Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO O. L. KNIPPER.YALTA, January 2, 1900.My greetings, dear actress! Are you angry that I haven’t written forso long? I used to write often, but you didn’t get my letters becauseour common acquaintance intercepted them in the post.I wish you all happiness in the New Year. I really do wish youhappiness and bow down to your little feet. Be happy, wealthy,healthy, and gay.We are getting on pretty well, we eat a great deal, chatter a greatdeal, laugh a great deal, and often talk of you. Masha will tell youwhen she goes back to Moscow how we spent Christmas.I have not congratulated you on the success of “Lonely Lives.” Istill dream that you will all come to Yalta, that I shall see “LonelyLives” on the stage, and congratulate you really from my heart. Iwrote to Meierhold,* and urged him in my letter not to be tooviolent in the part of a nervous man. The immense majority of peopleare nervous, you know: the greater number suffer, and a small proportionfeel acute pain; but where—in streets and in houses—doyou see people tearing about, leaping up, and clutching at theirheads? Suffering ought to be expressed as it is expressed in life—that is, not by the arms and legs, but by the tone and expression;not by gesticulation, but by grace. Subtle emotions of the soul ineducated people must be subtly expressed in an external way. Youwill say—stage conditions. No conditions allow falsity.My sister tells me that you played “Anna” exquisitely. Ah, if onlythe Art Theatre would come to Yalta! Novoye Vremya highly praisedyour company. There is a change of tactics in that quarter; evidentlythey are going to praise you all even in Lent. My story, a very queerone, will be in the February number of Zhizn. There are a greatnumber of characters, there is scenery too, there’s a crescent moon,there’s a bittern that cries far, far away: “Boo-oo! boo-oo!” like a cowshut up in a shed. There’s everything in it.*An actor at the Art Theatre at that time playing Johannes inHauptmann’s “Lonely Lives.”380