I am writing all of this in an attempt to justify, in some small degree, my faults. Hitherto my attitude toward my liter- ary work has been extremely frivolous, negligent, and casual. I don't recall a single story upon which I have spent more than twenty-five hours; I wrote "The Huntsman," which you liked, in a bath house! I have composed my stories as reporters write their accounts of fires, mechanically, half unconsciously, with no concern either for the reader or myself. In doing so I tried in every possible way not to expend on the story those images and scenes which I held dear and which, God knows why, I have set aside and carefully hidden away.
The first impulse toward self-criticism carne from Suvorin's kind, and as far as I can judge, sincere letter. I began gathering my energies to write something purposeful, but I still had no faith in my own power to guide myself.
But then your unexpected, undreamed-of letter arrived. For- give me the comparison, but it affected me like a governor's order to leave town in twenty-four hours! i.e., I suddenly felt an impelling obligation to make haste and tear myself free as soon as I could from the rut I was in.
I am in agreement with you on all points. The cynicisms which you point out to me I myself felt when I saw "The Witch" in print. They would not have been there had I taken three or four days to write this story, instead of one.
I am going to stop doing work that must be done in a hurry, but not just yet. There is no possibility of my getting out of the routine I have been following. I am not averse to going hungry, an experience I have already had, but this is not a matter con- cerning me alone. I give to writing my leisure hours—two or three during the day and a small part of the night, i.e., hours suited only for minor efforts. In the summer, when I have more spare time and living costs are lower, I shall take up serious work.
I cannot put my real name on the book because it is too late: the cover design is ready and the book printed. Even be- fore you said so, many Petersburgers advised me not to hurt the book with a pen name, but I paid no attention, probably out of vanity. I do not like my little book at all. It is a hotch- potch, a disordcrly ragbag of feeble essays written at the univer- sity, slashed by the censors and editors of humorous publica- tions. I believe many people will be disappointed after they read it. Had I known that people were reading me and that you were following my career I would not have had the book pub- lished.
All hope is for the future. I am still only 26. Perhaps I shall manage to accomplish something, although time does run out fast.
Excuse my long letter and do not hold it against a man for daring to indulge himself for the first time in his life in such a delight as writing to Grigorovich.
Please send me your photograph, if possible. I have been so flattered and stimulated by your letter that I seem to want to write you not a sheet, but a whole ream. God grant you health and happiness. Please believe in the sincerity of your deeply respectful and grateful
A. Chekhov
To NIKOLAI CHEKHOV
March /886, Moscow
Dear young Zabelin1
I hear that remarks passed by Schechtel and me have offended you. . . . The capacity for taking offense is a quality confined to elevated minds, yet if Ivanenko, Misha, Nelly and I are fit
I Zabelin was a Zvenigorod landowner. He was an alcoholic. Chekhov used him as the character Bortsov in On the High Road (1885) .
subjects for laughter, why can't we make fun of you? It wouldn't be fair otherwise. . . . However, if you aren't joking and really think you've been insulted, I hasten to beg your pardon.
People make fun of what is funny, or of what they don't understand. Choose your own interpretation.
The second is more flattering, but alas! you are no riddle to me. It isn't hard to understand a person with whom one has shared the sweet delights of childhood . . . Latin classes and, last but not least, life together in Moscow. Besides, your life happens to be so uncomplicated psychologically that it would even be comprehensible to simple souls who had never so much as seen the inside of a seminary. Out of respect for you I shall be frank. You are angry and insulted . . . but not because of my gibes. . . . The fact of the matter is that you yourself, as a fundamentally decent person, feel you are living a lie; and he who has a guilty feeling always seeks justification outside of himself. The drunkard attributes everything to some tragedy in his life, Putyata blames it on the censor, the individual running away from Yakimanki out of sheer lechery pleads the coldness of his quarters, the sneering attitude of his acquaint- ances and so on. . . . If I were now to cast my family upon the mercy of fate, I would try to find justification for my act in my mother's character, my blood-spitting and so forth. That is natural and excusable. Such is the quality of human nature. I know that you sense the falsity of your position, for otherwise I would not have called you a decent person. Were that decency to depart, the matter would stand differently, for then you would make your peace with yourself and cease to be aware of the falsity. . . .
Besides being no mystery to me, it is true, too, that some- times you are rather barbarously funny. You are just a plain human being, and all of us humans are puzzles only when we are stupid, and funny for forty-eight weeks of the year. Am I right?
You have often complained that you are "not understood."
Not even Goethe or Newton did that. . . . It was only Christ who complained, and then he did not allude to himself person- ally, but rather to his teachings. You are easy enough to under- stand. . . . Others are not to blame if you do not understand yourself. . . .
I assure you, as your brother and as one who has close ties with you, that I understand and sympathize with all my heart. ... I know all your good qualities as well as my own five fingers, I value those qualities and regard them with the very deepest respect. If you want proof that I understand you, I can even enumerate them. In my estimation you are good to a fault, generous, not an egoist; you will share your last kopek with others, you are sincere; you are free from envy and hatred, open-hearted, have pity on men and beasts, are not malicious or spiteful, are trusting. . . . You have been gifted from above with something most others lack: you have talent. That talent sets you above millions of people, for here on earth there is only one artist to every two million men. . . . That talent puts you on a plane apart, and even if you were a toad or a tarantula you would still be respected, for all is forgiven to talent.
You have only one failing. But in it lies the source of your false position, your misery, and even of your intestinal catarrh. That failing is your utter lack of culture. Do excuse me—but veritas magis amicitiae. . . . For life imposes certain condi- tions . . . . To feel at ease among intelligent folk, not to be out of place in such company, and not to feel this atmosphere to be a burden upon oneself, one must be cultured in a particular way. . . . Your talent has thrust you into this charmed circle, you belong to it, but . . . you are impelled away from it and find yourself forced to waver between these cultured people and your neighbors. The vulgar flesh cries out in you, that flesh raised on the birch rod, in the beer cellar, on free meals. . . . To overcome this background is difficult—terribly difficult.
In my opinion people of culture must meet the following requisites:
They respect the human personality and are therefore always forbearing, gentle, courteous and compliant. . . . They don't rise up in arms over a misplaced hammer or a lost rubber band; they do not consider they are conferring a favor upon the person they may be living with, and when they leave that person they don't say, "You're impossible to get along with!" They will overlook noise, and cold, and overdone meat, and witticisms, and the presence of strangers in their houses. . . .