Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO M. O. MENSHIKOV.YALTA, January 28, 1900.… I can’t make out what Tolstoy’s illness is. Tcherinov has sentme no answer, and from what I read in the papers and what youwrite me now I can draw no conclusion. Ulcers in the stomach andintestines would give different indications: they are not present, orthere have been a few bleeding wounds caused by gall-stones whichhave passed and lacerated the walls. There is no cancer either. Itwould have shown itself first in the appetite, in the general condition,and above all the face would have betrayed cancer if he hadhad it. The most likely thing is that L. N. is in good health (apartfrom the gall-stones), and will live another twenty years. His illnessfrightened me, and kept me on tenter-hooks. I am afraid of Tolstoy’sdeath. If he were to die there would be a big empty place in my life.To begin with, because I have never loved any man as much as him.I am not a believing man, but of all beliefs I consider his the nearestand most akin to me. Secondly, while Tolstoy is in literature it iseasy and pleasant to be a literary man; even recognizing that one hasdone nothing and never will do anything is not so dreadful, sinceTolstoy will do enough for all. His work is the justification of theenthusiasms and expectations built upon literature. Thirdly, Tolstoytakes a firm stand, he has an immense authority, and so long as he isalive, bad tastes in literature, vulgarity of every kind, insolent andlachrymose, all the bristling, exasperated vanities will be in the farbackground, in the shade. Nothing but his moral authority is capableof maintaining a certain elevation in the moods and tendenciesof literature so called. Without him they would be a flock withouta shepherd, or a hotch-potch, in which it would be difficult todiscriminate anything.To finish with Tolstoy, I have something to say about “Resurrection,”which I have read not piecemeal, in parts, but as a whole, atone go. It is a remarkable artistic production. The least interestingpart is all that is said of Nehludov’s relations with Katusha; and themost interesting the princes, the generals, the aunts, the peasants,the convicts, the warders. The scene in the house of the General in390
Anton Chekhovcommand of the Peter-Paul Fortress, the spiritualist, I read with athrobbing heart—it is so good! And Madame Kortchagin in theeasy chair; and the peasant, the husband of Fedosya! The peasantcalls his grandmother “an artful one.” That’s just what Tolstoy’s penis—an artful one. There’s no end to the novel, what there is youcan’t call an end. To write and write, and then to throw the wholeweight of it on a text from the Gospel, that is quite in the theologicalstyle. To settle it all by a text from the Gospel is as arbitrary asdividing the convicts into five classes. Why into five and not intoten? He must make us believe in the Gospel, in its being the truth,and then settle it all by texts.… They write about Tolstoy as old women talk about a crazysaint, all sorts of unctuous nonsense; it’s a mistake for him to talk tothose people ….They have elected Tolstoy* —against the grain. According to notionsthere, he is a Nihilist. Anyway, that’s what he was called by alady, the wife of an actual privy councillor, and I heartily congratulatehim upon it....*An honorary Academician.391
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Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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