The earliest set of Chekhov letters we have are the ones he wrote from
Taganrog to his Moscow cousin Mikhail Chekhov. Anton's initial reply to Cousin Mikhail's offer to correspond provides us with a glimpse of the pre-transformation Chekhov. The servile and self-deprecating tone is most uncharacteristic of Chekhov as we know him: "You were the first to hint at the possibility of a fraternal friendship between us. It was an impertinence on my part to have allowed this. The younger person is duty-bound to beg for friendship first, not the older one. Therefore I beg you to forgive me" (Letter to Mikhail Mikhailovich Chekhov, December 6, 1876). This tone disappears in the letters written to the same addressee in 1877. Chekhov came to write to his brother Mikhail in the spring of 1879 on the subject of personal dignity and of his literary preferences, his metamorphosis was complete. Letter 2 is the earliest authentically Chekhovian document we have: neither the tone nor the ideas of that letter would be imaginable in the milieu of Chekhov's father, uncles and cousins. At nineteen, Chekhov had already gained that freedom of thought and independence of spirit that were later to cause the young Maxim Gorky to remark after meeting the famous writer that Anton Chekhov was the first genuinely free human being he had ever encountered.
1. To Mikhail (Mikhailovich) Chekhov1
Taganrog, May 10, 1877
Dearest Cousin Misha,
Not having had the fortune of seeing you again, I take up my pen. First, let me give you a fraternal vote of thanks for everything you did for me throughout my stay in Moscow.2 Second, I am delighted we parted such intimate friends and brothers, and therefore dare to hope and trust that the twelve hundred versts that may long stand between two letter- writing brothers who have come to know each other well will prove but a trifling distance for the long-term maintenance of our good relations. Now I have a request which I imagine you will carry out because it is so insignificant: if I send my mother letters through you, will you give them to her secretly, when there's no one else around? There are certain things in life that can be said to only one trustworthy individual. It is for this reason that I am forced to write Mother in secret from the others, whom my secrets (I have a special kind of secrets, and I don't know if you're interested in them or not; if you like, I'll reveal them to you) do not interest in the least or rather do not concern. My second and last request will be somewhat more serious. Could you continue to comfort my mother? She is physically and morally crushed and has found in you much more than merely a nephew. My mother's nature is such that she has a very strong positive reaction to any kind of moral support coming from another person. A ridiculous request, isn't it? But you'll come to understand it, especially since I've asked for your "moral," in other words, spiritual support. In this archmalicious world there is nothing dearer to us than our mother, and therefore you will much oblige your humble servant by comforting his half-moribund mother. We will carry on a good, steady correspondence, won't we? And let me assure you in passing that you won't be sorry for having told me all those things. All I can do is thank you for your confidence in me. I want you to know that I value it highly. Good-bye and best wishes. My regards to Liza and Grisha8 and to your friends.
Your cousin,
A. Chekhov
Mikhail Mikhailovich Chekhov (1851-1909) was the son of Pavel Yegor- ovich Chekhov's older brother Mikhail. He was apprenticed at the age of twelve at a warehouse owned by a wealthy Moscow merchant and he worked there as a clerk for the rest of his life. While much can be said against Pavel Chekhov's ideas of upbringing, it is to his everlasting credit that his insistence on as much education as possible for every one of his children enabled them to become literary figures and educators. The children of his less stern brothers Mikhail and Mitrofan never rose beyond the station of salesmen, seamstresses and warehouse attendants. The young Chekhov was quite attached to his cousin Misha and corresponded with him during his school years. In the early 1880s Misha succeeded in obtaining a job for Chekhov's father at the warehouse where he worked. By that time, the contact between Anton and Cousin Misha had dwindled. The warehouse where Misha worked and its employees served as the models for the warehouse and employees in Chekhov's "Three Years"; Misha himself appears in that novel, slightly caricatured, as the warehouse clerk Pochatkin.
During the Easter recess in March, 1877, Chekhov visited his family in Moscow and met his cousin Misha in person after exchanging several sentimental letters with him.
Cousin Misha's younger sister and brother.
2. To Mikhail (Pavlovich) Chekhov[1]
Taganrog, between April 6 and 8, 1879
Dear Brother Misha,
I got your letter while sitting around yawning by the gate at the height of a horrible fit of boredom, so you can imagine how perfectly timed it seemed—and so enormous too. You have a good handwriting, and I didn't find a single grammatical error anywhere in the letter. There is one thing I don't like, though. Why do you refer to yourself as my "worthless, insignificant little brother"? So you are aware of your worth - lessness, are you? Not all Mishas have to be identical, you know. Do you know where you should be aware of your worthlessness? Before God, perhaps, or before human intelligence, before beauty or nature. But not before people. Among people you should be aware of your worth. You're no cheat, you're an honest man, aren't you? Well then, respect yourself for being a good honest fellow. Don't confuse "humility" with "an awareness of your own worthlessness." Georgy[2] has grown. He's a nice boy. I often play knucklebones with him. He's received your packages. You do well to read books. Get into the habit of reading. You'll come to appreciate it in time. So Madame Beecher Stowe brought tears to your eyes? I thumbed through her once and read her straight through for scholarly purposes six months ago, and when I was done I experienced that unpleasant sensation that mortals are wont to feel when they've eaten too many raisins or dried currants.[3] The hawfinch[4] I promised you has escaped, and little is known of his present place of residence. I'll figure out something else to bring you. Take a look at the following books: Don Quixote (complete, in all seven or eight parts). It's a fine work written by Cervantes, who is placed on just about the level of Shakespeare. I recommend Turgenev's "Hamlet and Don Quixote" to our brothers if they haven't read it already. As for you, you wouldn't understand it. If you feel like reading an entertaining travelogue, try Goncharov's Frigate Pallada/» etc. I send Masha special regards. Don't all of you feel bad that I'm coming late. Time flies no matter how bored you brag you are. I'm bringing a lodger along who will pay twenty rubles a month and be under our personal supervision. I'll soon be off for a bargaining session with his mother. Pray for my success![5] However, even twenty rubles is not much, considering Moscow prices and Mother's character—she'll give him good honest food. Our teachers get three hundred fifty rubles a head, and they feed the poor boys on the blood drippings from their roasts, like dogs.
A. Chekhov
Chekhov's Taganrog cousin, the son of his Uncle Mitrofan.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin enjoyed tremendous prestige in Russia. In Turgenev's novel Smoke, the reputation of an exiled Russian radical among his fellow dissidents is instantly ruined when his enemies spread the rumor that he had been slapped in the face by Mrs. Beecher Stowe —no one even bothers to ask why she did it; the man is simply ostracized. Tolstoy could think of no higher praise for his favorite Dostoyevsky novel, Notes from the House of the Dead, than to compare it to Uncle Toms Cabin. The similarity of the book's abolitionist message to the theme of such classics of Russian anti-serfdom literature as Turgenev's Sportsman's Sketches made any questioning of its literary value unthinkable. No respectable Russian critic of the period would have dared point out in print the book's melodramatic sentimentality, as the nineteen-year-old Chekhov is doing here, for fear of being thought obscurantist and reactionary.