Part 7 (2/2)
A. CHEKHOV.
TO V. G. KOROLENKO.
MOSCOW, January 9, 1888.
Following your friendly advice I began writing a story [Footnote: ”The Steppe”] for the _Syeverny Vyestnik_. To begin with I have attempted to describe the steppe, the people who live there, and what I have experienced in the steppe. It is a good subject, and I enjoy writing about it, but unfortunately from lack of practice in writing long things, and from fear of making it too rambling, I fall into the opposite extreme: each page turns out a compact whole like a short story, the pictures acc.u.mulate, are crowded, and, getting in each other's way, spoil the impression as a whole. As a result one gets, not a picture in which all the details are merged into one whole like stars in the heavens, but a mere diagram, a dry record of impressions. A writer--you, for instance--will understand me, but the reader will be bored and curse.
... Your ”Sokolinets” is, I think, the most remarkable novel that has appeared of late. It is written like a good musical composition, in accordance with all the rules which an artist instinctively divines.
Altogether in the whole of your book you are such a great artist, such a force, that even your worst failings, which would have been the ruin of any other writer, pa.s.s unnoticed. For instance, in the whole of your book there is an obstinate exclusion of women, and I have only just noticed it.
TO A. N. PLESHTCHEYEV.
MOSCOW, February 5, 1888.
... I am longing to read Korolenko's story. He is my favourite of contemporary writers. His colours are rich and vivid, his style is irreproachable, though in places rather elaborate, his images are n.o.ble.
Leontyev [Footnote: I. L. Shtcheglov.] is good too. He is not so mature and picturesque, but he is warmer than Korolenko, more peaceful and feminine.... But, Allah kerim, why do they both specialize? The first will not part with his convicts, and the second feeds his readers with nothing but officers.... I understand specialization in art such as _genre_, landscape, history, but I cannot admit of such specialties as convicts, officers, priests.... This is not specialization but partiality. In Petersburg you do not care for Korolenko, and here in Moscow we do not read Shtcheglov, but I fully believe in the future of both of them. Ah, if only we had decent critics!
February 9.
... You say you liked Dymov [Translator's Note: One of the characters in ”The Steppe.”] as a subject. Life creates such characters as the dare-devil Dymov not to be dissenters nor tramps, but downright revolutionaries....
There never will be a revolution in Russia, and Dymov will end by taking to drink or getting into prison. He is a superfluous man.
March 6.
It is devilishly cold, but the poor birds are already flying to Russia!
They are driven by homesickness and love for their native land. If poets knew how many millions of birds fall victims to their longing and love for their homes, how many of them freeze on the way, what agonies they endure on getting home in March and at the beginning of April, they would have sung their praises long ago! ... Put yourself in the place of a corncrake who does not fly but walks all the way, or of a wild goose who gives himself up to man to escape being frozen.... Life is hard in this world!
TO I. L. SHTCHEGLOV.
MOSCOW, April 18, 1888.
... In any case I am more often merry than sad, though if one comes to think of it I am bound hand and foot.... You, my dear man, have a flat, but I have a whole house which, though a poor specimen, is still a house, and one of two storeys, too! You have a _wife_ who will forgive your having no money, and I have a _whole organization_ which will collapse if I don't earn a sufficient number of roubles a month--collapse and fall on my shoulders like a heavy stone.
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