Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovAugust 6.… The death of a servant in the house makes a strange impression,doesn’t it? The man while he was alive attracted attention onlyso far as he was one’s “man”; but when he is dead he suddenly engrossesthe attention of all, lies like a weight on the whole house,and becomes the despotic master who is talked of to the exclusionof everything.… I shall finish my story to-morrow or the day after, but not today,for it has exhausted me fiendishly towards the end. Thanks tothe haste with which I have worked at it, I have wasted a pound ofnerves over it. The composition of it is a little complicated. I gotinto difficulties and often tore up what I had written, and for daysat a time was dissatisfied with my work—that is why I have notfinished it till now. How awful it is! I must rewrite it! It’s impossibleto leave it, for it is in a devil of a mess. My God! if the public likesmy works as little as I do those of other people which I am reading,what an ass I am! There is something asinine about our writing ….To my great pleasure the amazing astronomer has arrived. She isangry with you, and calls you for some reason an “eloquent gossip.”To begin with, she is free and independent; and then she has a pooropinion of men; and further, according to her, everyone is a savageor a ninny—and you dared to give her my address with the words“the being you adore lives at …,” and so on. Upon my word, asthough one could suspect earthly feelings in astronomers who soaramong the clouds! She talks and laughs all day, is a capital mushroom-gatherer,and dreams of the Caucasus to which she is departingtoday.261