Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovALEXIN, May 13, 1891.I am going to write you a Christmas story—that’s certain. Two,indeed, if you like. I sit and write and write …; at last I have set towork. I am only sorry that my cursed teeth are aching and my stomachis out of order.I am a dilatory but productive author. By the time I am forty Ishall have hundreds of volumes, so that I can open a bookshop withnothing but my own works. To have a lot of books and to havenothing else is a horrible disgrace.My dear friend, haven’t you in your library Tagantsev’s “CriminalLaw”? If you have, couldn’t you send it me? I would buy it, but I amnow “a poor relation”—a beggar and as poor as Sidor’s goat. Wouldyou telephone to your shop, too, to send me, on account of favoursto come, two books: “The Laws relating to Exiles,” and “The Lawsrelating to Persons under Police Control.” Don’t imagine that I wantto become a procurator; I want these works for my Sahalin book. Iam going to direct my attack chiefly against life sentences, in whichI see the root of all the evils; and against the laws dealing with exiles,which are fearfully out of date and contradictory.247