Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovTO MADAME AVILOV.MELIHOVO, July, 1894.I have so many visitors that I cannot answer your last letter. Iwant to write at length but am pulled up at the thought that anyminute they may come in and hinder me. And in fact while I writethe word “hinder,” a girl has come in and announced that a patienthas arrived; I must go …. I have grown to detest writing, and I don’tknow what to do. I would gladly take up medicine and would acceptany sort of post, but I no longer have the physical elasticity forit. When I write now or think I ought to write I feel as much disgustas though I were eating soup from which I had just removed abeetle—forgive the comparison. What I hate is not the writing itself,but the literary entourage from which one cannot escape, andwhich one takes everywhere as the earth takes its atmosphere ….327