We have been having tremendous student riots. They began at Petrovski Academy, where the authorities banned the admis- sion of young ladies into student quarters, suspecting these lat- ter not only of prostitution but also of political activity. From the academy it spread to the university where, surrounded by Hectors and Achilleses heavily armed and mounted, and equip- ped with lances, the students are making the following demands:
Complete autonomy of the universities.
Complete freedom of teaching.
Free access to the university without distinction of creed, nationality, sex and social background.
Admission of Jews to the university without restrictions and equal rights for them with the other students.
Freedom of assemblage and recognition of student asso- ciations.
Establishment of a university and student tribunal.
Abolition of the police function of the inspectors.
Lowering of fees for courses.
This I have copied from a manifesto, with some abridge- ments. I think most of the fuss has been kicked up by the bunch of [. . .] and the sex that craves admission to the university, although it is five times worse prepared than the male. The lat- ter is miserably enough prepared as it is, and its university career is, with rare exceptions, inglorious.
... I sympathize with Hay3 with all my heart, but he is grieving needlessly. Syphilis is now treated very easily and we will cure him—no doubt of that.
Along with the books please send my one-acter "The Wed- ding." That's all. . . .
Keep well and happy. I put as much credence in old age creeping up on you as I do in the fourth dimension. First, you are not yet an old man; you think and work enough for ten and your ability to reason is certainly far from senile; second, and this I am prepared to state under oath, you have no illnesses except migraine headaches; third, old age is bad only for bad old people, and wearisome only to the weary, while you are good and anything but weary. Fourth, the difference between youth and age is extremely relative and conditional. Saying which, allow me to express my admiration for you by throwing myself into a deep pit and knocking out my brains.
Your
A. Chekhov
The other day I wrote you of Ostrovski. He has been to see me again. What shall I tell him? . . .
To MODEST TCHAIKOVSKI
March 16, i8go, Aioscow ... I have been staying horne without budging and reading about the price of Sakhalin coal per ton in 1863 and the price of coal in Shanghai, reading of latitudes and NO, NW, SO and other winds that will be whistling about my head when I ob- serve my own seasickness along the Sakhalin shores. I am read- ing about the soil, subsoil, sandy clay and clayey sand. However, I havent yet gone out of my mind and even sent a story yester-
3 Hay, a contribulor to New Times.
day to "New Times" and will soon be dispatching the "Wood Demon" to the "Northern Herald"—and doing so most un- willingly, as I don't like seeing my plays in print.
In a week and a half or two weeks my little book1 dedicated to Pyotr Ilich will be coming out. I would feel it an honor to stand on guard, night and day, in front of any house where he happened to be living, so profoundly do I esteem him. If one were to speak of ranks in Russian art, he now occupies the place next to Leo Tolstoy, who has long stood at its head. (Third place I bestow on Repin2 and take No. 98 for myself.) I have long held within me the daring dream of dedicating something to him. Such a step, I thought, would be the least I could do, inadequate as it might be, to express the tremendous critical approval in which I, a writing man, hold his magnificent talent; an approval I canot commit to paper because of my lack of a musical gift. To my regret I had to realize this dream through the medium of a book that I do not consider my best. It is composed of especially gloomy psychopathological sketches and bears a gloomy title that makes my dedication alien to Peter Ilich's taste and that of his admirers.
You are a Chekhist? I thank you humbly. No, you are not a Chekhist, but simply indulgent. Keep well. My best wishes.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To IVAN LEONTIEV (SHCHEGLOV)
March 22, /8go, Moscow
How are you, dear Johnchik,
Thanks for your long letter and for its true kindness. I shall be glad to read your war story. Is it appearing in the Easter
Gloomy People, a collection of Chekhov stories.
Repin, the most famous of Russian painters, the man whose traditional and conservative work is still overrated in the Soviet Union.
issue? I havent read anything of yours, or of mine, for a long time.
You write that you wish to pick a violent quarrel with me "especially on matters of morality and artistry," you speak vaguely of certain crimes I have committed which merit a friendly reproach and threaten me even "with influential news- paper criticism." If you cross out the word "artistry," the entire phrase between quotation marks becomes clearer, but acquires a significance which, to speak frankly, perplexes me consider- ably. John, what is it all about? How is this matter to be under- stood? Do you mean to say my understanding of morality puts me in a different camp from people like you and even to such an extent as to merit a reproach and the special attention of influential criticism? I cannot suppose you have in view some sort of abstruse lofty morality, since there are no low, high or medium moralities, but only one, namely, that given us in his day by Jesus Christ and which now deters you, and me . . . from stealing, offending, lying and so on. In all my life, if I can rely upon the repose of my own conscience, neither by word, deed or intention, nor in my stories or plays have I coveted my neighbors wife, or his manservant, or his ox or his ass, or any- thing that is my neighbor's; I have not stolen, dissembled, flattered the powerful or sought their favor, have not black- mailed or lived on other people. It is true that in idleness I have wasted by substance, laughing madly, overeating, drinking to excess, have played the prodigal, but surely all of this is per- sonal to me and does not deprive me of the right to think that in the morality section I do not dcviate much either up or down from the normal. No notable feats, no mean acts—that is how I am, like the majority; my sins are many, but in morality we are quits, since I am atoning lavishly for those sins through the discomforts they bring in their wake. If you really wish to quar- rel with me violently because I am not a hero, then throw your savagery out of the window and substitute for the harsh words your amiable tragic laugh—that would be better.
But that word "artistry" I fear as merchants' wives are sup- posed to fear bogey men. When people talk to me of what is artistic or inartistic, of what is stageable or not stageable, of tendency, realism and so forth I am at my wit's end, assent irresolutely and reply with banal half-truths that aren't worth a hoot. I divide all productions into two categories: those I like and those I don't like. I have no other criterion, and if you ask me why I like Shakespeare and don't like Zlatovratski1, I cannot tell you. Perhaps in time, when I get smarter, I will acquire a criterion, but in the meantime all talks about "ar- tistry" only weary me and seem a continuation of those scholas- tic polemics with which people wore themselves out during the Middle Ages.