March 29, 1899, Yalta
Dear Anna /vanovna,
If St. Petersburg were not so remote and so cold, I would visit you in an attempt to bear off Alexei Sergeyevich [Suvorin]. I get a great many letters and listen to talk from morning to night and I know something of what is going on at your place. You reproach me for disloyalty. You write that Alexei Sergeye- vich is good-hearted and disinterested and that I do not pay him back in kind; but what, as a sincerely well-disposed per- son, might I do for him? What? The present situation has not developed overnight, but has been going on for many years, and what people are saying now they have been saying for a long time, everywhere, and you and Alexei Sergeyevich were not aware of the truth, as kings do not know what goes on about them. I am not philosophizing but stating what I know. "New Times" is experiencing difficult days, but certainly it re- mains, and will remain, a force; a certain amount of time will elapse and everything will get back into its accustomed groove; nothing will change and everything will be as it was.
What interests me more is the question of whether Alexei Sergeyevich should remain in St. Petersburg; I would be very happy if he threw everything aside for a week and left town. I "Tote him in this regard, asked him to wire me, but he hasn't sent me a single word and now I don't know what to do with myself, whether to stay in Yalta and wait for him or go north. . . . I will write Alexei Sergeyevich, but you speak to him as well and have him wire me.
Where will you be this summer? Are you taking a trip any- where? It is spring here, my health is passable, but life is tedi- ous, all this rigmarole has bored me. . . .
Hearty thanks to you for the letter and for remembering me. Keep well and happy. I kiss your hand and wish you all the very best.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXANDER CHEKHOV
March jo, 1899, Yalta Proletarian! My poor brother! Honest toiler, exploited by the rich!
When you get this letter I shall already be on the wing; the third of April I will be packing and the fourth or fifth will go north to Moscow and then to my own estate, where in the posi- tion of a man of wealth I will exploit the proletarians. And so you have not managed to swindle me out of part of my capital witi flattering words! Your plans have crashed to earth.
If it is not warm by the fifteenth of April, I will remain in Moscow as late as the eighteenth; if you wish, stop in on your way back (M. Dmitrovka St., c/o Vladimirov) ....
Keep well and conduct yourself properly and moderately.
They "Tite from home that Mother was ill, but that she is well now. There is nothing new. However strange it may ap- pear, I am undergoing financial difficulties.
My benefactor Marx has only paid me a small part of what he owes, the rest will be handed over later on, after 1900, in the coming century, and little by little. This is certainly not Eng- land! . . .
Your brother, member of the Yalta Mutual Credit Society,
A. Chekhov
Sashechka, are you an atheist?
To MAXIM GORKI
April 25, 1899, Moscov)
Dear A lexei Maximovich,
Not a sight or sound of you—where are you? What are you doing? Where are you off to?
The day before yesterday I was at Tolstoy's; he praised you highly and said you were a "remarkable writer." He likes your "The Fair" and "On the Steppe," but doesn't like your "Malva." He said, "You can invent anything you please, but not psy- chology, and Gorki is full of psychological inventions. He has described what he hasn't felt." There you are. I told him we would visit him together the next time you were in Moscow.
When will you be here? "The Seagull" is being performed on Thursday, a special performance for yours truly. I'll have a seat for you if you come. . . .
I have been getting grim, rather repentant letters from St. Petersburg1 • • • and they trouble me, for I do not know how to answer them, or what attitude to take. Yes indeed, life is a complicated affair when it is not a psychological invention.
Drop me two or three lines. Tolstoy asked a great many ques- tions about you—you have aroused his curiosity. It is evident you have stirred him.
So, keep in good health and let me clasp your hand. My com- pliments to your little Maxim.
Your
A. Chekhov
^ From Suvorin. Chekhov very probably meant that Suvorin was repentant over his anti-Zola attitude in the Dreyfus Affair.
To MAXIM GORKI
My dear A lexei Maximovich, May lB99, Me 1 ovo
I am sending you a copy of Strindberg's play "Countess Julie." Read it and return it to its owner, Elena Just, 13/15 Pante- leimon Street, St. Petersburg.
At one time I liked hunting, but now I am indifferent to it.1 I saw "The Seagull" without the stage sets; I cannot judge the play dispassionately, because the Seagull herselЈ2 gave an abom- inable performance, kept sobbing violently; and the actor play- ing the part of the writer Trigorin walked and talked like a paralytic. He interpreted his part to be that of a man without a "will of his own" and in a way that absolutely nauseated me. But on the whole it was not so bad, it gripped me. In places I could hardly believe it was I who had written it.
I shall be very glad to make Father Petrov's3 acquaintance. I have already read about him. If he is going to be in Alushta at the beginning of July it won't be difficult to arrange a meet- ing. I have not seen his book.
I am living here in comfort. It is hot, the rooks are croaking and the peasants pay me visits. For the time being life is not dull.
I bought myself a gold watch, but a very ordinary one.
When will you be here?
Do keep well, happy and gay. Don't forget, write me how- ever seldom.
If you decide to write a play, do so and then send it to me for reading. But keep it a secret until you are done, otherwise you will get kicked around and your good spirits wiped out.
I cordially shake your hand. Y0ur
A. Chekhov
Gorki had thanked Chekhov for the gift of a watch and asked if Chekhov liked hunting because he wanted to send him a gun.
Roxanova played Nina and Stanislavski played Trigorin.
Father Petrov was a priest who was later thrown out of the Orthodox Church for his heretical writings. Lenin called him "a Christian democrat, an extremcly popular demagogue."
May 11, 1899, Melikhovo
My poor, indigent Sasha,
... I am going to be in St. Petersburg at the end of May. Get yourself dolled up.
At the moment all goes well at home. \Ve feel fine. "\Ve enter- tain aristocratic guests, the Malkiels, for instance "\Ve serve tea as it is done in the finest homes, with little napkins. You would certainly be ordered away from the table, as people who smell are not permitted.
To have as few failures as possible in fiction writing, or in order not to be so sensitive to failures, you must write more, around one hundred or two hundred stories a year. That is the secret.
Is everyone still boycotting you and is it true that Diaghilev beat up Burenin? "\Vhere is Alexei Sergeyevich? "\Vas there a court of honor? "\Vrite a lot more, don't cramp your style.
I wanted to send you my old pants but thought better of it; I was afraid you might put on airs.
Tuus frater bonus,
Antonius
To OLGA KNIPPER1
june 16, 1899, Melikhovo What does this mean? "\Vhere are you? You are so stubborn about not sending news of yourself that we are absolutely at sea and have already begun thinking you have forgotten us and got married in the Caucasus. If you really are married, to whom is it? Haven't you decided to leave the stage?
The author is forgotten—and how terrible it is, how cruel and perfidious!