Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO MADAME AVILOV.MELIHOVO, April 29, 1892.… Yes, it is nice now in the country, not only nice but positivelyamazing. It’s real spring, the trees are coming out, it is hot. Thenightingales are singing, and the frogs are croaking in all sorts oftones. I haven’t a halfpenny, but the way I look at it is this: the richman is not he who has plenty of money, but he who has the meansto live now in the luxurious surroundings given us by early spring.Yesterday I was in Moscow, but I almost expired there of boredomand all manner of disasters. Would you believe it, a lady of my acquaintance,aged forty-two, recognized herself in the twenty-yearoldheroine of my story, “The Grasshopper” and all Moscow is accusingme of libelling her. The chief proof is the external likeness.The lady paints, her husband is a doctor, and she is living with anartist.I am finishing a story (“Ward No. 6”), a very dull one, owing to acomplete absence of woman and the element of love. I can’t enduresuch stories. I write it as it were by accident, thoughtlessly.Yes, I wrote to you once that you must be unconcerned when youwrite pathetic stories. And you did not understand me. You mayweep and moan over your stories, you may suffer together with yourheroes, but I consider one must do this so that the reader does notnotice it. The more objective, the stronger will be the effect.302