Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchof writers who regarded as dirty not only accounts of “the dregs andscum,” but even descriptions of peasants and of officials below therank of titular councillor. Besides, one period, however brilliant,does not entitle us to draw conclusions in favour of this or thatliterary tendency. Reference to the demoralizing effects of the literarytendency we are discussing does not decide the question either.Everything in this world is relative and approximate. There are peoplewho can be demoralized even by children’s books, and who readwith particular pleasure the piquant passages in the Psalms and inSolomon’s Proverbs, while there are others who become only thepurer from closer knowledge of the filthy side of life. Political andsocial writers, lawyers, and doctors who are initiated into all themysteries of human sinfulness are not reputed to be immoral; realisticwriters are often more moral than archimandrites. And, finally,no literature can outdo real life in its cynicism, a wineglassful won’tmake a man drunk when he has already emptied a barrel.2. That the world swarms with “dregs and scum” is perfectly true.Human nature is imperfect, and it would therefore be strange to seenone but righteous ones on earth. But to think that the duty ofliterature is to unearth the pearl from the refuse heap means to rejectliterature itself. “Artistic” literature is only “art” in so far as itpaints life as it really is. Its vocation is to be absolutely true andhonest. To narrow down its function to the particular task of finding“pearls” is as deadly for it as it would be to make Levitan draw atree without including the dirty bark and the yellow leaves. I agreethat “pearls” are a good thing, but then a writer is not a confectioner,not a provider of cosmetics, not an entertainer; he is a manbound, under contract, by his sense of duty and his conscience;having put his hand to the plough he mustn’t turn back, and, howeverdistasteful, he must conquer his squeamishness and soil hisimagination with the dirt of life. He is just like any ordinary reporter.What would you say if a newspaper correspondent out of afeeling of fastidiousness or from a wish to please his readers woulddescribe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railwaycontractors?To a chemist nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as50