ST. PETERSBURG,
January 14, 1891.
Unforeseen circumstances have kept me a few days longer. I am alive and
well. There is no news. I saw Tolstoy’s “The Power of Darkness” the other
day, though. I have been to Ryepin’s studio. What else? Nothing else. It’s
dull, in fact.
I went to-day to a dog-show; I went there with Suvorin, who at the moment I
am writing these lines is standing by the table and asking me to write and
tell you that I have been to the dog-show with the famous dog Suvorin....
January, later.
I am alive and well, I have no palpitations, I’ve no money either, and
everything is going well.
I am paying visits and seeing acquaintances. I have to talk about Sahalin
and India. It’s horribly boring.
... Anna Ivanovna is as nice as ever, Suvorin talks as incessantly as ever.
I receive the most boring invitations to the most boring dinners. It seems
I must make haste and get back to Moscow, as they won’t let me work here.
Hurrah, we are avenged! To make up for our being so bored, the cotton ball
has yielded 1,500 roubles clear profit, in confirmation of which I enclose
a cutting from a newspaper.
If anything is collected for the benefit of the Sahalin schools, let me
know at once.
How is my mongoose? Don’t forget to give him food and drink, and beat him
without mercy when he jumps on the table. Does he eat people? [Footnote: A
naive question asked by a lady of Chekhov’s acquaintance.]
Write how Ivan is....
January, later.
I am tired as a ballet dancer after five acts and eight tableaux. Dinners,
letters which I am too lazy to answer, conversations and imbecilities of
all sorts. I have to go immediately to dine in Vassilyevsky Ostrov, and I
am bored and ought to work.
I’ll stay another three days and see whether the ballet will go on the
same, then I shall go home, or to see Ivan.
I am surrounded by a thick atmosphere of ill-feeling, extremely vague and
to me incomprehensible. They feed me with dinners and pay me the vulgarest
compliments, and at the same time they are ready to devour me. What for?
The devil only knows. If I were to shoot myself I should thereby provide
the greatest gratification to nine-tenths of my friends and admirers. And
how pettily they express their petty feelings!
... My greetings to Lydia Yegorovna Mizinov. I expect a programme from her.
Tell her not to eat farinaceous food and to avoid Levitan. A better admirer
than me she will not find in her Town Council nor in higher society.
January 16, 1891.
I have the honour to congratulate you and the hero of the name-day;
[Footnote: It was the name-day of Chekhov himself.] I wish you and him
health and prosperity, and above all that the mongoose should not break the
crockery or tear the wall-paper. I shall celebrate my name-day at the Maly
Yaroslavets restaurant, from the restaurant to the benefit performance,
from the benefit performance to the restaurant again.
I am working, but with very great difficulty. No sooner have I written a
line than the bell rings and someone comes in to talk to me about Sahalin.
It’s simply awful! ...
I have found Drishka. It appears that she is living in the same house as I
am. She ran away from Moscow to Petersburg under romantic circumstances:
she meant to marry a lawyer, plighted her troth to him, but an army captain
turned up, and so on; she had to run away or the lawyer would have shot
both Drishka and the captain with a pistol loaded with cranberries. She is
prospering and is the same lively rogue as ever. I went to Svobodin’s
name-day party with her yesterday. She sang gipsy songs, and created such a
sensation that all the great men kissed her hand.
Rumours have reached me that Lidia Stahievna is going to be married _par
depit_. Is it true? Tell her that I shall carry her off from her husband
_par depit_. I am a violent man.
Has not anything been collected for the benefit of the Sahalin schools? Let
me know....