You promised to send me your picture and I am still waiting. I need two copies: one for myself, the other for the Taganrog library, of which I am a trustee. , . .
Do keep well. My compliments to Ekaterina Nikolayevna, Alexeyev and the entire company. I press your hand and em- brace you.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To OLGA KNIPPER
january 2, rgoo, Ya1ta
Greetings to you, sweet actress,
Are you angry that I haven't written for so long? I have writ- ten you often but you haven't been getting the letters because a mutual acquaintance of ours has intercepted them at the post office.1
2 Stanislavski (whose real name was Alexeyev) played the part of Trigorin in The Seagull.
1 The mutual acquaintance was Nemirovich-Danchenko. This was, of course, a joke.
My best wishes for a very Happy New Year. I wish you all happiness and throw myself at your feet in worship. Be happy, prosperous, healthy and jolly.
We are getting along pretty well, eat a lot, chatter a lot, laugh a lot and your name comes up often in our talks. Masha will tell you how we passed the holidays when she returns to Moscow.
am not congratulating you on the success of "Lonely Lives." I nurture the vague hope that all of you will be coming to Yalta, that I will see a performance of "Lonely Lives" and will then really and truly congratulate you. I wrote Meierhold to persuade him not to act the part of a nervous man with such abruptness. Most people are certainly nervous, and most of them suffer, and many feel acute pain, but where on earth do you see people throwing themselves around, hopping up and down or clutching their heads with their hands? Suffering should be expressed as it is expressed in life itself, not by action of arms and legs, but by a tone of voice, or a glance; not by gesticulation, but by a graceful movement. Subtle spiritual manifestations natural to cultivated people should be subtly expressed outwardly too. You are going to bring up considera- tions of staging. But no considerations can justify falsity.
My sister tells me you played Anna2 marvelously. If only the Art Theatre would visit Yalta!
Your company has had high praise from "New Times." They have shifted their course; evidently they will praise all of you even during Lent. My long story—a very peculiar one—is ap- pearing in the February number of "Life." The cast of char- acters is large, with scenery, a crescent moon and a bittern, the bird that cries boo-boo from off in the distance, like a cow locked in a barn. There is a little bit of everything.
Levitan is with us. Over my fireplace he has painted a picture of a moonlit night during haying season. There's a meadow, sheaves, woods in the distance and a moon reigning over all.
In Lonely Lives.
Well ma'am, stay healthy, my sweet, extraordinary actress. I have missed you very much.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
When are you sending your photo? What cruelty!
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
January 8, i9oo, Yalta
Happy New Year!
The holidays are over, today I bade my guests farewell, am alone again and feel like writing letters. . . .
What you tell me about the subscriptions to the paper is of interest. . . . Certainly the "Northern Courier" is widely read in the provinces. In judging Prince Baryatinski by his paper I must admit I was unfair, as my own picture of him was quite different from what he actually is. His paper won't last, of course, but he will long retain his reputation as a good journal- ist. Do you want to know why the "Northern Courier" is enjoy- ing success? It is because our society is sick, hatred is making it decay and get sour like grass in a swamp, and it craves some- thing fresh, light and free, craves it desperately. . . .
I often run into Kondakov, the academician. "\Ve have been discussing the Pushkin Section of Belles-Lettres. As Kondakov is taking part in the selection of future academicians I have been trying to hypnotize him into suggesting that they elect Bar- antsevich and Mikhailovski. The former is a worn-out, tired man, but unquestionably a man of letters; now that old age is upon him he is in need and holds a post with a horse-car com- pany, just as he held the same job as a young man because of poverty. In his case a salary and repose would be very much to the point. The latter, Mikhailovski, would put the new section on a solid basis and his selection would satisfy three quarters of our literary brotherhood. But my hypnotism hasn't worked, and the project has not been successful. The addenda to the statutes are exactly like Tolstoy's epilogue to the "KreuUer Sonata." The academicians have done their utmost to protect themselves from literary men, in whose company they are as shocked as the Germans were in the company of Russian aca- demicians. A literary man can only be an honorary academician, which doesn't mean a thing, any more than being an honorary citizen of the town of Vyazma or Cherepovets; no salary and no voting rights. They've worked it pretty cleverly; they will elect professors to be the real academicians, and writers who do not live in St. Petersburg as honorary ones, i.e., those who can- not attend meetings and exchange abuse with the professors.
I can hear the muezzin calling from the minaret. The Turks are very religious; this is their fasting time and they eat nothing all day. They do not have religious ladies, that element in society which makes religion petty, as sand makes the Volga shallow. . . .
Thank you for your letter, and your indulgence. I give you a hearty handclasp.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To PYOTR KURKIN
january /8, rgoo, Yalta
Dear Pyotr Ivanovich,
. . . Thank you for the letter; I have long been wanting to write you, but haven't had time, as I am burdened with busi- ness and official correspondence. Yesterday was the l^th, my birthday and the day I was elected to the Academy. The tele- grams I got! And the letters yet to come! And all these will have to be answered, else posterity will accuse me of ignorance of social amenities.
Do you see l\Iasha? Have you drunk her wine? There is some news though I won't tell it to you now (no time) , but later on. I am not very well, and was sick all day yesterday. I press your hand cordially. Keep well.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To FYODOR BATUSHKOV
Januarj 24, 1900, Yalta
Dear Fyodor Dmitrievich,
Roche1 requests you to send him the passages in "The Peasants" that were deleted by the censor. There weren't any such, though. There was one chapter that did not get into either the magazine or the book; that was the peasants' conver- sation about religion and the authorities. But there is no need to send this chapter to Paris, just as there wasn't any need at all for translating "The Peasants" into French.
Thank you sincerely for the photograph. To be illustrated by Repin is an honor I did not expect and for which I didn't dare hope. Getting the original will be most gratifying; tell Ilya Efimovich [Repin] I am awaiting it impatiently, and that he no longer has a right to change his mind, since I have already willed the original to the city of Taganrog, where I was born, in- cidentally.
Your letter mentions Gorki. How do you like him, by the way? I don't like everything he writes, but there are some things I like very, very much and there isn't the least doubt that Gorki is kneaded out of the kind of dough from which genuine artists rise. He is the real article. Personally he is a good, intel- ligent, reasonable and thoughtful man but he carries a lot of dead weight around with him, his provincialism, for one thing.