Are you self-taught? In your stories you are the true artist, a real man of culture. Least of all is coarseness a quality of yours, you are understanding and you feel things subtly and sensi- tively. Your best works are "On the Steppe" and "On the Rafts"—did I write you so? These are superb pieces, models of their kind, obviously by an artist who has gone through a very good school. I do not think I am mistaken. The only defect is the lack of restraint, of grace. \Vhen a person expends the least possible quantity of movement on a certain act, that is grace. There is a feeling of excess, though, in your outlay of words.
The descriptions of nature are artistic; you are a genuine landscapist. Except that the frequent use of the device of per- sonification (anthromorphism) when you have the sea breathe, the heavens gaze down, the steppe caress, nature whisper, speak or mourn, etc.—such expressions render your descriptions some- what monotonous, occasionally oversweet and sometimes indis- tinct; picturesque and expressive descriptions of nature are at- tained only through simplicity, by the use of such plain phrases as "the sun came out," "it grew dark," "it rained," etc. This simplicity is inherent in you to a degree rarely found among any of our writers.
I did not like the first number of the newly revived "Life" magazine. There seems to be a lack of seriousness in everything about it. ... The tone of your "Little Cyril" is good, but the characterization of the local government administrator spoils the general effect. Never portray these people. There is nothing easier than depicting officialdom in its unattractive aspects; the reader loves this sort of thing, but he is the most disagreeable and banal type of reader. . . . But I happen to live in the country, am personally acquainted with all these people in my own and neighboring districts, have known them a long time and find that their characters and the things they do are alto- gether untypical, usually of no interest, and so I think I may be right.
Now as to vagabondage. It is a life that interests and entices one, but with the years a kind of heaviness sets in and one gets glued to a place. The literary profession itself draws one into its clutches. Time passes quickly with failures and disappoint- ments, one fails to see life whole and the past, with its freedom, no longer seems to be mine, but someone else's.
The mail has arrived and I must read my letters and papers. Keep well and happy. Thank you for the letters, thank you for getting so easily into the swing of our correspondence.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
January ij, 1899, Yalta
... I have read Leo Tolstoy's son's story "The Folly of the Mir." The story construction is poor, and a straight article would have been more effective, but the idea is treated cor- rectly and passionately. I myself am opposed to the commune. A commune makes sense when you have to deal with external
To VLADIMIR NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKO [l8gg]
enemies who are always raiding your lands, or with wild beasts, but today it is merely a crowd bound together artificially, like a gang of convicts. They say Russia is an agricultural country. That is so, but the commune has nothing to do with it, cer- tainly not at the present time. The commune lives by farming, but once farming starts changing into scientific culture of the soil, the commune splits at all its seams, as the commune and scientific culture are incompatible ideas. I may add incidentally that the drunkenness and profound ignorance so widespread among our people are sins of the commune. . . .
The weather in Yalta is like summer. I leave the house evenings and go out on cold, rainy days—so as to get myself used to severe weather and be ready to spend next winter in Moscow and St. Petersburg. I'm weary of hanging around like this.
I am reading proof on the first volume, and doing over many of the stories completely. The volume will contain more than seventy stories in all. "Motley Stories" will make up the second volume, "In the Twilight" the third, etc. Except that here and there I have to add stories to make up the number of pages required by the censor.
Where will you be this spring? This summer? I would love to run away to Paris and most likely will do so. . . .
Keep well and happy.
Yours, A. Chekhov
To VLADIMIR NEMIROVICH-DANCHENKO
January 29, 1899, Yalta
Dear Vladimir Nikolayevich,
. . . Here is what Mme. Just writes: " 'The Seagull' is being performed even better and more smoothly than it was at its second performance, although Stanislavski plays Trigorin as a novelist who is much too weak physically and morally, and the
Seagull herself U'en conviens) might look a bit handsomer in the last act. But on the other hand Arkadina, Treplev, Masha, Sorin, the teacher (those wide trousers of his are a treat in themselves) and the steward—are magnificent, absolutely liv- ing people." Here you have a specimen of the reviews I have been receiving.
I think a radical change is taking place in my life; I have been negotiating with Marx and it seems the negotiations have been concluded and the sensation I feel is akin to being finally granted a divorce by the Most Holy Synod, after a long wait. No longer will I have any business with printing plants! I won't have to think of formats, prices, or book titles! . . .
How nice it would be for everybody in the cast of "The Seagull" to be photographed in their costumes and grease paint and the picture sent to me!
I am bored here. And so, keep well and happy.
Your
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
February 6, i8gg, Yalta Let me start by making a slight correction. I wired you just as soon as I was informed that Marx wanted to buy my works. And I wired Sergeyenko to get in touch with you. The offer wasn't any secret, nor was there any delay in getting in touch with you and, I assure you, the phrase you used in speaking to Sergeyenko and which you repeated in your last letter, "Chek- hov didn't want to sell to me," is based, expressing myself in the language of classroom ladies, solely on a paradox of your own.
In the copy of the contract fonvarded to me, a great number of all sorts of unnecessary items are set forth, but not a word said about royalties from the plays. I raised a rumpus and am now awaiting a reply. . . . The plays are the important thing, all the rest is not worth bothering about—I hold firmly to this old truth and consider the royalties from the plays my main- stay.
Out of sheer boredom I am reading "The Book of My Life" by Bishop Porphiri. Here is a passage on the subject of war: "Standing armies in peacetime are in essence a swarm of locusts devouring the people's bread, leaving behind a stench in society; as for their function in time of war they are arti- ficial military machines which, as they increase and develop, sound a farewell to freedom, security and glory of the people! . . . They are lawless defenders of unjust and prejudicial laws, privilege and tyranny. . . ."
This was written back in the forties.
Please send me a calendar as a token of our thirteen-year- old association It is a bore not knowing when people's birth- days are. We'll each have to think up a fitting celebration for the occasion and then talk it over. . . .
I have just been given your second letter about Marx and the sale. I believe the sale will prove profitable if I don't live long, less than five or ten years; and unprofitable if I live longer.
'Vrite me whether it is true that you are coming to Yalta.
Keep well and happy.
Your
A. Chekhov
To ALEXANDER CHEKHOV^