Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchMOSCOW, September 8.I have returned to Moscow and am keeping indoors. My family isbusy trying to find a new flat but I say nothing because I am toolazy to turn round. They want to move to Devitchye Polye for thesake of cheapness.The title you recommend for my novel—“Deception”—will notdo: it would only be appropriate if it were a question of consciouslying. Unconscious lying is not deception but a mistake. Tolstoycalls our having money and eating meat lying—that’s too much ….Death gathers men little by little, he knows what he is about. Onemight write a play: an old chemist invents the elixir of life—takefifteen drops and you live for ever; but he breaks the phial fromterror, lest such carrion as himself and his wife might live for ever.Tolstoy denies mankind immortality, but my God! how much thatis personal there is in it! The day before yesterday I read his“Afterword.” Strike me dead! but it is stupider and stuffier than“Letters to a Governor’s Wife,” which I despise. The devil take thephilosophy of the great ones of this world! All the great sages are asdespotic as generals, and as ignorant and as indelicate as generals,because they feel secure of impunity. Diogenes spat in people’s faces,knowing that he would not suffer for it. Tolstoy abuses doctors asscoundrels, and displays his ignorance in great questions becausehe’s just such a Diogenes who won’t be locked up or abused in thenewspapers. And so to the devil with the philosophy of all the greatones of this world! The whole of it with its fanatical “Afterwords”and “Letters to a Governor’s Wife” is not worth one little mare inhis “Story of a Horse ….”266
Anton ChekhovTO E. M. S.MOSCOW, September 16.So we old bachelors smell of dogs? So be it. But as for specialists infeminine diseases being at heart rakes and cynics, allow me to differ.Gynaecologists have to do with deadly prose such as you have neverdreamed of, and to which perhaps, if you knew it, you would, withthe ferocity characteristic of your imagination, attribute a worse smellthan that of dogs. One who is always swimming in the sea loves dryland; one who for ever is plunged in prose passionately longs forpoetry. All gynaecologists are idealists. Your doctor reads poems,your instinct prompted you right; I would add that he is a greatliberal, a bit of a mystic, and that he dreams of a wife in the style ofthe Nekrassov Russian woman. The famous Snyegirev cannot speakof the “Russian woman” without a quiver in his voice. Anothergynaecologist whom I know is in love with a mysterious lady in aveil whom he has only seen from a distance. Another one goes to allthe first performances at the theatre and then is loud in his abuse,declaring that authors ought to represent only ideal women, and soon. You have omitted to consider also that a good gynaecologistcannot be a stupid man or a mediocrity. Intellect has a brighterlustre than baldness, but you have noticed the baldness and emphasizedit—and have flung the intellect overboard. You have noticed,too, and emphasized that a fat man—brrr!—exudes a sort of greasiness,but you completely lose sight of the fact that he is a professor—thatis, that he has spent several years in thinking and doingsomething which sets him high above millions of men, high aboveall the Verotchkas and Taganrog Greek girls, high above dinnersand wines of all sorts. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.Ham only noticed that his father was a drunkard, and completelylost sight of the fact that he was a genius, that he had built an arkand saved the world.Writers must not imitate Ham, bear that in mind.I do not venture to ask you to love the gynaecologist and theprofessor, but I venture to remind you of the justice which for anobjective writer is more precious than the air he breathes.267
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