience unaccustomed to 
 such subjects will walk out of the theatre, and you 
 may well say good-bye to your reputation as an 
 optimist in any case. My wife will play Vassilisa, 
 the immoral and spiteful woman; Vishnevsky walks 
 about the house and imagines himself the Tatar — 
 he is convinced that it is the part for him. Luka, 
 alas! you must not give to Artyom. He will repeat 
 himself in that part and be exhausted ; but he would 
 do the policeman wonderfully, it is his part. The 
 part of the actor, in which you have been very suc- 
 cessful (it is a magnificent part), should be given to 
 
 ♦ "In the Depths."
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 403 
 
 an experienced actor, Stanislavsky perhaps. Katch- 
 alev will play the baron. 
 
 You have left out of the fourth act all the most 
 interesting characters (except the actor), and you 
 must mind now that there is no ill effect from it. 
 The act may seem boring and unnecessary, especially 
 if, with the exit of the strongest and most interesting 
 actors, there are left only the mediocrities. The 
 death of the actor is awful ; it is as though you gave the 
 spectator a sudden box on the ear apropos of nothing 
 without preparing him in any way. How the baron 
 got into the doss-house and why he is a baron is also 
 not sufficiently clear. 
 
 Vr 77 W W 7P w 
 
 Andreyev's "Thought" is something pretentious, 
 difficult to understand, and apparently no good, but 
 it is worked out with talent. Andreyev has no sim- 
 plicity, and his talent reminds me of an artificial night- 
 ingale. Skitalets now is a sparrow, but he is a real 
 living sparrow. . . . 
 
 To S. P. Dyagilev. 
 
 Yalta, 
 December 30, 1902. 
 
 . . . You write that we talked of a serious 
 religious movement in Russia. We talked of a 
 movement not in Russia but in the intellectual 
 class. I won't say anything about Russia; the in- 
 tellectuals so far are only playing at religion, and for 
 the most part from having nothing to do. One may 
 say of the cultured part of our public that it has
 
 404 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 moved away from religion, and is moving further and 
 further away from it, whatever people may say and 
 however many philosophical and religious societies 
 may be formed. Whether it is a good or a bad thing 
 I cannot undertake to decide; I will only say that 
 the religious movement of which you write is one 
 thing, and the whole trend of modem culture is an- 
 other, and one cannot place the second in any causal 
 connection with the first. Modern culture is only the 
 first beginning of work for a great future, work which 
 will perhaps go on for tens of thousands of years, 
 in order that man may if only in the remote future 
 come to know the truth of the real God — that is not, 
 I conjecture, by seeking in Dostoevsky, but by clear 
 knowledge, as one knows twice two are four. Mod- 
 ern culture is the first beginning of the work, while 
 the religious movement of which we talked is a sur- 
 vival, almost the end of what has ceased, or is ceasing 
 tG exist. But it is a long story, one can't put it all 
 into a letter. . . . 
 
 To A. S. SuvoRiN. 
 
 Moscow, 
 June 29, 1903. 
 
 . . . One feels a warm sympathy, of course, for 
 Gorky's letter about the Kishinev pogrom, as one does 
 for everything he writes; the letter is not written 
 though, but put together, there is neither youthful- 
 ness in it nor confidence, like Tolstoy's. 
 
 ^ * * * * *
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 405 
 
 July 1, 1903. 
 
 You are reading belles-lettres now, so read 
 Veresaev's stories. Begin with a little story in the 
 second volume called "Lizar." I think you will be 
 very much pleased with it. Veresaev is a doctor; I 
 have got to know him lately. He makes a very good 
 impression. ... 
 
 To S. P. Dyagilev. 
 
 Yalta, 
 July 12, 1903. 
 
 ... I have been thinking over your letter for a 
 long time, and alluring as your suggestion or offer 
 is, yet in the end I must answer it as neither you nor 
 I would wish. 
 
 I cannot be the editor of The World of Art, as I 
 cannot live in Petersburg, . . . that's the first point. 
 And the second is that just as a picture must be painted 
 by one artist and a speech delivered by one orator, 
 so a magazine must be edited by one man. Of course 
 I am not a critic, and I dare say I shouldn't make a 
 very good job of the reviews; but on the other hand, 
 how could I get on in the same boat with Merezhkov- 
 sky, who definitely believes, didactically believes, 
 while I lost my faith years ago and can only look with 
 perplexity at any "intellectual" who does believe? I 
 respect Merezhkovsky, and think highly of him both 
 as a man and as a writer, but we should be pulling in 
 opposite directions. . . . 
 
 Don't be cross with me, dear Sergey Pavlovitch: 
 it seems to me that if you go on editing the magazine
 
 406 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV . 
 
 for another five years you will come to agree with 
 me. A magazine, like a picture or a poem, must bear 
 the stamp of one personality and one will must be 
 felt in it. This has been hitherto the case in the 
 World of Art, and it was a good thing. And it must 
 be kept up. . . . 
 
 To K. S. Stanislavsky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 July 28, 1903. 
 
 . . . My play "The Cherry Orchard" is not yet 
 finished; it makes slow progress, which I put down 
 to laziness, fine weather, and the difficulty of the sub- 
 
 IC/v/L* • • • 
 
 I think your part * is all right, though I can't un- 
 dertake to decide, as I can judge very little of a play 
 by reading it. . . . 
 
 To Madame Stanislavsky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 September 15, 1903. 
 
 . . . Don't believe anybody — no living soul has 
 read my play yet; I have written for you not the 
 part of a "canting hypocrite," but of a very nice 
 girl, with which you will, I hope, be satisfied. I 
 have almost finished the play, but eight or ten days 
 ago I was taken ill, with coughing and weakness — 
 in fact, last year's business over again. Now — that 
 is to-day — it is warmer and I feel better, but still I 
 
 * Stanislavsky acted Lopahin. — Translator's Note.
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 407 
 
 cannot write, as my head is aching. Olga will not 
 bring the play; I will send the four acts together as 
 soon as it is possible for me to set to work for a whole 
 day. It has turned out not a drama, but a comedy, 
 in parts a farce, indeed, and I am afraid I shall catch 
 it from Vladimir Ivanitch ^. . . . 
 
 I can't come for the opening of your season, I must 
 stay in Yalta till November. Olga, who has grown 
 fatter and stronger in the summer, will probably 
 come to Moscow on Sunday. I shall remain alone, 
 and of course shall take advantage of that. As a 
 writer it is essential for me to observe women, to 
 study them, and so, I regret to say, I cannot be a 
 faithful husband. As I observe women chiefly for 
 the sake of my plays, in my opinion the Art Theatre 
 ought to increase my wife's salary or give her a pen- 
 sion! . . . 
 
 To K. S. Stanislavsky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 October 30, 1903. 
 
 . . . Many thanks for your letter and telegram. 
 Letters are very precious to me now — in the first 
 place, because I am utterly alone here; and in the 
 second, because I sent the play three weeks ago and 
 only got your letter yesterday, and if it were not 
 for my wife, I should know nothing at all and might 
 imagine any mortal thing. When I was writing 
 Lopahin, I thought of it as a part for you. If for any 
 reason you don't care for it, take the part of Gaev. 
 Lopahin is a merchant, of course, but he is a very 
 
 * Nemirovitch Dantclienko.
 
 408 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 decent person in every sense. He must behave with 
 perfect decorum, like an educated man, with no 
 petty ways or tricks of any sort, and it seemed to 
 me this part, the central one of the play, would come 
 out brilliantly in your hands. ... In choosing an 
 actor for the part you must remember that Varya, 
 a serious and religious girl, is in love with Lopahin; 
 she wouldn't be in love with a mere money-grub- 
 ber. . . . 
 
 To V. I. Nemirovitch Dantchenko. 
 
 Yalta, 
 November 2, 1903. 
 
 . . . About the play. 
 
 1. Anya can be played by anyone you like, even 
 by a quite unknown actress, so long as she is young 
 and looks like a girl, and speaks in a youthful singing 
 voice. It is not an important part. 
 
 (2) Varya is a more serious part. . . . She is a 
 character in a black dress, something of a nun, fool- 
 ish, tearful, etc. 
 
 . . . Gorky is younger than you or I, he has his 
 life before him. ... As for the Nizhni theatre, 
 that's a mere episode; Gorky will try it, "sniff it and 
 reject it." And while we are on this subject, the 
 whole idea of a "people's" theatre and "people's" 
 literature is foolishness and lollipops for the people. 
 We mustn't bring Gogol down to the people but raise 
 the people up to Gogol. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 409 
 
 To A. L. Vishnevsky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 November 7, 1903. 
 
 . . . As I am soon coming to Moscow, please keep 
 a ticket for me for "The Pillars of Society"; I want 
 to see the marvellous Norwegian acting, and I will 
 even pay for my seat. You know Ibsen is my fav- 
 ourite writer. . . . 
 
 To K. S. Stanislavsky. 
 
 Yalta, 
 
 November 10, 1903. 
 
 Dear Konstantin Sergeyitch, 
 
 Of course the scener}^ for HI. and IV. can be 
 the same, the hall and the staircase. Please do just 
 as you like about the scenery, I leave it entirely to 
 you; I am amazed and generally sit with my mouth 
 wide open at your theatre. There can be no question 
 about it, whatever you do will be excellent, a hundred 
 times better than anything I could invent. . . . 
 
 To F. D. Batyushkov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 January 19, 1904. 
 
 ... At the first performance of "The Cherry 
 Orchard" on the 17th of January, they gave me an 
 ovation, so lavish, warm, and really so unexpected, 
 that I can't get over it even now. . . .
 
 410 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 ^«-!W5«V. '^,, 
 
 To Madame Avilov. 
 
 Moscow, 
 February 14, 1904. 
 
 . . . All good wishes. Above all, be cheerful; 
 don't look at life so much as a problem — it is, most 
 likely, far simpler. And whether it — life, of which 
 we know nothing — is worth all the agonizing reflec- 
 tions which wear out our Russian wits, is a question. 
 
 To Father Sergey Shtchukin. 
 
 Moscow, 
 May 27, 1904. 
 
 Dear Father Sergey, 
 
 Yesterday I talked to a very well-known 
 lawyer about the case in which you are interested, 
 and I will tell you his opinion. Let Mr. N. imme- 
 diately put together all the necessary documents, let 
 his fiancee do the same, and go off to another prov- 
 ince, such as Kherson, and there get married. When 
 they are married let them come home and live 
 quietly, saying nothing about it. It is not a crime 
 (there is no consanguinity), but only a breach of a 
 Ions established tradition. If in another two or 
 three years someone informs against them, or finds 
 out and interferes, and the case is brought into court, 
 anyway the children would be legitimate. And 
 when there is a lawsuit (a trivial one anyway), then 
 they can send in a petition to the Sovereign. The 
 Sovereign does not sanction what is forbidden by law 
 (so it is no use to petition for permission for the
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 411 
 
 marriage), but the Sovereign enjoys the fullest 
 privilege of pardon and does as a rule pardon what is 
 inevitable. 
 
 I don't know whether I am putting it properly. 
 You must forgive me, I am in bed, ill, and have been 
 since the second of May, I have not been able to 
 get up once all this time. I cannot execute your 
 other commissions. . . . 
 
 To HIS Sister. 
 
 Berlin, 
 Sunday, June 6, 1904. 
 
 ... I write to you from Berlin, where I have 
 been now for twenty-four hours. It turned very cold 
 in Moscow after you went away; we had snow, and 
 it was most likely through that that I caught cold. 
 I began to have rheumatic pains in my arms and legs, 
 I did not sleep for nights, got very thin, had injec- 
 tions of morphia, took thousands of medicines of all 
 sorts, and remember none of them with gratitude ex- 
 cept heroin, which was once prescribed me by 
 Altschuller. . . . 
 
 On Thursday I set off for foreign parts, very thin, 
 with very lean skinny legs. We had a good and 
 pleasant journey. Here in Berlin we have taken a 
 comfortable room in the best hotel. I am enjoying 
 being here, and it is a long time since I have eaten so 
 well, with such appetite. The bread here is won- 
 derful, I eat too much of it. The coffee is excellent 
 and the dinners beyond description. Anyone who 
 has not been abroad does not know what good bread 
 means. There is no decent tea here (we have our
 
 412 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 own), there are no hors d'oeuvres, but all the rest is 
 magnificent, though cheaper than with us. I am al- 
 ready the better for it, and to-day I even took a long 
 drive in the Thiergarten, though it was cool. And 
 so tell Mother and everyone who is interested that I 
 am getting better, or indeed have already got better; 
 my legs no longer ache, I have no diarrhoea, I am 
 beginning to get fat, and am all day long on my legs, 
 not lying down. . . . 
 
 Berun, 
 June 8. 
 
 . . . The worst thing here which catches the eye 
 at once is the dress of the ladies. Fearfully bad 
 taste, nowhere do women dress so abominably, with 
 such utter lack of taste. I have not seen one beau- 
 tiful woman, nor one who was not trimmed with some 
 kind of absurd braid. Now I understand why taste 
 is so slowly developed in Germans in Moscow. On 
 the other hand, here in Berlin life is very comfortable. 
 The food is good, things are not dear, the horses are 
 well fed — the dogs, who are here harnessed to little 
 carts, are well fed too. There is order and cleanli- 
 ness in the streets. . . . 
 
 Badenweiler, 
 
 June 12. 
 
 I have been for three days settled here, this 
 is my address — Germany, Badenweiler, Villa Freder- 
 icke. This Villa Fredericke, like all the houses and 
 villas here, stands apart in a luxuriant garden in 
 the sun, which shines and warms us till seven o'clock 
 in the evening (after which I go indoors). We are 
 boarding in the house; for fourteen or sixteen marks
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 413 
 
 a day we have a double room flooded with sunshine, 
 with washing-stands, bedsteads, etc., with a writing- 
 table, and, best of all, with excellent water, like 
 Seltzer water. The general impression: a big gar- 
 den, beyond the garden, mountains covered with 
 forest, few people, little movement in the street. 
 The garden and the flowers are splendidly cared for. 
 But to-day, apropos of nothing, it has begun raining; 
 I sit in our room, and already begin to feel that in 
 another two or three days I shall be thinking of how 
 to escape. 
 
 I am still eating butter in enormous quantities and 
 with no effect. I can't take milk. The doctor here, 
 Schworer, married to a Moscow woman, turns out to 
 be skilful and nice. 
 
 We shall perhaps return to Yalta by sea from 
 Trieste or some other port. Health is coming back 
 to me not by ounces but by stones. Anyway, I have 
 learned here how to feed. Coffee is forbidden to me 
 absolutely, it is supposed to be relaxing; I am begin- 
 ning by degrees to eat eggs. Oh, how badly the Ger- 
 man women dress! 
 
 I live on the ground floor. If only you knew what 
 the sun is here! It does not scorch, but caresses. 
 I have a comfortable low chair in which I can sit or 
 lie down. I will certainly buy the watch, I haven't 
 forgotten it. How is Mother? Is she in good 
 spirits? Write to me. Give her my love. Olga is 
 going to a dentist here. . . . 
 
 June 16. 
 
 I am living amongst the Germans and have al- 
 ready got used to my room and to the regime, but can 
 never get used to the German peace and quiet. Not
 
 414 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 
 
 a sound in the house or outside it; only at seven 
 o'clock in the morning and at midday there is an 
 expensive but very poor band playing in the garden. 
 One feels there is not a single drop of talent in any- 
 thing nor a single drop of taste; but, on the other 
 hand, there is order and honesty to spare. Our Rus- 
 sian life is far more talented, and as for the Italian 
 or the French, it is beyond comparison. 
 
 My health has improved. I don't notice now as I 
 go about that I am ill; my asthma is better, nothing 
 is aching. The only trace left of my illness is ex- 
 treme thinness; my legs are thin as they have never 
 been. The German doctors have turned all my life 
 upside down. At seven o'clock in the morning I 
 drink tea in bed — for some reason it must be in bed ; 
 at half-past seven a German by way of a masseur 
 comes and rubs me all over with water, and this seems 
 not at all bad. Then I have to lie still a little, get 
 up at eight o'clock, drink acorn cocoa and eat an 
 immense quantity of butter. At ten o'clock, oatmeal 
 porridge, extremely nice to taste and to smell, not 
 like our Russian. Fresh air and sunshine. Read- 
 ing the newspaper. At one o'clock, dinner, at which 
 I must not taste everj^thing but only the things Olga 
 chooses for me, according to the German doctor's 
 prescription. At four o'clock the cocoa again. At 
 seven o'clock supper. At bedtime a cup of straw- 
 berry tea — that is as a sleeping draught. In all this 
 there is a lot of quackery, but a lot of what 
 is really good and useful — for instance, the por- 
 ridge. I shall bring some oatmeal from here with 
 me. . . .
 
 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV 415 
 
 June 21. 
 
 Things are going all right with me, only I have 
 begun to get sick of Badenweiler. There is so much 
 German peace and order here. It was different in 
 Italy. To-day at dinner they gave us boiled mutton 
 — what a dish! The whole dinner is magnificent, 
 but the maitres d'hotel look so important that it makes 
 one uneasy. 
 
 June 28. 
 
 ... It has begun to be terribly hot here. The 
 heat caught me unawares, as I have only winter 
 suits here. I am gasping and dreaming of getting 
 away. But where to go? I should like to go to 
 Italy, to Como, but everyone is running away from 
 the heat there. It is hot everywhere in the south 
 of Europe. I should like to go from Trieste to 
 Odessa by steamer, but I don't know how far it is 
 possible now, in June and July. ... If it should 
 be rather hot it doesn't matter; I should have a 
 flannel suit. I confess I dread the railway journey. 
 It is stifling in the train now, particularly with my 
 asthma, which is made worse by the slightest thing. 
 Besides, there are no sleeping carriages from Vienna 
 right up to Odessa; it would be uncomfortable. 
 And we should get home by railway sooner than we 
 need, and I have not had enough holiday yet. It is 
 so hot one can't bear one's clothes, I don't know what 
 to do. Olga has gone to Freiburg to order a flannel 
 suit for me, there are neither tailors nor shoemakers 
 in Badenweiler. She has taken the suit Dushar made 
 me as a pattern. 
 
 I like the food here very much, but it does not 
 seem to suit me; my stomach is constantly being up-
 
 416 LETTERS OF CHEKHOV > 
 
 set. I can't eat the butter here. Evidently my di- 
 gestion is hopelessly ruined. It is scarcely possible 
 to cure it by anything but fasting — that is, eating 
 nothing — and that's the end of it. And the only 
 remedy for the asthma is not moving. 
 
 There is not a single decently dressed German 
 woman. The lack of taste makes one depressed. 
 
 Well, keep well and happy. My love to Mother, 
 Vanya, George, and all the rest. Write! 
 
 I kiss you and press your hand. i 
 
 Yours, I 
 
 A. ' 
 
 THE END ^ 
 
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