Ignati Potapenko, as mentioned previously, was a novelist and playwright.
Lydia Veselitskaya was a writer.
hand in assigning the parts, I wasn't given any new scenery, there were only two rehearsals, the actors didn't know their parts—and the result was general panic, utter depression of spirit; even Kommisarjevskaya's performance was nothing much, though her playing at one of the rehearsals was so prodi- gious that people in the orchestra wept and blew their noses.
\Vell ma'am, how are you getting along? Why don't you try your hand at writing a play? You know, creating a play is like wading into a mineral bath, certain that it will be warm, and then being shocked by the fact that it is cold. Do drop me a line.
. . . Send me another two or three lines, for I do find life a bore. I have a sensation of nothingness, past and present.
My best wishes, and again my thanks.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ANATOL KONI
November 11, 1896, Melikhovo
Dear Anatol Fedorovich,
You cannot imagine how happy your letter made me. I saw only the first two acts of my play from the front, after that I kept in the wings, feeling all the time "The Sea Gull" would be a failure. The night of the performance and the day after peo- ple asserted I had created nothing but idiots, that my play was clumsy from the standpoint of staging, fatuous, unintelligible, even senseless, etc., etc. You can imagine my situation—it was a flop worse than a nightmare! I was ashamed and annoyed and left St. Petersburg brimming with doubts. I figured that if I had written and staged a play so obviously crammed with monstrous defects, I had lost all my senses and my machinery had apparently broken down for good. I was back home when I heard from St. Petersburg that the second and third perform- ances were successful; I got several letters, signed and anon- ymous, praising the play and scolding the critics; I read them with a sense of pleasure but still I was ashamed and peeved, and the thought lodged itself in my head that if good people found it necessary to console me, my affairs must be going badly. But your letter had a galvanizing effect on me. I have known you for a long time, esteem you profoundly and have more faith in you than in all the critics put together—you must have felt that when you wrote your letter and that is why it is so fine and convincing. I am quite calm now and can already think back on the play and the performance itself without revulsion.
Kommisarjevskaya is a marvelous actress. At one of the re- hearsals many people were teary-eyed as they watched her and remarked that she was the best actress in Russia at the present time; but at the performance she too succumbed to the pre- vailing mood of hostility toward my "Sea Gull" and was intim- idated by it, as it were, and her voice failed her. Our press treats her coldly, an attitude she does not merit, and I am sorry for her.
Permit me to thank you with all my heart for your letter. Please believe that I value the feelings prompting you to write it more profoundly than I can express in words, and the sym- pathy that you entitle "unnecessary" at the end of your letter I will never, never forget, whatever the future may hold.
Your sincerely respectful and devoted
A. Chekhov
ToALEXANDER CHEKHOV
November 16, i8g6, Melikhovo Your parents are sick at heart that you are not doing any- thing. I beg of you, mend your ways! Get up early in the morn- ing, wash yourself well and go to Klochkov's bookstore at 55 Liteinaya and buy:
658. Peterson, O. The Bronte Family (Currer, Ellis and An- ton Bell) St. Petersburg, 1895, 8°, covers (1 r.) With a portrait of C. Bronte! 50 k.
To VLADIMIR NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKO [1896]
752. Renan, Historical and Religious Studies, 3rd Ed., St. Petersburg, 1894, covers, 16°, 75 k.
943. Rules of the St. Petersburg Slavonic Philanthropic So- ciety, St. Petersburg, 1877, S°, covers, 10 k.
945. Rules and Memoranda of the Society for the Care of Poor and Sick Children, St. Petersburg, 1892, 16°, covers, 15 k.
All these are taken from their Catalogue No. 214. 'Vrap them in a package and if they don't weigh too much send them regis- tered parcel post, sticking on two kopeks' postage for each 2 oz. If you can get the second two books for nothing, so much the better, especially as 943 is probably out of date already. The errand is not for me but for your benefactor, His Honor the Mayor and Chief Magistrate of Taganrog, with all his medals. . . . I have already written you that an information section has been opened at the Taganrog City Library. Needed are the rules and regulations of all learned, philanthropic, bicycle, Masonic and other societies to which you would not be ad- mitted on account of your unseemly appearance. (Vukov knows all.)
I'll pay any expenses incurred. Can't I send trifling sums (up to three or five rubles) in current postage stamps? . . .
In your last letter you called me a fool. I am amazed that your despicable hand has not withered away on you. However, to your abuse I reply with a general pardon. No use paying any attention to a retired office boy with illegitimate children!
A. Chekhov
To VLADIMIR NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKO
„ . . , November 26, 1806, Melikhovo
Dear friend, *
This is in reply to the main point of your letter—why we
have so few serious talks generally. 'Vhen people are silent it is
because they have nothing to talk about or are shy. What can
we discuss? "\Ve have no political interests, we haven't any social,
club, or even street life, our urban existence is poor, monoton-
To VLADIMIR NEMlROVICH-DANCHENKO [l8g6]
ous, wearisome and uninteresting—and talking about it is as tedious as corresponding with Lugovoi. You say we are men of letters, which in itself enriches our life. But is that right? We are stuck in our profession up to the ears and it has grad- ually isolated us from the outer world; as a result we have little free time, little money, few books, we read little and reluc- tantly, hear little, seldom go places. . . . Should we talk about literature? But we've taken that up already, you know. . . . Every year it's the same thing over and over again and whatever we usually take up leads inevitably to who wrote better and who worse; talks always flag on more general or broader themes, because when tundras and Eskimos surround you, general ideas, so unsuited to the moment, quickly spread thin and slip away like thoughts of everlasting bliss. Should we talk of personal life? Yes, sometimes this can be interesting, I daresay we might talk about it, but in this area we become shy, evasive, insincere, the instinct of self-preservation restrains us and we get fearful. We are afraid that some uncivilized Eskimo may overhear us, somebody who doesn't like us and whom we don't like; per- sonally I am afraid my friend Sergeyenko,x whose intelligence you find pleasing, will blatantly reach a decision on why I live with A when B is in love with me, shaking his finger in the air meanwhile through the length and breadth of the land. . . . To put it briefly, don't blame yourself or me for our silence and the lack of seriousness and interest in our talks, put the blame on what the critics call "the times" or the climate, or the vast expanses, on whatever you wish and let circumstances take their own fateful, inexorable course, while we put our hopes in a better future. . . .
I thank you with all my heart for your letter and press your hand cordially. . . . Write when you are m the mood. I will answer with the very greatest pleasure.