Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovDecember 23, 1888.… There are moments when I completely lose heart. For whomand for what do I write? For the public? But I don’t see it, and believein it less than I do in spooks: it is uneducated, badly brought up, andits best elements are unfair and insincere to us. I cannot make outwhether this public wants me or not. Burenin says that it does not,and that I waste my time on trifles; the Academy has given me a prize.The devil himself could not make head or tail of it. Write for the sakeof money? But I never have any money, and not being used to havingit I am almost indifferent to it. For the sake of money I work apathetically.Write for the sake of praise? But praise merely irritates me. Literarysociety, students, Pleshtcheyev, young ladies, etc., were enthusiasticin their praises of my “Nervous Breakdown,” but Grigorovitch isthe only one who has noticed the description of the first snow. And soon, and so on. If we had critics I should know that I provide material,whether good or bad does not matter—that to men who devote themselvesto the study of life I am as necessary as a star is to an astronomer.And then I would take trouble over my work and should knowwhat I was working for. But as it is you, I, Muravlin, and the rest arelike lunatics who write books and plays to please themselves. To pleaseoneself is, of course, an excellent thing; one feels the pleasure whileone is writing, but afterwards? But … I will shut up. In short, I amsorry for Tatyana Repin,* not because she poisoned herself, but becauseshe lived her life, died in agony, and was described absolutely tono purpose, without any good to anyone. A number of tribes, religions,languages, civilizations, have vanished without a trace—vanishedbecause there were no historians or biologists. In the same waya number of lives and works of art disappear before our very eyesowing to the complete absence of criticism. It may be objected thatcritics would have nothing to do because all modern works are poorand insignificant. But this is a narrow way of looking at things. Lifemust be studied not from the pluses alone, but from the minuses too.The conviction that the “eighties” have not produced a single writermay in itself provide material for five volumes.*Translator’s Note: Suvorin’s play.101