MOSCOW,
October 25, 1891.
Print “The Duel” not twice a week but only once. To print it twice is
breaking a long-established custom of the paper, and it would seem as
though I were robbing the other contributors of one day a week; and
meanwhile it makes no difference to me or my novel whether it is printed
once a week or twice. The literary brotherhood in Petersburg seems to talk
of nothing but the uncleanness of my motives. I have just received the good
news that I am to be married to the rich Madame Sibiryakov. I get a lot of
agreeable news altogether.
I wake up every night and read “War and Peace.” One reads it with the same
interest and naive wonder as though one had never read it before. It’s
amazingly good. Only I don’t like the passages in which Napoleon appears.
As soon as Napoleon comes on the scene there are forced explanations and
tricks of all sorts to prove that he was stupider than he really was.
Everything that is said and done by Pierre, Prince Andrey, or the
absolutely insignificant Nikolay Rostov--all that is good, clever, natural,
and touching; everything that is thought and done by Napoleon is not
natural, not clever, inflated and worthless.
When I live in the provinces (of which I dream now day and night), I shall
practice as a doctor and read novels.