Tomorrow I have my last exam, and the day after my person will represent what the crowd honors with the title of "doctor" (provided, of course, I pass the exam tomorrow). I am ordering a "doctor" shingle with a pointing finger, not so much for my medical practice as for putting the fear of God in janitors, mailmen and the tailor. When the inhabitants of Yeletsky's house call me—a writer of comic piffle—doctor, I am so unused to it that it grates on my ears. My parents, on the other hand, enjoy it. My parents are noble plebeians who have always looked on Aesculapians as something grimly arrogant and official, something that doesn't receive you without being announced and then charges you five rubles. They can't believe their eyes. Am I an impostor, a mirage, or an honest-to-goodness doctor? They are showing me the sort of respect they'd show me if I had become a police captain. They imagine that thousands of rubles will pass through my hands in the very first year. Fyodor Glebych, my patient tailor, is of the same opinion. They all have to be disillusioned, the poor things.
Exams are over, so there's nothing left to hold me back from applying for admission to the select few. I'll be sending you something every issue. I haven't quite settled down into my new routine yet, but in four or five days I'll be lifting my eyes heavenward and starting to think up new subjects. I'm going to spend the summer at the New Jerusalem monastery4 writing on and off. The only thing that scares me is high-minded passion; I find it worse than any exam. Enclosed you will find "Vacation Hygiene," a seasonal piece. If you like it, I'll work up a few more along the same lines: "A Hunter's Rules and Regulations," "A Forester's Rules and Regulations" and so on. I want to write a Fragments statistical survey: population, death rate, occupations and so on. It will be a little long, but if it works, it will be quite lively. (I got the idea from cramming for medical statistics recently.) I would now enjoy writing a satirical medical text in two or three volumes. First of all, I'd get my patients into a laughing mood, and only then would I begin to treat them. Moscow is having rainy weather: it's too cold for a summer coat and too hot for a winter one. The state of my health is not dazzling; at times I'm fine, but at times I'm in pain. I drink and then stop drinking. ... As yet there's nothing definite in sight.
I'm sitting down to read. Good-bye.
Your respectful contributor,
A. Chekhov
Is it true that The Cause5 is on its way out? If so, then good riddance! I never liked that journal, sinner that I am. It irritated me. Of course, even The Cause could have served a purpose, considering the present paucity of journals.
The enclosure consisted of a story by Alexander Chekhov, which Leykin rejected and returned to Anton Chekhov with the suggestion that Alexander, who had obtained a temporary job as a customs official, describe his new surroundings in his next story.
Iliodor (or Lyodor) Palmin (1841-91) made a certain name for himself as a writer of civic and political verse during the politically permissive period of the 1860s. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Palmin's doggerel had been deservedly forgotten and his name remained in literary history only because of his friendship with the young Chekhov, whom he introduced to Leykin (it was at Palmin's urging that Leykin first invited the three Chekhov brothers—Alexander, Nikolai and Anton—to become contributors to Fragments). Since the 1930s, in line with the officially imposed revival of all nineteenth-century civic poetry regardless of its quality, Palmin's verse has been repeatedly reissued and anthologized in the Soviet Union.
A well-known monastery, which was also a popular excursion site.
In the town of Voskresensk, where Chekhov began his medical practice that summer.
A liberal political journal that was temporarily closed down due to censorship troubles, but which was able to resume publication soon afterward.
5. To Viktor Bilibin1
Moscow, February i, 1886
Kindest of humorists and law clerks and least bribable of secretaries,[6] Viktor Viktorovich,
Five times I've begun to write you and five times I've been interrupted. I've finally nailed myself to the chair and am writing [several words are crossed out in the originall which offended you and me and which with your permission I now declare closed, though it hasn't begun yet in Moscow. I wrote Leykin about it and received an explanation. I've just returned from a visit to the well-known poet Palmin. When I read him the lines from your letters that pertain to him, he said, "I respect this man. He is very talented." Upon which His Inspiration raised the longest of his fingers and deigned to add, with an air of profundity of course, "But Fragments will ruin him! Have some spiced vodka."
We talked for a long time and about many things. Palmin is a typical poet, if you admit the existence of such a type. He is a poetical individual, easily carried away and packed from head to toe with subject matter and ideologies. Talking with him is not tiring. True, while talking with him, you have to drink a lot, but then you can be certain that during an entire three- or four-hour talk with him you won't hear a single lying word or trite phrase, and that's worth sacrificing your sobriety.
By the way, he and I tried to think up a title for my book. After racking our brains for hours, all we could come up with was Cats and Carps and Flowers and Dogs.2 I was willing to settle for Buy This Book or You'll Get a Punch in the Mouth or Are You Being Helped, Sir?, but after some thought the poet pronounced them hackneyed and cliche. Why don't you think up a title for me? As far as I'm concerned, all titles with a (grammatically) collective meaning belong in a saloon. I would prefer what Leykin wants, to wit: A. Chekhonte. Stories and Sketches and nothing else, even though that kind of title is suited only to celebrities, not — oo's like me. Varicolored Stories would also do. There you have two titles. Choose one of them and let Leykin know. I am relying on your taste, though I realize that by placing demands on your taste, I'm placing demands on you too. But don't be annoyed. When, God willing, your house is on fire, I'll send you my fire hose.[7]
Many thanks for the trouble you took to have the original clipped and sent to me. So as not to be in your debt (monetarily), I am sending you for the postage a thirty-five-kopeck stamp that you once sent me with a fee and that I have never been able to get rid of. Now you can be stuck with it.