Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovTO GORKY.YALTA, February 3, 1900.DEAR ALEXEY MAXIMOVITCH,Thank you for your letter, for the lines about Tolstoy and about“Uncle Vanya,” which I haven’t seen on the stage; thanks altogetherfor not forgetting me. Here in this blessed Yalta one could hardlykeep alive without letters. The idleness, the idiotic winter with thetemperature always above freezing-point, the complete absence ofinteresting women, the pig-faces on the sea-front—all this may spoila man and wear him out in a very short time. I am tired of it; itseems to me as though the winter had been going on for ten years.You have pleurisy. If so, why do you stay on in Nizhni. Why?What do you want with that Nizhni, by the way? What glue keepsyou sticking to that town? If you like Moscow, as you write, whydon’t you live in Moscow? In Moscow there are theatres and all therest of it, and, what matters most of all, Moscow is handy for goingabroad; while living in Nizhni you’ll stick in Nizhni, and never gofurther than Vasilsursk. You want to see more, to know more, tohave a wider range. Your imagination is quick to seize and hold, butit is like a big oven which is not provided with fuel enough. Onefeels this in general, and in particular in the stories: you present twoor three figures in a story, but these figures stand apart, outside themass; one sees that these figures are living in your imagination, butonly these figures—the mass is not grasped. I except from this criticismyour Crimean things (for instance, “My Travelling Companion”),in which, besides the figures, there is a feeling of the humanmass out of which they have come, and atmosphere and background—everything,in fact. See what a lecture I am giving you—and all that you may not go on staying in Nizhni. You are a youngman, strong and tough; if I were you I should make a tour in Indiaand all sorts of places. I would take my degree in two or more faculties—Iwould, yes, I would! You laugh, but I do feel so badly treatedat being forty already, at having asthma and all sorts of horrid thingswhich prevent my living freely. Anyway, be a good fellow and agood comrade, and don’t be angry with me for preaching at you like393