Thank you very much for your letter and for remembering me. I lead a solitary and boring life here and feel as though
1 Roche was Chekhov's French translator.
I had been pitched overboard. On top of it all the weather is miserable and I am ailing. I still keep on coughing. I wish you the best of everything.
Devotedly,
A. Chekhov
To MIKHAIL MENSHIKOV
January 28, 1900, Yalta
Dear Mikhail Osipovich,
I cannot figure out what sort of ailment Tolstoy has. Cherinov1 failed to reply and from what I read in the newspapers and what you now write me it is impossible to draw any conclusion. Stomach or intestinal ulcers would have been otherwise indi- cated; there is no ulcerous condition present, nothing but bleed- ing scratches caused by gallstones passing through and making lacerations. He doesn't have a cancer, either, which would be immediately reflected in lack of appetite, general condition and above all in his face. Most likely Tolstoy is in good health (apart from the stones) and will live another twenty years or so. His illness frightened me and kept me in a state of tension. I dread Tolstoy's death. His death would create a vacuum in my life. To begin with, I have never loved anyone as much as him; I am an unbeliever, but of all the faiths I consider his the nearest to my heart and most suited to me. Then again, as long as there is a Tolstoy in literature it is simple and gratifying to be a literary figure; even the awareness of not having accomplished anything and not expecting to accomplish anything in the future is not so terrible because Tolstoy makes up for all of us. His career is justification for all the hopes and expectations re- posed in literature. In the third place, Tolstoy stands solid as a rock with his immense authority, and as long as he remains alive bad taste in literature, all vulgarity, be it insolent or tear-
1 Professor of medicine in Moscow to whom Chekhov had telegraphed to find out about ToIstoy's illness.
ful, all coarse, irascible vanities will be held at a distance, deep in the shadows. His moral authority alone is capable of keeping so-called literary moods and trends at a certain high level. With- out him the literary world would be a flock without a shepherd or a hopeless mess.
To wind up the subj ect of Tolstoy, I have something to say about "Resurrection," which I did not read in fits and starts but all at one gulp. It is a remarkable work of art. The most uninteresting section is that concerned with the relations of Nekhludov and Katusha; the most interesting characters are the princes, generals, old ladies, peasants, prisoners and overseers. As I read the scene at the general's, the commandant of the Peter and Paul Prison, and a spiritualist, my heart beat furiously, it was so good! And Mme. Korchagina in her armchair, and the peasant, Feodosia's husband! This peasant calls his old lady a "crafty character." So it is with Tolstoy; he has a crafty pen. The novel has no end; what there is can hardly be called one. Certainly it is using a theological device when he writes on and on and then proceeds to resolve the problems raised on the basis of a Gospel text. It is as arbitrary to use such a solution as it is to divide criminals into five classes. Why five and not ten? Why use a text from the Gospels and not from the Koran? First you ought to make people believe in the truth of the Gospels and then you can go ahead and solve your problem with a Gospel text.
. . . I have been ailing for some weeks and have attempted to get over my indisposition. Now I am at home with a blister under my left clavicle and don't feel too bad. The blister doesn't bother me but the resulting red spot does.
I am certainly going to send you my photograph. I am pleased to have acquired the title of academician, since it is nice know- ing that Sigma envies me. But I shall be even gladder when I lose this title after some misunderstanding. And there will un- doubtedly be misunderstandings, because the learned academi- cians are very much afraid that we shall shock them. Tolstoy was elected with a gnashing of teeth. In their opinion he is a nihilist. At least that was how a lady, the wife of a very im- portant person, entitled him, and I congratulate him upon it with all my heart . . . .
Keep well, and let me press your hand warmly. . . .
Yours,
Write! A Chekhov
To MIKHAIL CHEKHOV
january 29, /900, Ya1ta
Dear Michel,
This is in reply to your letter.
I was never in Torjok in my life and never sent anyone a telegram from there. I left St. Petersburg the day following the performance of "The Seagull" and was accompanied to the station by Suvorin's valet and Potapenko.
Suvorin knew in detail about the sale of my works to Marx and under what conditions it took place. When the straight question was put to him as to whether he wished to purchase them, he replied that he had no money, that his children would not permit him to do so and that nobody could offer more than Marx.
An advance of 2o,ooo would actually mean purchasing my works for 2o,ooo, as I would never be able to wrest myself free from my debts.
When everything was concluded with Marx, A. S. wrote me he was very glad of it, because his conscience had always troubled him on account of the bad job he had made of pub- lishing my work.
Nobody in Nice talked about the trend "New Times" was taking.
The "relations" I wrote you about (of course you shouldn't have been so frank with the Suvorins) began to change dras- tically when A. S. himself wrote me there was nothing more for us to write to each other.
His presses started printing a complete edition of my works but did not continue, as the printers kept losing my manuscripts and there was no reply to my letters; this careless attitude caused me to despair; I had tuberculosis and had to consider what steps to take to prevent dumping my works upon my heirs in a messy, practically valueless heap.
Of course I should not have told you all this, as it is much too personal and only a nuisance; but I have to tell you all this because they have got you in their clutches and have presented the affair to you in that light, so read these eight points and think them over carefully. Talk of reconciliation is out of the question, as Suvorin and I did not quarrel and are again corre- sponding as if nothing had happened. Anna Ivanovna is a nice woman, but she is very sharp. I believe she is kindly disposed, but when I talk with her I never forget for an instant that she is an artful character and that A. S. is a very good man and publishes "New Times." I am writing this for you alone.
Everything is all right here. Mother was slightly ill but has recovered. Did you see Masha in Moscow?
... I wish you both good health and all the best.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To MAXIM GORKI
February igoo, Yalta
Dear A lexei Maximovich,
Thank you for the letter and your words about Tolstoy and "Uncle Vanya," which I haven't seen on the stage; thanks gen- erally for not forgetting me. You feel like lying down and dying in this blessed Yalta unless you get letters. Indolence, a silly winter with a constant temperature just above freezing, the utter absence of interesting women, the pigs' snouts you en- counter along the boardwalk—such factors can drive one to wrack and ruin in no time at all. I am tired out, and it seems to me the winter has been ten years long.
Are you suffering from pleurisy? If so, why do you remain in Nizhni, why? What are you doing in this Nizhni, may I ask incidentally? What's the tar that keeps you sticking to this city? If you like Moscow, as you say you do, why don't you live in it? Moscow has theatres and all sorts of other things, and the main point is its handiness to the border, while if you continue living in Nizhni you will just get stuck there and never get any farther than Vasilsursk. You must see more and know more, you must have a wider range. Your imagination is quick to catch and grip, but it is like a big stove that isn't fed enough wood. You can feel this lack in general, and your stories reveal it in particular; you will present two or three strong figures, but they stand aloof, apart from the mass; it is evident that they are alive in your imagination, but it is only they who live—the mass is not grasped properly. I am excluding from this generalization your Crimean things ("My Companion," for example), where you get a feeling not alone of the figures but of the human mass from which they are derived, and of the atmosphere and per- spective—in short, of everything that should be there. You see what a talking to I have given you—and all to get you out of Nizhni. You are a young, vigorous, hardy individual; in your place I would be off for India, for God only knows where, and I would get myself a couple of university degrees. I would in- deed—you may laugh at me, but I am so exasperated that I am forty years old, am short of breath and suffer from all sorts of nonsensical ailments that prevent my living like a free soul. At any rate, be a good man and a good comrade, don't get angry at my reading you written sermons, like a churchman.