Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO L. S. MIZINOV.YALTA, March 27, 1894.DEAR LIKA,Thanks for your letter. Though you do scare me in your lettersaying you are soon going to die, though you do taunt me withhaving rejected you, yet thank you all the same; I know perfectlywell you are not going to die, and that no one has rejected you.I am in Yalta and I am dreary, very dreary indeed. The aristocracy,so to call it, are performing “Faust,” and I go to the rehearsals andthere I enjoy the spectacle of a perfect flower-bed of black, red,flaxen, and brown heads; I listen to the singing and I eat. At thehouse of the principal of the high school I eat tchibureks, and saddleof lamb with boiled grain; in various estimable families I eat greensoup; at the confectioner’s I eat—in my hotel also. I go to bed at tenand I get up at ten, and after dinner I lie down and rest, and yet Iam bored, dear Lika. I am not bored because “my ladies” are notwith me, but because the northern spring is better than the springhere, and because the thought that I must, that I ought to writenever leaves me for an instant. To write and write and write! It is myopinion that true happiness is impossible without idleness. My idealis to be idle and to love a plump girl. My loftiest happiness is towalk or to sit doing nothing; my favourite occupation is to gatherup what is not wanted (leaves, straws, and so on) and to do what isuseless. Meanwhile, I am a literary man, and have to write here inYalta. Dear Lika, when you become a great singer and are paid ahandsome salary, then be charitable to me, marry me, and keep meat your expense, that I may be free to do nothing. If you really aregoing to die, it might be undertaken by Varya Eberly, whom, as youknow, I love. I am so all to pieces with the perpetual thought ofwork I ought to do and can’t avoid that for the last week I have beencontinually tormented with palpitations of the heart. It’s a loathsomesensation.I have sold my fox-skin greatcoat for twenty roubles! It cost sixty,but as forty roubles’ worth of fur has peeled off it, twenty roubleswas not too low a price. The gooseberries are not ripe here yet, but322
Anton Chekhovit is warm and bright, the trees are coming out, the sea looks likesummer, the young ladies are yearning for sensations: but yet thenorth is better than the south of Russia, in spring at any rate. In ourpart nature is more melancholy, more lyrical, more Levitanesque;here it is neither one thing nor the other, like good, sonorous, butfrigid verse. Thanks to my palpitations I haven’t drunk wine for aweek, and that makes the surroundings seem even poorer ….M. gave a concert here, and made one hundred and fifty roublesclear profit. He roared like a grampus but had an immense success.I am awfully sorry I did not study singing; I could have roared too,as my throat is rich in husky elements, and they say I have a realoctave. I should have earned money, and been a favourite with theladies ….323
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