book.
I rest all my hopes on the future. I am only twenty-six. Perhaps I shall succeed in doing something, though time flies fast.
Forgive my long letter and do not blame a man because, for the first time in his life, he has made bold to treat himself to the pleasure of writing to Grigorovitch.
Send me your photograph, if possible. I am so overwhelmed with your kindness that I feel as though I should like to write a whole ream to you. God grant you health and happiness, and believe in the sincerity of your deeply respectful and grateful
A. CHEKHOV.
TO N. A. LEIKIN.
MOSCOW,
April 6, 1886.
… I am ill. Spitting of blood and weakness. I am not writing anything…. If I don’t sit down to write tomorrow, you must forgive me — I shall not send you a story for the Easter number. I ought to go to the South but I have no money…. I am afraid to submit myself to be sounded by my colleagues. I am inclined to think it is not so much my lungs as my throat that is at fault…. I have no fever.
TO MADAME M. V. KISELYOV.
BABKINO,
June, 1886.
LOVE UNRIPPLED [Footnote: Parody of a feminine novel.]
(A NOVEL) Part I.
It was noon…. The setting sun with its crimson, fiery rays gilded the tops of pines, oaks, and fir-trees…. It was still; only in the air the birds were singing, and in the distance a hungry wolf howled mournfully…. The driver turned round and said:
“More snow has fallen, sir.”
“What?”
“I say, more snow has fallen.”
“Ah!”
Vladimir Sergeitch Tabatchin, who is the hero of our story, looked for the last time at the sun and expired.
*
A week passed…. Birds and corncrakes hovered, whistling, over a newly-made grave. The sun was shining. A young widow, bathed in tears, was standing by, and in her grief sopping her whole handkerchief….
MOSCOW,
September 21, 1886.
… It is not much fun to be a great writer. To begin with, it’s a dreary life. Work from morning till night and not much to show for it. Money is as scarce as cats’ tears. I don’t know how it is with Zola and Shtchedrin, but in my flat it is cold and smoky…. They give me cigarettes, as before, on holidays only. Impossible cigarettes! Hard, damp, sausage-like. Before I begin to smoke I light the lamp, dry the cigarette over it, and only then I begin on it; the lamp smokes, the cigarette splutters and turns brown, I burn my fingers … it is enough to make one shoot oneself!
… I am more or less ill, and am gradually turning into a dried dragon-fly.
… I go about as festive as though it were my birthday, but to judge from the critical glances of the lady cashier at the Budilnik, I am not dressed in the height of fashion, and my clothes are not brand-new. I go in buses, not in cabs.
But being a writer has its good points. In the first place, my book, I hear, is going rather well; secondly, in October I shall have money; thirdly, I am beginning to reap laurels: at the refreshment bars people point at me with their fingers, they pay me little attentions and treat me to sandwiches. Korsh caught me in his theatre and straight away presented me with a free pass…. My medical colleagues sigh when they meet me, begin to talk of literature and assure me that they are sick of medicine. And so on….
September 29.
… Life is grey, there are no happy people to be seen…. Life is a nasty business for everyone. When I am serious I begin to think that people who have an aversion for death are illogical. So far as I understand the order of things, life consists of nothing but horrors, squabbles, and trivialities mixed together or alternating!
December 3.
This morning an individual sent by Prince Urusov turned up and asked me for a short story for a sporting magazine edited by the said Prince. I refused, of course, as I now refuse all who come with supplications to the foot of my pedestal. In Russia there are now two unattainable heights: Mount Elborus and myself.
The Prince’s envoy was deeply disappointed by my refusal, nearly died of grief, and finally begged me to recommend him some writers who are versed in sport. I thought a little, and very opportunely remembered a lady writer who dreams of glory and has for the last year been ill with envy of my literary fame. In short, I gave him your address…. You might write a story “The Wounded Doe” — you remember, how the huntsmen wound a doe; she looks at them with human eyes, and no one can bring himself to kill her. It’s not a bad subject, but dangerous because it is difficult to avoid sentimentality — you must write it like a report, without pathetic phrases, and begin like this: “On such and such a date the huntsmen in the Daraganov forest wounded a young doe….” And if you drop a tear you will strip the subject of its severity and of everything worth attention in it.
December 13.
… With your permission I steal out of your last two letters to my sister two descriptions of nature for my stories. It is curious that you have quite a masculine way of writing. In every line (except when dealing with children) you are a man! This, of course, ought to flatter your vanity, for speaking generally, men are a thousand times better than women, and superior to them.
In Petersburg I was resting — i.e., for days together I was rushing about town paying calls and listening to compliments which my soul abhors. Alas and alack! In Petersburg I am becoming fashionable like Nana. While Korolenko, who is serious, is hardly known to the editors, my twaddle is being read by all Petersburg. Even the senator G. reads me…. It is gratifying, but my literary feeling is wounded. I feel ashamed of the public which runs after lapdogs simply because it fails to notice elephants, and I am deeply convinced that not a soul will know me when I begin to work in earnest.
TO HIS BROTHER NIKOLAY.
MOSCOW, 1886.
… You have often complained to me that people “don’t understand you”! Goethe and Newton did not complain of that…. Only Christ complained of it, but He was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself…. People understand you perfectly well. And if you do not understand yourself, it is not their fault.
I assure you as a brother and as a friend I understand you and feel for you with all my heart. I know your good qualities as I know my five fingers; I value and deeply respect them. If you like, to prove that I understand you, I can enumerate those qualities. I think you are kind to the point of softness, magnanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last farthing; you have no envy nor hatred; you are simple-hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are trustful, without spite or guile, and do not remember evil…. You have a gift from above such as other people have not: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of men, for on earth only one out of two millions is an artist. Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven.
You