Keep well and don't forget this miserable sinner. I miss you very much.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ELENA SHAVROVA
September /6, /8g/, Moscow So we old bachelors smell like dogs? Very well, but let me dispute your thesis that specialists in women's diseases are Lotharios and cynics at heart. Gynecologists arc concerned with a kind of violent prose you have never even dreamed of, and to which, were you aware of it, you would attribute an odor even worse than that of dogs, with the harshness charactcristic of your imagination. He who always sails the seas lovcs dry land; he who is eternally absorbed in prose passionately pines for poetry. All gynecolologists are idealists. Your doctor reads verses, and your instinct has served you well; I would add that he is a great liberal, something of a mystic, and muses of a wife along the lines of Nekrasov's Russian Woman. The eminent Snegirev never speaks of "the Russian woman" without a tremor in his voice. Another gynecologist I know is in love with a mysterious unknown who wears a veil, and whom he has seen from a distance. Still another attends all the first nights—and stands next to the coatroom swearing loudly and assuring people that authors haven't the right to depict women who aren't ideal, etc.
You have also lost sight of the fact that a good gynecologist cannot be stupid or a mediocrity. His mind, even if it has had only moderate training, shines more brightly than his bald spot; you, however, noticed the bald spot and stressed it and threw the mind overboard. You noted and stressed as well that a kind of grease oozes out of this fat man—brrr!—and com- pletely lost sight of the fact that he is a professor, i.e., has thought and done things for some years that set him above mil- lions of people, above all the little Veras and Taganrog Greek young ladies, above all meals and wines. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and, I think, J apheth. The only thing Ham noted was that his father was a drunkard, he completely lost sight of the fact that Noah was a genius, that he built an ark and saved the world. Writing people ought not imitate Ham. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I don't dare ask you to be fond of gynecologists and professors, but I venture to remind you of justice, which is more precious than air to the objective writer.
The little girl in the merchant's family is done beautifully. The passage in the doctor's speech where he talks of his disbe- lief in medicine is good, but it isn't necessary for him to take a drink after every sentence. The fondness for corpses shows your exasperation with your captive thought. You have not seen corpses.
Now to move from the particular to the general. Let me ad- vise you to watch your step. \Vhat you have here is not a short story or a novel, not a piece of artistry, but a long row of heavy, dismal barracks.
\\'here is the architectural construction that once so en- chanted your humble servant? \Vhere is the airiness, the fresh- ness, the grace? Read your story through: a description of a dinner, then a description of passing women and misses—then a description of a party—then one of a dinner . . . and so on and on—endlessly. Descriptions, descriptions and more descrip- tions—and no action at all. You should start right off with the merchant's daughter, stick to her, and throw out the little
Veras, throw out the Greek girls, throw out everything . . . except for the doctor and the merchant's spawn.
We must have a talk. So it seems you are not moving to St. Petersburg. I was counting on seeing you, as Misha assured me you intended settling there. Keep well, then. The heavenly angels guard you. Your imagination is becoming an interesting thing.
Forgive the long letter.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
October 25, 1891, Moscow
. . . Run "The Duel" only once a week, not twice. If you carry it twice a week you will be violating an old established custom and it will look as if I were usurping someone else's space in the paper; as a matter of fact it's all the same to me and my story whether it appears once or twice weekly.
Among the St. Petersburg writing fraternity the only topic of conversation is the impurity of my motives. I have just had the agreeable news that I am getting married to rich Madame Sibir- yakova. I've been getting lots of good news generally.
I wake up every night and read "War and Peace." One reads with such curiosity and naive enthusiasm as though one had never read anything previously. It is wonderfully good. Except that I don't care for the passages where Napoleon makes an appearance. Wherever Napoleon comes on the scene, you get a straining after effect and all manner of devices to prove that he was stupider than he actually was in reality. Everything that Pierre, Prince Andrei, or even the utterly insignificant Nikolai Rostov say or do—is good, clever, natural and touching; every- thing that Napoleon thinks and does is not natural, not clever, but inflated and lacking in significance. When I live in the provinces (and I dream of it day and night), I intend to practice medicine and read novels.
I won't be going to St. Petersburg.
If I had treated Prince Andrei I would have cured him. It is extraordinary to read that the wound of the prince, a rich man, with a physician in attendance all the time and Natasha and Sonia to look after him, should emit the odor of a corpse. How scurvy medicine was at the time! Tolstoy must have had an un- conscious hatred of medicine while writing this tremendous novel.
Keep well. Auntie died.
Your A. Chekhov
To YEVGRAF YEGOROV
December ii, 1891, Moscow
Dear Yevgraf Petrovich,
Here is the story of my trip to your place which did not come off. I intended visiting you not as a newspaper correspondent, but on a mission, or rather at the bidding of a small circle of people who wanted to do something for the famine-stricken. The fact of the matter is that the public has no faith in official- dom and therefore refrains from donating its money. There are thousands of fantastic tales and fables going the rounds of em- bezzling, outright thievery and so on. People keep away from the Diocesan Office and are indignant at the Red Cross. The owner of my unforgettable Babkino, the head of the community there, cut me short sharply and categorically, "The Moscow Red Cross people are thieves!" In the face of such a mood the officials can scarcely expect any serious aid from the public. Yet at the same time the public wants to do good and its con- science is aroused. In September the Moscow educated class and plutocracy met together, thought, spoke, bestirred them- selves, invited people who knew the situation for advice; every- body discussed how to get around the officials and organize help independently. They decided to send their own agents to the famine-stricken provinces, to get acquainted with the state of affairs on the spot, set up soup kitchens and so on. Several leaders of these groups, people with a good deal of weight, asked Durnovo's permission to operate, but Durnovo turned them down, declaring that the organization of aid belonged wholly to the Diocesan Office and the Red Cross. In short, personal initiative was nipped in the bud. Everyone was crestfallen and depressed; some flew into a rage, others simply washed their hands of the project. It needed the daring and the authority of Tolstoy to act in defiance of bans and official sentiments and do what one's sense of duty directed.
Well, sir, now about myself. My attitude was one of complete sympathy with private initiative, as everyone ought to be free to do good as he wishes; but judging officialdom, the Red Cross and so on seemed to me inopportune and impractical. I assumed that with a certain amount of equanimity and good nature it would be possible to avoid whatever was unpleasant or ticklish, and that under such circumstances, approaching the Minister was unnecessary. I went all the way to Sakhalin without a single letter of recommendation, and yet accomplished whatever I deemed necessary; why then should I not do the same in the case of the famine-stricken provinces? I also recalled such admin- istrators as you, Kiselev and all my community-leader friends and officials—people honorable in the extreme and deserving of the most implicit confidence. And I decided, starting with a small district, of course, to try to unite the two elements of officialdom and private initiative. I wanted to call upon you for advice as soon as possible. The public believes in me, it would also believe in you, and I could count upon success. I sent you a letter, you will recall.