Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovwhich eats salt beef and horse-radish sauce with relish, and does notcare for artichokes and asparagus. Put yourself at its point of view,imagine the grey, dreary courtyard, the educated ladies who looklike cooks, the smell of paraffin, the scantiness of interests and tasks—and you will understand N. and his readers. He is colourless; that ispartly because the life he describes lacks colour. He is false becausebourgeois writers cannot help being false. They are vulgar writersperfected. The vulgarians sin together with their public, while thebourgeois are hypocritical with them and flatter their narrow virtue.329