Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovMarch 29.… Fatigue is a relative matter. You say you used to work twentyhours out of the twenty-four and were not exhausted. But you knowone may be exhausted lying all day long on the sofa. You used towrite for twenty hours, but you know you were in perfect health allthat time, you were stimulated by success, defiance, a sense of yourtalent; you liked your work, or you wouldn’t have written. Yourheir-apparent sits up late, not because he has a talent for journalismor a love for his work, but simply because his father is an editor of anewspaper. The difference is vast. He ought to have been a doctoror a lawyer, to have had an income of two thousand roubles a year,and published his articles not in Novoye Vremya and not in the spiritof Novoye Vremya. Only those young people can be accepted ashealthy who refuse to be reconciled with the old order and foolishlyor wisely struggle against it—such is the will of nature and it is thefoundation of progress, while your son began by absorbing the oldorder. In our most intimate talks he has never once abused Tatistchevor Burenin, and that’s a bad sign. You are a hundred times as liberalas he is, and it ought to be the other way. He utters a listless andindolent protest, he soon drops his voice and soon agrees, and altogetherone has the impression that he has no interest whatever inthe contest; that is, he looks on at the cock-fight like a spectator andhas no cock of his own. And one ought to have one’s own cock, elselife is without interest. The unfortunate thing, too, is that he isintelligent, and great intelligence with little interest in life is like agreat machine which produces nothing, yet requires a great deal offuel and exhausts the owner ….133