Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays I work at my book on Sakhalin, the rest of the week, except Sunday, on my novel,2 and on Sundays I write short stories. I work enthusiastically but alas! my family is a numerous one, and here I am, a writing man, resembling a crayfish in a net along with others of the species: quite a crowd. Every day the weather is glorious, our country place stands on dry, healthy ground, with lots of woods. . . . There are plenty of fish and crayfish in the Oka. I can see trains and steamers passing. On the whole I would be very, very content if only we weren't so cramped. When will you be in Moscow? Please write.
You won't like the French Exposition—be prepared for that reaction. . . .
I have no intention of getting married. I would like to be a
A line from Piishkin's "Remembrances."
The novel turned into the long short story called "The Duel."
little bald old man and sit at a big desk in a well-appointed study.
Keep well and calm. My respectful compliments to your fam- ily. Please write.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
May 20, i8gi, Bogimovo . . . The carp here bite with all their might. Yesterday I for- got all my woes. First I sat beside the brook reeling in carp and then alongside the deserted mill catching perch. Details of everyday life are also of interest.
The last two proclamations—on the Siberian railway and exiles—I liked very much. The Siberian railway is called a national matter and the tone of the proclamation assures its speedy completion; while prisoners who have served their terms either as transported criminals or peasant exiles will be per- mitted to return to Russia, without the right to live in Moscow or St. Petersburg provinces. The newspapers just haven't paid any attention to this, but actually it is something that has never happened in Russia, a serious step toward the abolition of the life sentence, which has for so long weighed upon the public conscience as being to the highest degree unjust and cruel. . . .
I shall expect you. You would do well to hurry, as the night- ingales will soon stop singing and the lilacs blooming. . . . I can find rooms and beds for an entire division. Keep well.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
June-July i8gi, Bogimovo
Dear Lida,
Why the reproaches?
I am sending you my ugly face. \Ve'll be seeing each other tomorrow. Don't forget your little Pete. A thousand kisses!!!
I ha\ e bought Chekhov's stories: how delightful they are! You buy them, too.
My regards to Masha Chekhova. \Vhat a sweetheart you are!
To LYDIA MIZINOVA
June-July 1891, Bogimovo
Dear Lydia Stakhievna,
I love you passionately, likc a tiger, and offer you my hand.
Leader of Mongrel Breeds1
Golovin-Rtishchev. P. S. Give me your answer in gestures, as you squint.
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
August 18, i8gi, Bogimovo I sent you a letter today with my story, and now here is another in reply to the one just received from you. Speaking of Nikolai and the doctor who is attending him you keep stressing that "all this is done without love, without self-sacrifice, even as regards his little comforts." You are right to say this about people in general, but what would you have the doctors do? If, as our nurse puts it, "his bowel busted," what are you going to
1 A "Leader of Nobility" was a chosen representathe of well-born country families and a title of distinction. The Russian words for "nobility" and "mon- grel breeds" are similar at first glance.
do, even if you want to give up your life for the patient? As a rule, when the household, relatives and servants take "all pos- sible measures" and practically crawl out of their skins, the doctor just looks like a fool, the picture of discouragement, blushing gloomily for himself and his science and striving to maintain outer calm . . . . Doctors go through execrable days and hours, God protect you from anything like them. Among physi- cians, it is true, ignorant fools and cads are no rarity, as is also the case amongst writers, engineers and people generally; but those odious days and hours I mention occur only to doctors, and because of them, in all conscience, you must forgive them a great deal. . . .
My teacher-brother has received a medal and an appointment in Moscow for his conscientious efforts. He is stubborn in the good sense of the word and will get what he aims for. He is not yet thirty but is already considered a model pedagogue in Moscow.
I woke last night and started thinking of the story I sent you. My head was in utter confusion while I wrote it in fiendish haste, and it wasn't my brain that functioned, but a rusty wire. Hurrying is no good, for what results is not creative writing but muck. If you don't reject the story, defer its publication until autumn, when it will be possible to read proof. . . .
A peasant woman was carting some rye and fell out of her wagon, head first. She was horribly injured: concussion of the brain, dislocation of the neck vertebrae, vomiting, acute pains and so on. She was brought to me. She groaned, moaned, prayed God to let her die, but at the same time she turned to the mujik who had brought her and mumbled, "Cyril, don't bother with the lentils, you can thresh them aftenvard, but you'd better thresh the oats right now." I told her she could worry about the oats afterward, but now there were more serious things to con- sider, and she comes back with, "But his oats are so good!" A bustling peasant woman, to be envied. That type doesn't find it hard to die.
I am leaving for Moscow the fifth of September as I have to look for a new apartment. Best wishes!
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
September 8, 1891, Moscow M. Dmitrovka, cjo Firgang
have already moved to Moscow and am staying indoors. . . .
"The Lie," the title you recommended for my long story,
won't do. It would be appropriate only in cases where the lie is a conscious one. An unconscious lie really isn't a lie, but an error. Having money and eating meat Tolstoy calls a lie— which is going too far.
Yesterday I was informed that Kurepin is hopelessly ill with cancer of the neck. Before he dies the cancer will have eaten up half his head and torment him with neuralgic pains. I was told his wife has written you.
Little by little death takes its toll. It knows its job. Try writing a play along these lines: an old chemist has concocted an elixir of immortality—a dose of fifteen drops and one lives eternally; but the chemist breaks the vial with the elixir out of fear that such carrion as he and his wife will continue to live forever. Tolstoy denies immortality to mankind, but good God, how much there is that's personal in his denial! The day before yes- terday I read his "Epilogue."1 Strike me dead, but this is stupider and stuffier than "Letters to a Governor's Wife."2 which I despise. The hell with the philosophy of the great of this world! All eminent sages are as despotic as generals, as dis- courteous and lacking in delicacy as generals, because they know they are safe from punishment. Diogenes spat into peo-
^ The "Epilogue" to Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata,
Gogol's Letters to a Governor's Wife.
ples' beards, sure that nothing would happen to him; Tolstoy abuses doctors as scoundrels and shows his ignorance in regard to weighty questions because he is another Diogenes, whom you can't take to the police station or call down in the news- papers. And so, the hell with the philosophy of the great of this world! All of it, with all its beggarly epilogues and letters to governors' ladies isn't worth a single filly in his "Story of a Horse." . . .