Your statement that the world is "teeming with villains and villainesses" is true. Human nature is imperfect, so it would be odd to perceive none but the righteous. Requiring literature to dig up a "pearl" from the pack of villains is tantamount to negating literature altogether. Literature is accepted as an art because it depicts life as it actually is. Its aim is the truth, unconditional and honest. Limiting its functions to as narrow a field as extracting "pearls" would be as deadly for art as requiring Levitan to draw a tree without any dirty bark or yellowed leaves. A "pearl" is a fine thing, I agree. But the writer is not a pastry chef, he is not a cosmetician and not an entertainer. He is a man bound by contract to his sense of duty and to his conscience. Once he undertakes this task, it is too late for excuses, and no matter how horrified, he must do battle with his squeamishness and sully his imagination with the grime of life. He is just like any ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter as a result of squeamishness or a desire to please his readers were to limit his descriptions to honest city fathers, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroadmen?
To a chemist there is nothing impure on earth. The writer should be just as objective as the chemist; he should liberate himself from everyday subjectivity and acknowledge that manure piles play a highly respectable role in the landscape and that evil passions are every bit as much a part of life as good ones.
Writers are men of their time, and so, like the rest of the public, they must submit to the external conditions of life in society. There is therefore no question but what they must keep within the bounds of decency. That is all we have a right to demand of the realists. But since you have nothing to say against the execution or form of "Mire," I must have remained within the bounds.
I must admit I rarely consult my conscience as I write. This is due to habit and the trivial nature of my work. Consequently, whenever I expound one or another view of literature, I always leave myself out of consideration.
You write that if you were my editor you would return the story to me for my own good. Why not go even further? Why not put the editors on the carpet for publishing this kind of story? Why not address a strongly worded reprimand to the Bureau of Press Affairs for not banning immoral newspapers?
The fate of literature (both major and minor) would be a pitiful one if it were at the mercy of personal opinions. Point number one. And number two, there is no police force in existence that can consider itself competent in matters of literature. I agree that we can't do without the muzzle or the stick, because sharpers ooze their way into literature just as anywhere else. But no matter how hard you try, you won't come up with a better police force for literature than criticism and the author's own conscience. People have been at it since the beginning of creation, but they've invented nothing better.
Now you would have me lose 115 rubles and give an editor a chance to embarrass me. Others, including your own father, are delighted with the story. And still others are sending Suvorin vituperative letters, rabidly denouncing both the newspaper and me, etc. Well, who is right? Who is the true judge?
6. You also write I should leave such stories for hacks like Okreyts, Pince-nez and Aloe,7 who are poor in spirit and have been shortchanged by fate. Allah forgive you if you mean those lines sincerely! To write in such scornful, condescending accents about little people just because they're little does the human heart scant honor. The lower ranks are just as indispensable in literature as they are in the army; that's what your head tells you, and your heart should tell you even more.
Now I've gone and worn you out with my long and drawn-out taffy. ... If I had known my criticism would go on for so long, I wouldn't have started in the first place. . . . Please forgive me!
We are coming. We wanted to leave on the fifth, but ... we were held up by a medical congress. Then came St. Tatyana's Day,8 and on the seventeenth we're having a party: it's "his"9 name day!! It will be a dazzling ball with all sorts of Jewesses, roast turkeys and Yashen- kas.10 After the seventeenth we'll fix a date for the Babkino trip.
So you've read my "On the Road" . . . Well, how do you like my audacity? I'm no longer afraid to write about things intellectual. In Petersburg it caused quite a raucous uproar. When I dealt with non- resistance to evil a short while ago, I also surprised my public.11 The New Year's editions of all the papers ran complimentary remarks, and the December issue of Russian Wealth, the journal Lev Tolstoy publishes in, is carrying an article by Obolensky12 (thirty-two pages) entitled "Chekhov and Korolenko." The good fellow goes into ecstasies over me and sets out to prove that I'm more of an artist than Korolenko. He's probably wrong, but I'm nevertheless beginning to feel I've earned one distinction: of all those who write only newspaper trash and don't publish in thick journals I'm the only one who has won the attention of the
long-eared critics—this is the first time that's ever happened. The Observer reviled me—and did they catch it! As 1886 came to end, I felt like a bone that had been tossed to the dogs.
Vladimir Petrovich's13 play is being published by Theater Library, and will be sent around to all major cities by them.
I've written a four-page play.14 It will take fifteen to twenty minutes to perform, the shortest drama on earth. Korsh's famous actor Davydov will act in it. It will be published in The Season and will therefore make the rounds. Its much better as a rule to write short works than long ones: fewer pretensions and more success. . . . What else could you ask for? My play took me an hour and five minutes to write. I started another one, but I didn't finish it, because I had no time.
Г11 write Alexei Sergeyevich15 when he gets back from Volokolamsk. My sincere regards to everyone. You'll forgive me, won't you, for having written such a long letter? My hand ran away with me.
Happy New Year to Sasha and Seryozha.16
Does Seryozha receive Around the World?17
Your devoted and respectful
A. Chekhov
capable of finding this pearl, so why do we get only a manure pile? Give me that pearl, so that the filth of the surroundings may be effaced from my memory; I have a right to demand this of you. As for the others, the ones who are unable to find and to defend a human being among the quadruped animals—I'd just as soon not read them. Perhaps it might have been better to remain silent, but I could not resist an overpowering desire to give a piece of my mind to you and to your vile editors who allow you to wreck your talent with such equanimity. If I were your editor, I would have returned the story to you for your own good. No matter what you may say, the story is utterly disgusting! Leave such stories (such subjects!) to hacks like Ok- reyts, Prince-nez, Aloe and tutti quanti mediocrities, who are poor in spirit and have been short-changed by fate."