MOSCOW,
April 25, 1899.
... The day before yesterday I was at L. N. Tolstoy’s; he praised you very
highly and said that you were “a remarkable writer.” He likes your “The
Fair” and “In the Steppe” and does not like “Malva.” He said: “You can
invent anything you like, but you can’t invent psychology, and in Gorky one
comes across just psychological inventions: he describes what he has never
felt.” So much for you! I said that when you were next in Moscow we would
go together to see him.
When will you be in Moscow? On Thursday there will be a private
performance--for me--of “The Seagull.” If you come to Moscow I will give
you a seat....
From Petersburg I get painful letters, as it were from the damned,
[Footnote: From Suvorin.] and it’s painful to me as I don’t know what to
answer, how to behave. Yes, life when it is not a psychological invention
is a difficult business....