Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchDecember 13, 1891.Now I understand why you don’t sleep well at night. If I hadwritten a story like that I should not have slept for ten nights insuccession. The most terrible passage is where Varya strangles thehero and initiates him into the mysteries of the life beyond the grave.It’s terrifying and consistent with spiritualism. You mustn’t cut out asingle word from Varya’s speeches, especially where they are bothriding on horseback. Don’t touch it. The idea of the story is good,and the incidents are fantastic and interesting ….But why do you talk of our “nervous age”? There really is no nervousage. As people lived in the past so they live now, and the nervesof to-day are no worse than the nerves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.Since you have already written the ending I shall not put you out bysending you mine. I was inspired and could not resist writing it.You can read it if you like. Stories are good in this way, that one cansit over them, pen in hand, for days together, and not notice howtime passes, and at the same time be conscious of life of a sort.That’s from the hygienic point of view. And from the point of viewof usefulness and so on, to write a fairly good story and give thereader ten to twenty interesting minutes—that, as Gilyarovsky says,is not a sheep sneezing ….I have a horrible headache again to-day. I don’t know what to do.Yes, I suppose it’s old age, or if it’s not that it’s something worse.A little old gentleman brought me one hundred roubles to-dayfor the famine.288