MOSCOW,
March 28, 1886.
Your letter, my kind, fervently beloved bringer of good tidings, struck me
like a flash of lightning. I almost burst into tears, I was overwhelmed,
and now I feel it has left a deep trace in my soul! May God show the same
tender kindness to you in your age as you have shown me in my youth! I can
find neither words nor deeds to thank you. You know with what eyes ordinary
people look at the elect such as you, and so you can judge what your letter
means for my self-esteem. It is better than any diploma, and for a writer
who is just beginning it is payment both for the present and the future. I
am almost dazed. I have no power to judge whether I deserve this high
reward. I only repeat that it has overwhelmed me.
If I have a gift which one ought to respect, I confess before the pure
candour of your heart that hitherto I have not respected it. I felt that I
had a gift, but I had got into the habit of thinking that it was
insignificant. Purely external causes are sufficient to make one unjust to
oneself, suspicious, and morbidly sensitive. And as I realize now I have
always had plenty of such causes. All my friends and relatives have always
taken a condescending tone to my writing, and never ceased urging me in a
friendly way not to give up real work for the sake of scribbling. I have
hundreds of friends in Moscow, and among them a dozen or two writers, but I
cannot recall a single one who reads me or considers me an artist. In
Moscow there is a so-called Literary Circle: talented people and
mediocrities of all ages and colours gather once a week in a private room
of a restaurant and exercise their tongues. If I went there and read them a
single passage of your letter, they would laugh in my face. In the course
of the five years that I have been knocking about from one newspaper office
to another I have had time to assimilate the general view of my literary
insignificance. I soon got used to looking down upon my work, and so it has
gone from bad to worse. That is the first reason. The second is that I am a
doctor, and am up to my ears in medical work, so that the proverb about
trying to catch two hares has given to no one more sleepless nights than
me.
I am writing all this to you in order to excuse this grievous sin a little
before you. Hitherto my attitude to my literary work has been frivolous,
heedless, casual. I don’t remember a _single_ story over which I have
spent more than twenty-four hours, and “The Huntsman,” which you liked, I
wrote in the bathing-shed! I wrote my stories as reporters write their
notes about fires, mechanically, half-unconsciously, taking no thought of
the reader or myself.... I wrote and did all I could not to waste upon the
story the scenes and images dear to me which--God knows why--I have
treasured and kept carefully hidden.
The first impulse to self-criticism was given me by a very kind and, to the
best of my belief, sincere letter from Suvorin. I began to think of writing
something decent, but I still had no faith in my being any good as a
writer. And then, unexpected and undreamed of, came your letter. Forgive
the comparison: it had on me the effect of a Governor’s order to clear out
of the town within twenty-four hours--i.e., I suddenly felt an imperative
need to hurry, to make haste and get out of where I have stuck....
I agree with you in everything. When I saw “The Witch” in print I felt
myself the cynicism of the points to which you call my attention. They
would not have been there had I written this story in three or four days
instead of in one.
I shall put an end to working against time, but cannot do so just yet....
It is impossible to get out of the rut I have got into. I have nothing
against going hungry, as I have done in the past, but it is not a question
of myself.... I give to literature my spare time, two or three hours a day
and a bit of the night, that is, time which is of no use except for short
things. In the summer, when I have more time and have fewer expenses, I
will start on some serious work.
I cannot put my real name on the book because it is too late: the design
for the cover is ready and the book printed. [Footnote: “Motley Tales” is
meant.] Many of my Petersburg friends advised me, even before you did, not
to spoil the book by a pseudonym, but I did not listen to them, probably
out of vanity. I dislike my book very much. It’s a hotch-potch, a
disorderly medley of the poor stuff I wrote as a student, plucked by the
censor and by the editors of comic papers. I am sure that many people will
be disappointed when they read it. Had I known that I had readers and that
you were watching me, I would not have published this book.
I rest all my hopes on the future. I am only twenty-six. Perhaps I shall
succeed in doing something, though time flies fast.
Forgive my long letter and do not blame a man because, for the first time
in his life, he has made bold to treat himself to the pleasure of writing
to Grigorovitch.
Send me your photograph, if possible. I am so overwhelmed with your
kindness that I feel as though I should like to write a whole ream to you.
God grant you health and happiness, and believe in the sincerity of your
deeply respectful and grateful