Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends
thought the end was not far off; but the nearer Chekhov was to the end, the
less he seemed to realize it. Ill as he was, at the beginning of May he set
off for Moscow. He was terribly ill all the way on the journey, and on
arrival took to his bed at once. He was laid up till June.
On the 3rd of June he set off with his wife for a cure abroad to the Black
Forest, and settled in a little spa called Badenweiler. He was dying,
although he wrote to everyone that he had almost recovered, and that health
was coming back to him not by ounces but by hundredweights. He was dying,
but he spent the time dreaming of going to the Italian lakes and returning
to Yalta by sea from Trieste, and was already making inquiries about the
steamers and the times they stopped at Odessa.
He died on the 2nd of July.
His body was taken to Moscow and buried in the Novodyevitchy Monastery,
beside his father’s tomb.
LETTERS
TO HIS BROTHER MIHAIL.
TAGANROG,
July 1, 1876.
DEAR BROTHER MISHA,
I got your letter when I was fearfully bored and was sitting at the gate
yawning, and so you can judge how welcome that immense letter was. Your
writing is good, and in the whole letter I have not found one mistake in
spelling. But one thing I don’t like: why do you style yourself “your
worthless and insignificant brother”? You recognize your insignificance?
... Recognize it before God; perhaps, too, in the presence of beauty,
intelligence, nature, but not before men. Among men you must be conscious
of your dignity. Why, you are not a rascal, you are an honest man, aren’t
you? Well, respect yourself as an honest man and know that an honest man is
not something worthless. Don’t confound “being humble” with “recognizing
one’s worthlessness.” ...
It is a good thing that you read. Acquire the habit of doing so. In time
you will come to value that habit. Madame Beecher-Stowe has wrung tears
from your eyes? I read her once, and six months ago read her again with the
object of studying her--and after reading I had an unpleasant sensation
which mortals feel after eating too many raisins or currants.... Read “Don
Quixote.” It is a fine thing. It is by Cervantes, who is said to be almost
on a level with Shakespeare. I advise my brothers to read--if they haven’t
already done so--Turgenev’s “Hamlet and Don Quixote.” You won’t understand
it, my dear. If you want to read a book of travel that won’t bore you, read
Gontcharov’s “The Frigate Pallada.”
... I am going to bring with me a boarder who will pay twenty roubles a
month and live under our general supervision. Though even twenty roubles is
not enough if one considers the price of food in Moscow and mother’s
weakness for feeding boarders with righteous zeal. [Footnote: This letter
was written by Chekhov when he was in the fifth class of the Taganrog high
school.]
TO HIS COUSIN, MIHAIL CHEKHOV.
TAGANROG,
May 10, 1877.
... If I send letters to my mother, care of you, please give them to her
when you are alone with her; there are things in life which one can confide
in one person only, whom one trusts. It is because of this that I write to
my mother without the knowledge of the others, for whom my secrets are
quite uninteresting, or, rather, unnecessary.... My second request is of
more importance. Please go on comforting my mother, who is both physically
and morally broken. She has found in you not merely a nephew but a great
deal more and better than a nephew. My mother’s character is such that the
moral support of others is a great help to her. It is a silly request,
isn’t it? But you will understand, especially as I have said “moral,”
i.e., spiritual support. There is no one in this wicked world dearer to
us than our mother, and so you will greatly oblige your humble servant by
comforting his worn-out and weary mother....
TO HIS UNCLE, M. G. CHEKHOV.
MOSCOW,
1885.
... I could not come to see you last summer because I took the place of a
district doctor friend of mine who went away for his holiday, but this year
I hope to travel and therefore to see you. Last December I had an attack of
spitting blood, and decided to take some money from the Literary Fund and
go abroad for my health. I am a little better now, but I still think that I
shall have to go away. And whenever I go abroad, or to the Crimea, or to
the Caucasus, I will go through Taganrog.
... I am sorry I cannot join you in being of service to my native
Taganrog.... I am sure that if my work had been there I should have been
calmer, more cheerful, in better health, but evidently it is my fate to
remain in Moscow. My home and my career are here. I have work of two sorts.
As a doctor I should have grown slack in Taganrog and forgotten my
medicine, but in Moscow a doctor has no time to go to the club and play
cards. As a writer I am no use except in Moscow or Petersburg.
My medical work is progressing little by little. I go on steadily treating
patients. Every day I have to spend more than a rouble on cabs. I have a
lot of friends and therefore many patients. Half of them I have to treat
for nothing, but the other half pay me three or five roubles a visit.... I
need hardly say I have not made a fortune yet, and it will be a long time
before I do, but I live tolerably and need nothing. So long as I am alive
and well the position of the family is secure. I have bought new furniture,
hired a good piano, keep two servants, give little evening parties with
music and singing. I have no debts and do not want to borrow. Till quite
recently we used to run an account at the butcher’s and grocer’s, but now I
have stopped even that, and we pay cash for everything. What will come
later, there is no knowing; as it is we have nothing to complain of....
TO N. A. LEIKIN.
MOSCOW,
October, 1885.
... You advise me to go to Petersburg, and say that Petersburg is not
China. I know it is not, and as you are aware, I have long realized the
necessity of going there; but what am I to do? Owing to the fact that we
are a large family, I never have a ten-rouble note to spare, and to go
there, even if I did it in the most uncomfortable and beggarly way, would
cost at least fifty roubles. How am I to get the money? I can’t squeeze it
out of my family and don’t think I ought to. If I were to cut down our two
courses at dinner to one, I should begin to pine away from pangs of
conscience.... Allah only knows how difficult it is for me to keep my
balance, and how easy it would be for me to slip and lose my equilibrium. I
fancy that if next month I should earn twenty or thirty roubles less, my
balance would be gone, and I should be in difficulties. I am awfully
apprehensive about money matters and, owing to this quite uncommercial
cowardice in pecuniary affairs, I avoid loans and payments on account. I am
not difficult to move. If I had money I should fly from one city to another
endlessly.
TO A. S. SUVORIN.
MOSCOW,
February 21, 1886.
... Thank you for the flattering things you say about my work and for
having published my story so soon. You can judge yourself how refreshing,
even inspiring, the kind attention of an experienced and gifted writer like
yourself has been to me.
I agree with what you say about the end of my story which you have cut out;
thank you for the helpful advice. I have been writing for the last six
years, but you are the first person who has taken the trouble to advise and
explain.
... I do not write very much--not more than two or three short stories
weekly.
TO D. V. GRIGOROVITCH.
MOSCOW,
March 28, 1886.
Your letter, my kind, fervently beloved bringer of good tidings, struck me
like a flash of lightning. I almost burst into tears, I was overwhelmed,
and now I feel it has left a deep trace in my soul! May God show the same
tender kindness to you in your age as you have shown me in my youth! I can
find neither words nor deeds to thank you. You know with what eyes ordinary
people look at the elect such as you, and so you can judge what your letter
means for my self-esteem. It is better than any diploma, and for a writer
who is just beginning it is payment both for the present and the future. I
am almost dazed. I have no power to judge whether I deserve this high
reward. I only repeat that it has overwhelmed me.
If I have a gift which one ought to respect, I confess before the pure
candour of your heart that hitherto I have not respected it. I felt that I
had a gift, but I had got into the habit of thinking that it was
insignificant. Purely external causes are sufficient to make one unjust to
oneself, suspicious, and morbidly sensitive. And as I realize now I have
always had plenty of such causes. All my friends and relatives have always
taken a condescending tone to my writing, and never ceased urging me in a
friendly way not to give up real work for the sake of scribbling. I have
hundreds of friends in Moscow, and among them a dozen or two writers, but I
cannot recall a single one who reads me or considers me an artist. In
Moscow there is a so-called Literary Circle: talented people and
mediocrities of all ages and colours gather once a week in a private room
of a restaurant and exercise their tongues. If I went there and read them a
single passage of your letter, they would laugh in my face. In the course
of the five years that I have been knocking about from one newspaper office
to another I have had time to assimilate the general view of my literary
insignificance. I soon got used to looking down upon my work, and so it has
gone from bad to worse. That is the first reason. The second is that I am a
doctor, and am up to my ears in medical work, so that the proverb about
trying to catch two hares has given to no one more sleepless nights than
me.
I am writing all this to you in order to excuse this grievous sin a little
before you. Hitherto my attitude to my literary work has been frivolous,
heedless, casual. I don’t remember a _single_ story over which I have
spent more than twenty-four hours, and “The Huntsman,” which you liked, I
wrote in the bathing-shed! I wrote my stories as reporters write their
notes about fires, mechanically, half-unconsciously, taking no thought of
the reader or myself.... I wrote and did all I could not to waste upon the
story the scenes and images dear to me which--God knows why--I have
treasured and kept carefully hidden.
The first impulse to self-criticism was given me by a very kind and, to the
best of my belief, sincere letter from Suvorin. I began to think of writing
something decent, but I still had no faith in my being any good as a
writer. And then, unexpected and undreamed of, came your letter. Forgive
the comparison: it had on me the effect of a Governor’s order to clear out
of the town within twenty-four hours--i.e., I suddenly felt an imperative
need to hurry, to make haste and get out of where I have stuck....
I agree with you in everything. When I saw “The Witch” in print I felt
myself the cynicism of the points to which you call my attention. They
would not have been there had I written this story in three or four days
instead of in one.
I shall put an end to working against time, but cannot do so just yet....
It is impossible to get out of the rut I have got into. I have nothing
against going hungry, as I have done in the past, but it is not a question
of myself.... I give to literature my spare time, two or three hours a day
and a bit of the night, that is, time which is of no use except for short
things. In the summer, when I have more time and have fewer expenses, I
will start on some serious work.
I cannot put my real name on the book because it is too late: the design
for the cover is ready and the book printed. [Footnote: “Motley Tales” is