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Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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<strong>Letters</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Anton</strong> <strong>Chekhov</strong> to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO MADAME AVILOV.YALTA, March 9, 1899.I shall not be at the writers’ congress. In the autumn I shall be inthe Crimea or abroad—that is, <strong>of</strong> course, if I am alive and free. I amgoing to spend the whole summer on my own place in the Serpuhovdistrict.*By the way, in what district <strong>of</strong> the Tula province have you boughtyour estate? For the first two years after buying an estate one has ahard time, at moments it is very bad indeed, but by degrees one isled to Nirvana, by sweet habit. I bought an estate and mortgaged it,I had a very hard time the first years (famine, cholera). Afterwardseverything went well, and now it is pleasant to remember that Ihave somewhere near the Oka a nook <strong>of</strong> my own. I live in peacewith the peasants, they never steal anything from me, and when Iwalk through the village the old women smile and cross themselves.I use the formal address to all except children, and never shout atthem; but what has done most to build up our good relations ismedicine. You will be happy on your estate, only please don’t listento anyone’s advice and gloomy prognostications, and don’t at firstbe disappointed, or form an opinion about the peasants. The peasantsbehave sullenly and not genuinely to all new-comers, and especiallyso in the Tula province. There is indeed a saying: “He’s a goodman though he is from Tula.”So here’s something like a sermon for you, you see, madam. Areyou satisfied?Do you know L. N. Tolstoy? Will your estate be far from Tolstoy’s?If it is near I shall envy you. I like Tolstoy very much.Speaking <strong>of</strong> new writers, you throw Melshin in with a whole lot.That’s not right. Melshin stands apart. He is a great and unappreciatedwriter, an intelligent, powerful writer, though perhaps he willnot write more than he has written already. Kuprin I have not readat all. Gorky I like, but <strong>of</strong> late he has taken to writing rubbish,revolting rubbish, so that I shall soon give up reading him. “Humble*Melihovo.370

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