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.
May 3.
... I have just sent a story [Footnote: “The Lights.”] to the _Syeverny
Vyestnik_. I feel a little ashamed of it. It is frightfully dull, and
there is so much discussion and preaching in it that it is mawkish. I
didn’t like to send it, but had to, for I need money as I do air....
I have had a letter from Leman. He tells me that “we” (that is all of you
Petersburg people) “have agreed to print advertisements about each other’s
work on our books,” invites me to join, and warns me that among the elect
may be included only such persons as have a “certain degree of solidarity
with us.” I wrote to say that I agreed, and asked him how does he know with
whom I have solidarity and with whom I have not? How fond of stuffiness you
are in Petersburg! Don’t you feel stifled with such words as “solidarity,”
“unity of young writers,” “common interests,” and so on? Solidarity and all
the rest of it I admit on the stock-exchange, in politics, in religious
affairs, etc., but solidarity among young writers is impossible and
unnecessary.... We cannot feel and think in the same way, our aims are
different, or we have no aims whatever, we know each other little or not at
all, and so there is nothing on to which this solidarity could be securely
hooked.... And is there any need for it? No, in order to help a colleague,
to respect his personality and his work, to refrain from gossiping about
him, envying him, telling him lies and being hypocritical, one does not
need so much to be a young writer as simply a man.... Let us be ordinary
people, let us treat everybody alike, and then we shall not need any
artificially worked up solidarity. Insistent desire for particular,
professional, clique solidarity such as you want, will give rise to
unconscious spying on one another, suspiciousness, control, and, without
wishing to do so, we shall become something like Jesuits in relation to one
another.... I, dear Jean, have no solidarity with you, but I promise you as
a literary man perfect freedom so long as you live; that is, you may write
where and how you wish, you may think like Koreisha [Footnote: A well-known
religious fanatic in Moscow.] if you like, betray your convictions and
tendencies a thousand times, etc., etc., and my human relations with you
will not alter one jot, and I will always publish advertisements of your
books on the wrappers of mine.