She is the type of female whom males do not conquer with the brilliance of their plumage, nor with their suppleness, nor with their courage, but with their laments, whimpers and recitals of failure. This is a woman who loves men in the period of their decline. Ivanov hardly had time to become disheartened before the young lady was Johnny-on-the-spot. She was only waiting for this moment. Goodness, she has such a noble, sacred prob- lem! She will raise the fallen, get him up onto his feet, give him happiness. . . . It is not Ivanov she loves, but this prob- lem. . . . Sasha struggles with Ivanov a whole year but he just will not rise from the dead and keeps sinking lower.
My fingers ache, and so I'll conclude. . . . If all the above- mentioned points are not in the play, then there's no sense even talking about producing it. It would mean I had not written what I had intended. Take the play back. I do not wish to preach heresy on the stage. If the audience leaves the theatre with the consciousness that Ivanovs are villains, while the Doc- tor Lvovs are great people, I will be forced to resign from the theatre and send my pen to hell. And you can't accomplish any- thing with revisions and interpolations. No revisions can make a great man step down from his pedestal and no interpolations can turn a scoundrel into an ordinary mortal. Sasha can be brought on at the final curtain, but I simply cannot add any more to Ivanov and Lvov. I don't know why. If I add anything, I merely feel that I will spoil it even more. Please believe my instincts, which after all are those of an author.
. . . Don't for any reason whatever allow Kiselevski to play the count! My play caused him a good deal of grief in Moscow! Wherever he went he complained he had been forced to act this son-of-a-bitch role. Why should I distress him again?
. . . God, how I must have wearied you with this letter! Enough, basta!
Happy New Year! Hurrah!
You lucky ones, you will be drinking, or have already drunk, champagne, while I indulge in slops!
. . . My compliments to you all, and I kiss Anna Ivanovna's hand. Keep well.
Your
A. Chekhov
If the audience does not understand "blood and iron," then the hell with it, i.e., with the blood in which there is no iron.
I have read over this letter. In characterizing Ivanov the word "Russian" occurs frequently. Don't be angry on its ac- count. When I wrote the play I had in view only what really mattered, that is, only typical Russian traits. In that light, ex- cessive excitability, the sense of guilt, and the inclination to weariness are purely Russian. Germans never get worked up and therefore Germany knows neither disillusioned people nor superfluous and overweary ones. . . . The excitation of the French always remains at the same level, without acute rises or falls, and therefore the Frenchman, until advanced senility sets in, is normally excited. In other words, the Frenchman doesn't have to waste his energy on inordinate excitement; he dispenses his strength with common sense, and that is why he never goes bankrupt.
In my play, naturally I did not employ such terms as Russian, excitability, exhaustion and so on—in full confidence that the reader and spectator would be attentive and would not require a sign reading: Dis ain't no melon, dis is a plum." I tried to express myself simply, did not resort to deceptions and had no suspicion that my readers and spectators would trip up my characters in every phrase they uttered, stress the talks about the dowry, etc.
I was not able to write the play I wished to write. Of course it's a pity. In my imagination Ivanov and Lvov appear as living people. I am telling you in all sincerity and in accordance with the dictates of my conscience that these people were born in my head and not out of ocean spray, or preconceived ideas, not out of "intellectuality," and not by sheer accident. They are the result of observation and the study of life. They are still in my brain and I feel I have not lied, not by a single centimetre, nor have I been too smart-alecky by a single iota. If these figures have emerged on paper lifeless and indistinct, it is not they who are to blame, but my lack of ability to convey my ideas. Seems as though it's too soon for me to take up play writing.
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
January 7, 1889, Moscow . . . Davidov is playing Ivanov. \Vhich is to say I must write as tersely and colorlessly as possible, remembering that all subtleties and "nuances" will merge into a gray mass and pro- duce nothing but tedium. Can Davidov actually be first tender and then raging? \Vhen he plays serious roles, a little grinding machine sits in his throat, monotonous and weak voiced, and performs in his stead. . ..
Ivanov has two long monologues which are decisive for the play: one in Act III and the other at the end of Act IV. The first should be sung, the second read savagely. Both are im- possible for Davidov. He will deliver both monologues "in- telligently," i.e., with overwhelming languor.
. . . I would with great pleasure read an essay before the Literary Society whence carne the idea of writing "Ivanov." I would make a public confession. I have long cherished the audacious notion of summing up all that has hitherto been writ- ten about complaining and melancholy people, and would have my Ivanov proclaim the ultimate in such writing. It seems to me that all Russian novelists and playwrights have felt a need to depict the mournful man and that they have all written in- stinctively, without having definite images or a point of view. I tried consciously to get on the right track, and practically did so, but my manner of presentation is not worth a hoot in hell. It would have ben much better to wait! I rejoice that I did not heed Grigorovich's advice two or three years ago and write a nmel! I can imagine how much good stuff I would have spoiled if I had listened to him. He says "talent and freshness will over- come everything." Talent and freshness can spoil a great deal— that would be more true. Besides an abundance of material and talent, other qualities of no less importance are also required. "\Vhat you must have is maturity—that's one; second, you must have a feeling of personal freedom, and this feeling began kindling within me only a short time ago. I hadn't had it pre- viously; frivolity, carelessness and lack of respect for my work had successfully served instead.
Self-made intellectuals buy at the price of their youth what gently born and bred writers have been endowed with by nature. Go ahead and write a story about a young man, the son of a serf, an ex-small shopkeeper, a choir boy, high school and university student, brought up on respect for rank, kissing priests' hands, and the worship of others' ideas, offering thanks for every mouthful of bread, often whipped, going to school without shoes, fighting, torturing animals, fond of dining with rich relatives, playing the hypocrite before God and people without any cause, except out of a consciousness of his own insignificance—then tell how this young man presses the slave out of himself one drop at a time and how he wakes up one fine morning to feel that in his veins flows not the blood of a slave, but real human blood. . . .
Keep well then, and forgive the long letter.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
March ii, /889, Moscow . . . What do you know? I am writing a novel!! I am keeping at it, but can't see the end in sight. I have begun doing it, i.e., the novel, all over again, revising and abridging considerably what had already been written. I have already clearly sketched in nine individuals. What a plot! I have called it "Tales from the Life of my Friends" and am writing it in the form of sepa- rate, complete stories, tightly held together by the common basis of plot, idea and characters. There is a special chapter for each story. Don't think that the novel will consist of odds and ends. No indeed. It will be a real novel, a complete whole, in which each person will be organically indispensable. . . .
I am having a hard time coping with technical problems. I am still weak in this quarter and have the feeling I am making loads of mistakes. There are going to be overlong passages, and inanities. Faithless wives, suicides, kulaks, virtuous peasants, devoted slaves, moralizing old ladies, kind old nurses, rustic wits, red-nosed captains and "new" people I shall endeavor to avoid, although in spots I do stray into conventional types. . . .