Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends
a criticism in which the reviewer blames you for introducing a man who is
“almost a minister,” and thus spoiling the generally dignified tone of the
story. I don’t agree with him. What spoils the tone is not the people but
your characterization of them, which in some places interrupts the picture
of the dream. One does dream of people, and always of unpleasant ones....
I, for instance, when I feel cold, always dream of my teacher of scripture,
a learned priest of imposing appearance, who insulted my mother when I was
a little boy; I dream of vindictive, implacable, intriguing people, smiling
with spiteful glee--such as one can never see in waking life. The laughter
at the carriage window is a characteristic symptom of Karelin’s nightmare.
When in dreams one feels the presence of some evil will, the inevitable
ruin brought about by some outside force, one always hears something like
such laughter.... One dreams of people one loves, too, but they generally
appear to suffer together with the dreamer.
But when my body gets accustomed to the cold, or one of my family covers me
up, the sensation of cold, of loneliness, and of an oppressive evil will,
gradually disappears.... With the returning warmth I begin to feel that I
walk on soft carpets or on grass, I see sunshine, women, children.... The
pictures change gradually, but more rapidly than they do in waking life, so
that on awaking it is difficult to remember the transitions from one scene
to another.... This abruptness is well brought out in your story, and
increases the impression of the dream.
Another natural fact you have noticed is also extremely striking: dreamers
express their moods in outbursts of an acute kind, with childish
genuineness, like Karelin. Everyone knows that people weep and cry out in
their sleep much more often than they do in waking life. This is probably
due to the lack of inhibition in sleep and of the impulses which make us
conceal things.
Forgive me, I so like your story that I am ready to write you a dozen
sheets, though I know I can tell you nothing new or good.... I restrain
myself and am silent, fearing to bore you and to say something silly.
I will say once more that your story is magnificent. The public finds it
“vague,” but to a writer who gloats over every line such vagueness is more
transparent than holy water.... Hard as I tried I could detect only two
small blots, even those are rather farfetched!
(1) I think that at the beginning of the story the feeling of cold is soon
blunted in the reader and becomes habitual, owing to the frequent
repetition of the word “cold,” and (2), the word “glossy” is repeated too
often.
There is nothing else I could find, and I feel that as one is always
feeling the need of refreshing models, “Karelin’s Dream” is a splendid
event in my existence as an author. This is why I could not contain myself
and ventured to put before you some of my thoughts and impressions.
There is little good I can say about myself. I write not what I want to be
writing, and I have not enough energy or solitude to write as you advised
me.... There are many good subjects jostling in my head--and that is all. I
am sustained by hopes of the future, and watch the present slip fruitlessly
away.
Forgive this long letter, and accept the sincere good wishes of your
devoted
A. CHEKHOV.
TO V. G. KOROLENKO.
MOSCOW,
January 9, 1888.
Following your friendly advice I began writing a story [Footnote: “The
Steppe”] for the _Syeverny Vyestnik_. To begin with I have attempted
to describe the steppe, the people who live there, and what I have
experienced in the steppe. It is a good subject, and I enjoy writing about
it, but unfortunately from lack of practice in writing long things, and
from fear of making it too rambling, I fall into the opposite extreme: each
page turns out a compact whole like a short story, the pictures accumulate,
are crowded, and, getting in each other’s way, spoil the impression as a
whole. As a result one gets, not a picture in which all the details are
merged into one whole like stars in the heavens, but a mere diagram, a dry
record of impressions. A writer--you, for instance--will understand me, but
the reader will be bored and curse.
... Your “Sokolinets” is, I think, the most remarkable novel that has
appeared of late. It is written like a good musical composition, in
accordance with all the rules which an artist instinctively divines.
Altogether in the whole of your book you are such a great artist, such a
force, that even your worst failings, which would have been the ruin of any
other writer, pass unnoticed. For instance, in the whole of your book there
is an obstinate exclusion of women, and I have only just noticed it.
TO A. N. PLESHTCHEYEV.
MOSCOW,
February 5, 1888.
... I am longing to read Korolenko’s story. He is my favourite of
contemporary writers. His colours are rich and vivid, his style is
irreproachable, though in places rather elaborate, his images are noble.
Leontyev [Footnote: I. L. Shtcheglov.] is good too. He is not so mature
and picturesque, but he is warmer than Korolenko, more peaceful and
feminine.... But, Allah kerim, why do they both specialize? The first
will not part with his convicts, and the second feeds his readers with
nothing but officers.... I understand specialization in art such as
_genre_, landscape, history, but I cannot admit of such specialties
as convicts, officers, priests.... This is not specialization but
partiality. In Petersburg you do not care for Korolenko, and here in
Moscow we do not read Shtcheglov, but I fully believe in the future of
both of them. Ah, if only we had decent critics!
February 9.
... You say you liked Dymov [Translator’s Note: One of the characters in
“The Steppe.”] as a subject. Life creates such characters as the dare-devil
Dymov not to be dissenters nor tramps, but downright revolutionaries....
There never will be a revolution in Russia, and Dymov will end by taking to
drink or getting into prison. He is a superfluous man.
March 6.
It is devilishly cold, but the poor birds are already flying to Russia!
They are driven by homesickness and love for their native land. If poets
knew how many millions of birds fall victims to their longing and love for
their homes, how many of them freeze on the way, what agonies they endure
on getting home in March and at the beginning of April, they would have
sung their praises long ago! ... Put yourself in the place of a corncrake
who does not fly but walks all the way, or of a wild goose who gives
himself up to man to escape being frozen.... Life is hard in this world!
TO I. L. SHTCHEGLOV.
MOSCOW,
April 18, 1888.
... In any case I am more often merry than sad, though if one comes to
think of it I am bound hand and foot.... You, my dear man, have a flat, but
I have a whole house which, though a poor specimen, is still a house, and
one of two storeys, too! You have a _wife_ who will forgive your having no
money, and I have a _whole organization_ which will collapse if I don’t
earn a sufficient number of roubles a month--collapse and fall on my
shoulders like a heavy stone.
May 3.
... I have just sent a story [Footnote: “The Lights.”] to the _Syeverny
Vyestnik_. I feel a little ashamed of it. It is frightfully dull, and
there is so much discussion and preaching in it that it is mawkish. I
didn’t like to send it, but had to, for I need money as I do air....
I have had a letter from Leman. He tells me that “we” (that is all of you
Petersburg people) “have agreed to print advertisements about each other’s
work on our books,” invites me to join, and warns me that among the elect
may be included only such persons as have a “certain degree of solidarity
with us.” I wrote to say that I agreed, and asked him how does he know with
whom I have solidarity and with whom I have not? How fond of stuffiness you
are in Petersburg! Don’t you feel stifled with such words as “solidarity,”
“unity of young writers,” “common interests,” and so on? Solidarity and all
the rest of it I admit on the stock-exchange, in politics, in religious
affairs, etc., but solidarity among young writers is impossible and
unnecessary.... We cannot feel and think in the same way, our aims are
different, or we have no aims whatever, we know each other little or not at
all, and so there is nothing on to which this solidarity could be securely
hooked.... And is there any need for it? No, in order to help a colleague,
to respect his personality and his work, to refrain from gossiping about
him, envying him, telling him lies and being hypocritical, one does not
need so much to be a young writer as simply a man.... Let us be ordinary
people, let us treat everybody alike, and then we shall not need any
artificially worked up solidarity. Insistent desire for particular,
professional, clique solidarity such as you want, will give rise to
unconscious spying on one another, suspiciousness, control, and, without
wishing to do so, we shall become something like Jesuits in relation to one
another.... I, dear Jean, have no solidarity with you, but I promise you as
a literary man perfect freedom so long as you live; that is, you may write
where and how you wish, you may think like Koreisha [Footnote: A well-known
religious fanatic in Moscow.] if you like, betray your convictions and
tendencies a thousand times, etc., etc., and my human relations with you
will not alter one jot, and I will always publish advertisements of your
books on the wrappers of mine.
TO A. S. SUVORIN.
SUMY, MADAME LINTVARYOV’S
ESTATE,
May 30, 1888.
... I am staying on the bank of the Psyol, in the lodge of an old signorial
estate. I took the place without seeing it, trusting to luck, and have not
regretted it so far. The river is wide and deep, with plenty of islands, of
fish and of crayfish. The banks are beautiful, well-covered with grass and
trees. And best of all, there is so much space that I feel as if for my one
hundred roubles I have obtained a right to live on an expanse of which one
can see no end. Nature and life here is built on the pattern now so
old-fashioned and rejected by magazine editors. Nightingales sing night and
day, dogs bark in the distance, there are old neglected gardens, sad and
poetical estates shut up and deserted where live the souls of beautiful
women; old footmen, relics of serfdom, on the brink of the grave; young
ladies longing for the most conventional love. In addition to all these
things, not far from me there is even such a hackneyed cliche as a
water-mill (with sixteen wheels), with a miller, and his daughter who
always sits at the window, apparently waiting for someone. All that I see
and hear now seems familiar to me from old novels and fairy-tales. The only
thing that has something new about it is a mysterious bird, which sits
somewhere far away in the reeds, and night and day makes a noise that
sounds partly like a blow on an empty barrel and partly like the mooing of
a cow shut up in a barn. Every Little Russian has seen this bird in the
course of his life, but everyone describes it differently, which means that
no one has seen it.... Every day I row to the mill, and in the evening I go
to the islands to fish with fishing maniacs from the Haritovenko factory.
Our conversations are sometimes interesting. On the eve of Whit Sunday all
the maniacs will spend the night on the islands and fish all night; I, too.
There are some splendid types.
My hosts have turned out to be very nice and hospitable people. It is a
family worth studying. It consists of six members. The old mother, a very
kind, rather flabby woman who has had suffering enough in her life; she