Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO V. I. NEMIROVITCH-DANTCHENKO.MELIHOVO, November 26, 1896.DEAR FRIEND,I am answering the chief substance of your letter—the question whywe so rarely talk of serious subjects. When people are silent, it is becausethey have nothing to talk about or because they are ill at ease. What isthere to talk about? We have no politics, we have neither public life norclub life, nor even a life of the streets; our civic existence is poor, monotonous,burdensome, and uninteresting—and to talk is as boring ascorresponding with L. You say that we are literary men, and that ofitself makes our life a rich one. Is that so? We are stuck in our professionup to our ears, it has gradually isolated us from the external world, andthe upshot of it is that we have little free time, little money, few books,we read little and reluctantly, we hear little, we rarely go anywhere.Should we talk about literature? … But we have talked about it already.Every year it’s the same thing again and again, and all we usually sayabout literature may be reduced to discussing who write better, andwho write worse. Conversations upon wider and more general topicsnever catch on, because when you have tundras and Esquimaux allround you, general ideas, being so inappropriate to the reality, quicklylose shape and slip away like thoughts of eternal bliss. Should we talk ofpersonal life? Yes, that may sometimes be interesting and we mightperhaps talk about it; but there again we are constrained, we are reservedand insincere: we are restrained by an instinct of self-preservationand we are afraid. We are afraid of being overheard by some unculturedEsquimaux who does not like us, and whom we don’t like either.I personally am afraid that my acquaintance, N., whose cleverness attractsus, will hold forth with raised finger, in every railway carriage andevery house about me, settling the question why I became so intimatewith X. while I was beloved by Z. I am afraid of our morals, I am afraidof our ladies …. In short, for our silence, for the frivolity and dulness ofour conversations, don’t blame yourself or me, blame what the criticscall “the age,” blame the climate, the vast distances, what you will, andlet circumstances go on their own fateful, relentless course, hoping for abetter future.346