Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO E. P. YEGOROV.MOSCOW, December 11, 1891.HONOURED EVGRAF PETROVITCH,I write to explain why my journey to you did not come off. I wasintending to come to you not as a special correspondent, but on acommission from, or more correctly by agreement with, a smallcircle of people who want to do something for the famine-strickenpeasants. The point is that the public does not trust the administrationand so is deterred from subscribing. There are a thousand legendsand fables about the waste, the shameless theft, and so on.People hold aloof from the Episcopal department and are indignantwith the Red Cross. The owner of our beloved Babkino, the ZemskyNatchalnik, rapped out to me, bluntly and definitely: “The RedCross in Moscow are thieves.” Such being the state of feeling, thegovernment can scarcely expect serious help from the public. Andyet the public wants to help and its conscience is uneasy. In Septemberthe educated and wealthy classes of Moscow formed themselvesinto circles, thought, talked, and applied for advice to leading persons;everyone was talking of how to get round the government andorganize independently. They decided to send to the famine-strickenprovinces their own agents, who should make acquaintance withthe position on the spot, open feeding centres, and so on. Some ofthe leaders of these circles, persons of weight, went to Durnovo toask permission, and Durnovo refused it, declaring that the organizationof relief must be left to the Episcopal department and theRed Cross. In short, private initiative was suppressed at its first efforts.Everyone was cast down and dispirited; some were furious,some simply washed their hands of the whole business. One musthave the courage and authority of Tolstoy to act in opposition to allprohibitions and prevailing sentiments, and to follow the dictatesof duty.Well, now about myself. I am in complete sympathy with individualinitiative, for every man has the right to do good in the wayhe thinks best; but all the discussion concerning the government,the Red Cross, and so on, seemed to me inopportune and impracti-282
Anton Chekhovcal. I imagined that with coolness and good humour, one might getround all the terrors and delicacy of the position, and that there wasno need to go to the Minister about it. I went to Sahalin without asingle letter of recommendation, and yet I did everything I wantedto. Why cannot I go to the famine-stricken provinces? I remembered,too, such representatives of the government as you, Kiselyov,and all the Zemsky Natchalniks and tax inspectors of my acquaintance—allextremely decent people, worthy of complete confidence.And I resolved—if only for a small region—to combine the twoelements of officialdom and private initiative. I want to come andconsult you as soon as I can. The public trusts me; it would trustyou, too, and I might reckon on succeeding. Do you remember Iwrote to you? Suvorin came to Moscow at the time; I complained tohim that I did not know your address. He telegraphed to Baranov,and Baranov was so kind as to send it to me. Suvorin was ill withinfluenza; as a rule when he comes to Moscow we spend whole daystogether discussing literature, of which he has a wide knowledge;we did the same on this occasion, and in consequence I caught hisinfluenza, was laid up, and had a raging cough. Korolenko was inMoscow, and he found me ill. Lung complications kept me ill for awhole month, confined to the house and unable to do anything.Now I am on the way to recovery, though I still cough and am thin.There is the whole story for you. If it had not been for the influenzawe might together perhaps have succeeded in extracting two or threethousand or more from the public.Your exasperation with the press I can quite understand. The lucubrationsof the journalists annoy you who know the true positionof affairs, in the same way as the lucubrations of the profane aboutdiphtheria annoy me as a doctor. But what would you have? Russiais not England and is not France. Our newspapers are not rich andthey have very few men at their disposal. To send to the Volga aprofessor of the Petrovsky Academy or an Engelhardt is expensive:to send a talented and business-like member of the staff is impossibletoo—he is wanted at home. The Times could organize a censusin the famine-stricken provinces at its own expense, could settle aKennan in every district, paying him forty roubles a day, and thensomething sensible could be done; but what can the Russkiya283
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