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Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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<strong>Letters</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Anton</strong> <strong>Chekhov</strong> to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO A. N. PLESHTCHEYEV.MOSCOW, December 25, 1891.DEAR ALEXEY NIKOLAEVITCH,Yesterday I chanced to learn your address, and I write to you. Ifyou have a free minute please write to me how you are in health,and how you are getting on altogether. Write, if only a couple <strong>of</strong>lines.I have had influenza for the last six weeks. There has been a complication<strong>of</strong> the lungs and I have a cruel cough. In March I amgoing south to the province <strong>of</strong> Poltava, and shall stay there till mycough is gone. My sister has gone down there to buy a house andgarden.Literary doings here are quiet but life is bustling. There is a greatdeal <strong>of</strong> talk about the famine, and a great deal <strong>of</strong> work resultingfrom the said talk. The theatres are empty, the weather is wretched,there are no frosts at all. Jean Shteheglov is captivated by theTolstoyans. Merezhkovsky sits at home as <strong>of</strong> old, lost in a labyrinth<strong>of</strong> deep researches, and as <strong>of</strong> old is very nice; <strong>of</strong> <strong>Chekhov</strong> they say hehas married the heiress Sibiryakov and got five millions dowry—allPetersburg is talking <strong>of</strong> it. For whose benefit and for what objectthis slander, I am utterly unable to imagine. It’s positively sickeningto read letters from Petersburg.I have not seen Ostrovsky this year ….We shall probably not meet very soon, as I am going away inMarch and shall not return to the North before November. I shallnot keep a flat in Moscow, as that pleasure is beyond my means. Ishall stay in Petersburg.I embrace you warmly. By the way, a little explanation in private.One day at dinner in Paris, persuading me to remain there, you<strong>of</strong>fered to lend me money. I refused, and it seemed to me my refusalhurt and vexed you, and I fancied that when we parted there was atouch <strong>of</strong> coldness on your side. Possibly I am mistaken, but if I amright I assure you, my dear friend, on my word <strong>of</strong> honour, that Irefused not because I did not care to be under an obligation to you,but simply from a feeling <strong>of</strong> self-preservation; I was behaving stu-290

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