By the way, amongst your papers and magazines there was a quotation from some newspaper praising German housemaids for working all day long, like convict labor, and getting only two or three rubles a month pay for it. "New Times" endorses this praise and adds as its own commentary that one of our mis- fortunes is that we keep many unnecessary servants. In my opin- ion the Germans are scoundrels and bad political economists. In the first place one should not talk about servants in a tone implying they are criminals; in the second place, servants are worthy people and composed of the same flesh and blood as Bismarck; they are not slaves, but free workers; in the third place, the better labor is paid, the happier the country is, and each of us should strive to see that labor is paid better. Not to speak of the Christian point of view! As to unnecessary servants, well, they are kept only where there is plenty of money and are paid more than the heads of departments. They should not be taken into account, for they constitute an accidental phe- nomenon and not an organic one.
\Vhy don t you come to Moscow? How well we would get along together!
Your
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
May 1889, Sumy
Dear Alexei Sergeyevich,
I am writing you upon my return from a crabbing expedition. The weather is superb. Everything sings, blooms and gleams with beauty. The garden is already completely green, and even the oaks have blossomed forth. The busy worms have given a white coat to the trunks of the apple, pear, cherry and plum trees. All these trees bloom white, which makes them startlingly like brides in their wedding dresses: white frocks, white flowers and a look of innocence, as though they were ashamed to have people stare at them. Every day billions of beings are born. Nightingales, bitterns, cuckoos and other winged creatures lift their voices night and day, with frogs to accompany them. Every hour of the day and night has some particular quality. Thus, at nine in the evening the garden literally roars with May beetles. The nights are moonlit, the days bright. What with all the foregoing I am in a good mood, and were it not for the coughing artist and the mosquitoes, against which even Elpe's prescription is no help, I would be a perfect Potemkin. Nature is an excellent sedative. It pacifies, i.e., makes a man carefree. And being carefree is of the essence in this world. Only such people are able to look upon things clearly, to be just and to work properly—of course, this pertains only to clever and generous people; egoists and empty heads are indifferent enough as it is.
You write that I have grown lazy. This doesn't mean I have become any lazier than I used to be. I do as much work now as I did three or five years ago. Working and looking like a work- ing person at intervals from nine in the morning to dinner and from evening tea until retiring have become habits with me, and in this respect I am like a regular official. If two stories a month don't emerge out of my efforts, or io,ooo yearly income, it is not laziness that is to blame, but my basic psychological makeup; for medicine I am not fond enough of money, and for literature I don't have sufficient passion, and, consequently, talent. My creative fire burns at a slow, even pace, without llash and crackle, although sometimes I may write fifty or sixty pages at one swoop in one night or, absorbed by my work, I will keep myself from going to bed when I feel sleepy; for the same rea- son I am not remarkable either for stupidity or brilliance. I am afraid that in this respect I am very like Goncharov,1 whom I don't like although he stands miles above me in talent. I don't have much passion; add to this fact the following symptom of a psychopathic condition: for the past two years and for no earthly reason I have become sick of seeing my works in print, have grown indifferent to reviews, talks on literature, slanders, successes, failures, and big fees—in short, I have become an utter fool. There is a sort of stagnation in my soul. I explain this by the stagnation in my personal life. I am not disillusioned, not weary, not dispirited, but everything has just become less interesting somehow. I must add some gunpowder to my makeup.
Imagine, the first act of my "\Vood Demon" is ready. It's a fair piece of work, though long. I feel a much greater sense of power than I did while I was writing "Ivanov." The play will be ready by the beginning of June. Look out, you directors, the 5,ooo are mine! The play is awfully queer, and I am amazed
1 Goncharov was best known as the author of the famous novel Oblomov.
that such peculiar things can issue from my pen. My one fear is that the censor won't allow it. I am also writing a novel that is more to my liking and closer to my heart than the "Wood Demon," which obliges me to resort to slyness and act like an idiot. Last night I recalled that I had promised Varlamov I'd write him a one-act comedy. I did so today and sent it off. You see what a ferment goes on within me! And you write that I've grown lazy!
. . . My brother writes that he has tortured himself with his play. I am glad. Let him. He viewed "Tatiana Repina" and "Ivanov" at the theatre with frightful condescension and during the intermissions drank cognac and deigned to criticize graci- ously. All these people judge plays in a manner which supposes they are ,ery easy to write. They aren't aware, either, that writ- ing a good play is difficult, and writing a bad one is twice as hard and a horrible job. I would like the entire public merged into a single person and ha\e it write a play, whereupon you and I would sit in a box and hiss it. ...
Please bring me some forbidden books and newspapers from abroad. Were it not for our artist, I would go with you . . . .
If you should play roulette, put twenty-five francs on for me just for luck.
Well, God grant you health and all the best.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
May I), 1889, Sumy If you haven't left yet for abroad, I will reply to your letter on Bourget,1 and will be brief. Among other things you write: "Let us pursue the science of matter as usual, but let us also
1 Paul Bourget, the French novelist.
keep for ourselves a place of refuge from this everlasting con- cern with matter." The science of matter is being pursued as usual, and the places of refuge are also on hand, and I don't think anybody is intruding there. If there is any intrusion, it will certainly be that of the natural sciences and not of the sacred places where one can take refuge from them. In my letter the problem was put more correctly and inoffensively than in yours, and I am closer to the "life of the spirit" than you. You speak of the right of one or another field of learning to exist, while I, on the other hand, speak not of any right, but of peace. I don't want people to see war where there isn't any. Branches of knowledge have always got along peaceably. Anatomy and elegant letters have an equally illustrious ancestry, the same aims, the same enemy—the devil—and there is no reason for them to battle with each other. They don't struggle against each other for existence. If a man understands the circulatory system, he is rich; if in addition he also studies the history of religion and knows the ballad "I Recall the \Vond'rous Moment," he is the gainer thereby; accordingly we are treating only of plus quantities. That is why geniuses have never struggled and in Goethe - the naturalist lived in harmony along with the poet.
It is not that branches of knowledge fight with one another, not poetry with anatomy, but fallacies, i.e., people. When a man does not understand a thing, he feels discord within himself: he seeks causes for this dissonance not in himself, as he should, but outside himself, and the result is war with something he does not understand. During the Middle Ages alchemy developed gradually, naturally and peacefully into chemistry; astrology into astronomy; the monks did not understand what was taking place, saw the process as war, and so gave battle. . . .