Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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