I am writing all this for the sole purpose of exonerat- ing myself to at least some degree in your eyes. Up till now my attitude towards my literary work has been ex- tremely frivolous, casual, thoughtless. I cannot think of a single story at which I worked for more than a day, and "The Huntsman," which you liked, I wrote in a bath- ing-cabin. I wrote my stories the way reporters write notices of fires: mechanically, half-consciously, without caring a pin either about the reader or myself . . . I wrote and tried my best not to use up on a story the
images and scenes which are dear to me and which,
God knows why, I treasured and carefully concealed.
What first impelled me to self-criticism was a very friendly and, I believe, sincere letter from Suvorin.[10]I began to plan writing something decent, but I still lacked faith in my ability to produce anything worth while.
And then like a bolt from the blue came your letter. Excuse the comparison, but it had the effect on me of a Governor's order to leave townwn within twenty-four hours: I suddenly felt the urgent need to hurry and get out of the hole in which I was stuck , . .
I will stop—but not soon—doing work that has to be delivered on schedule. It is impossible to get out of the rut I am in all at once. I don't object to going hungry, as I went hungry in the past, but it is not a question of myself . . . To writing I give my leisure: two or three hours during the day and a fraction of the night, that is, an amount of time that is good only for short pieces. In the summer when I have more spare time and fewer ex- penses I shall undertake some serious piece of work . . •
All my hope is pinned to the future. I am only twenty- six. Perhaps I shall succeed in achieving something, though time flies fast.
Forgive this long letter and do not hold it against a man who for the first time in his life has made bold to indulge in the pleasure of writing to Grigorovich.
If possible, send me your photograph. I am so over- come by your kindness that I feel like writing you not a sheet, but a whole ream. May God grant you happi- ness and health, and believe the sincerity of your deeply respectful and grateful
A. CHEKHOV
TO HIS br^^er nikolay
( Nikolay was something of a painter; he designed the cover of Anton's first vol^e of short stories. The shiftless feUow was to die of cons^ption two years after this letter was written. )
Aloscow, March, 1886
You have often complained to me that people didn't "understand" you! Goethe and Newton didn't complain of that . . . Christ alone did, but He was speaking not of His ego, but of His teaching. You are perfectly well understood. And if you don't understand yourself, it is not the fault of others.
I assure you that as a brother and a friend I under- stand you and sympathize with you heartily. I know all your good qualities as I know my five fingers; I value and deeply respect them. I can enumerate those qual- ities if you like, to prove that I understand you. I think you are kind to the point of spinelessness, sincere, mag- nanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last copper; you are free from envy and hatred; you are simple- hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are trustful, not spiteful, and do not remember evil. You have a gift from Heaven such as others do not possess: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of people, for only one out of two million on earth is an artist. Your talent sets you apart: even if you were a toad or a tarantula, you would be respected, for to talent everything is for- given.
You have only one fault. Your false position, your un- happiness, your intestinal catarrh are all due to it. It is your utter lack of culture. Please forgive me, but veritas magis amicitiae . . . You see, life sets its terms. To feel at ease among cultivated people, to be at home and comfortable with them, one must have a certain amount of culture. Talent has brought you into that circle, you belong to it, but—you are drawn away from it, and you waver between cultured people and the tenants op- posite.
Cultured people must, in my opinion, meet the fol- lowing conditions:
They respect human personality, and for this rea- son they are always affable, gentle, civil, and ready to give in to others. They do not raise a rumpus over a hammer or a lost eraser; when they live with you they do not make you feel that they are doing you a favor, and on leaving they do not say: "Impossible to live with you!" They overlook noise, cold, overdone meat, jokes, the presence of strangers in their rooms.
They are sorry not only for beggars and cats. Their hearts ache over what the naked eye does not see . . .
They sit up nights in order to help P , to keep their
brothers at the university, and to buy clothes for their mother.
They respect the property of others and therefore pay their debts.
They are candid, and dread lying as they dread fire. They do not lie even about trifles. A lie insults the listener and debases him in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose; they behave in the street as they do at home; they do not show off before their inferiors. They do not chatter and do not force uninvited con- fidences on others. Out of respect for the ears of other people they often keep silent.
They do not belittle themselves to arouse com- passion in others. They do not play on other people's heart-strings so as to elicit sighs and be fussed over. They do not say: "People don't understand me" or "I have frittered away my talent," because all that is sbiv- ing after cheap effect; it is vulgar, stale, false.
They are not vain. They do not care for such paste diamonds as familiarity with celebrities, the handclasp
of the drunken P , the raptures of a stray spectator
in a picture gallery, popularity in beer-halls . . . When they have done a kopeck's worth of work they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred rubles' worth, and they do not brag of having the entree where others are not admitted. The truly talented always keep in the shade, among the crowd, far from the show. Even Krylov said that an empty barrel is noisier than a full one.
If they possess talent they respect it. They sacri- fice peace, women, wine, vanity to it. They are proud of their talent; they are aware that their calling is not just to live with people but to have an educative influence on them. Besides they are fastidious.
They develop their esthetic sense. They cannot fall asleep in their clothes, see the cracks in the wall full of insects, breathe foul air, walk on a spittle-covered floor, eat from a pot off a kerosene stove. They seek as far as possible to tame and ennoble the sexual instinct. What they want from a woman is not a bed-fellow, not equine sweat, not a cleverness that shows itself in the
ability to and to lie incessantly. What they need,
especially if they are artists, is freshness, elegance, hu-
manity, the capacity for being not a but a mother.
They do not swill vodka at all hours. They do not sniff about cupboards, for they are not pigs. They drink only when they are free, on occasion. For they want mens sana in corpore sana. . . .
And so on. That is what cultivated people are like. In order to educate yourself and not be below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read Pick- wick Papers and memorized a monologue from Faust. It is not enough to come to Yakimanka [where the fam- ily lived], only to leave a week later.
What is needed is continuous work, day and night, constant reading, study, wiU-power . . • Every hour counts.