MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

Excuse this letter's being like a hotch-potch. It's incoherent, but I can't help it. Sitting in an hotel room one can't write better. Excuse its being long, It's not my fault.
My pen ran away with me—besides, I wanted to go on talking to you. It's three o'clock in the night.
My hand is tired. The wick of the candle wants snuffing, I can hardly see.
Write to me at Sahalin every four or five days...

[...] when he [a wealthy exile from Poland] dies his daughter, who was born at Ishim, will remain here for ever and so will multiply the black eyes and soft features in Siberia! This casual intermixture of blood is to the good, for the Siberian people are not beautiful. There are no dark-haired people.
Perhaps you would like me to write about the Tatars? Certainly.

In the morning between five & six o'clock one drinks tea at a hut. Tea on a journey is a great blessing. I know its value now, and drink it with the fury of a Yanov. It warms one through & drives away sleep; one eats a lot of bread with it,& in the absence of other nourishment,bread has to be eaten in great quantities;that is why peasants eat so much bread and farinaceous food.One drinks tea and talks with...

It seems my strong boots were the cause, being too tight at the back. My sweet Misha, if you ever have any children, which I have no doubt you will, the advice I bequeath to them is not to run after cheap goods. Cheapness in Russian goods is the label of worthlessness. To my mind it is better to go barefoot than to wear cheap boots. Picture my agony!

When you go at night into a room where people are asleep, the nose is not aware of any stuffiness or "Russian smell." It is true one old woman when she handed me a teaspoon wiped it on the back of her skirt; but they don't set you down to drink tea without a tablecloth, and they don't search in each other's heads in your presence, they don't put their fingers inside the glass when they hand you milk or water;

I was driving along in a chaise,thinking & thinking.All at once I see coming flying towards us at full gallop a post-cart with three horses;my driver had hardly time to turn to the right,the three horses dashed by,& I noticed in it the driver who had to take it back.Behind it came another, also at full speed;we had turned to the right,it turned to the left. "We shall smash into each other," flashed into my mind …

In Russia all the towns are alike. Ekaterinburg is exactly the same as Perm or Tula. The note of the bells is magnificent, velvety. I stopped at the American Hotel (not at all bad), and at once sent word of my arrival to A. M. S., telling him I meant to stay in my hotel room for two days.

My money is all safe, except what I have eaten. They won't feed me for nothing, the scoundrels.

I am neither gay nor bored, but there is a sort of numbness in my soul. I like to sit without moving or speaking. To-day, for instance, I have scarcely uttered five words. That's not true, though: I talked to a priest on deck.

I sit in the cabin,where people of all sorts & conditions sit at the table,& listen to the conversation,wondering whether it is not time for me to have tea.If I had my way I should do nothing all day but eat;as I haven't the money to be eating all day long I sleep and sleep.I don't go up on deck,it's cold.By night it rains & by day there is an unpleasant wind.
Oh, the caviare! I eat it and eat and never have enough

Dec 26, 1888.
You say that from compassion women fall in love, from compassion they get married…And what about men?I don't like realistic writers to slander women, but I don't like it either when people put women on a pedestal & attempt to prove that even if they are worse than men, anyway they are angels & men scoundrels. Neither men nor women are worth a brass farthing, but men are more just and more intelligent

The water-carrier stole a Siberian kitten with long white fur & black eyes,& brought it to us.This kitten takes people for mice:when it sees anyone it lies flat on its stomach,stalks one's feet & rushes at them.This morning as I was pacing up&down the room it several times stalked me,& a la tigre pounced at my boots.I imagine the thought of being more terrible than anyone in the house affords it the greatest delight

...To divide men into the successful and the unsuccessful is to look at human nature from a narrow, preconceived point of view. Are you a success or not? Am I? Was Napoleon? Is your servant Vassily? What is the criterion? One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.

There probably is such a thing as the physiology of creative art,but we must nip in the bud our dreams of discovering it.If the critics take up a scientific attitude no good will come of it:they will waste a dozen years,write a lot of rubbish,make the subject more obscure than ever—and nothing more.It is always a good thing to think scientifically, but the trouble is that scientific thinking about creative art...

Moscow, September 11, 1888

… You advise me not to hunt after two hares, and not to think of medical work. I do not know why one should not hunt two hares even in the literal sense…. I feel more confident and more satisfied with myself when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress....

Yesterday we went to Shah-Mamai Aivazovsky's estate,25 versts from Feodosia.It is a magnificent estate,rather like fairyland;such estates may probably be seen in Persia. Aivazovsky himself,a vigorous old man of 75, is a mixture of a good-natured Armenian & an overfed bishop; he is full of dignity,has soft hands,& offers them like a general. He is not very intelligent, but is a complex nature worthy of attention.

“25.

… Yesterday was the wedding—a real Cossack wedding with music, feminine bleating, and revolting drunkenness…. The bride is sixteen. They were married in the cathedral. I acted as best man, and was dressed in somebody else's evening suit with fearfully wide trousers, and not a single stud on my shirt. In Moscow such a best man would have been kicked out, but here I looked smarter than anyone.

At 8 o'clock in the evening my uncle,his family,Irina,the dogs,the rats that live in the storeroom,the rabbits were fast asleep.There was nothing for it but to go to bed too.I sleep on the drawing-room sofa.The sofa has not increased in length,& is as short as it was before,& so when I go to bed I have either to stick up my legs in an unseemly way or to let them hang down to the floor.I think of Procrustes & his bed

Frightfully dull. It is cold and grey…. During all my stay in Taganrog I could only do justice to the following things: remarkably good ring rolls sold at the market, the Santurninsky wine, fresh caviare, excellent crabs and uncle's genuine hospitality. Everything else is poor and not to be envied. The young ladies here are not bad, but it takes some time to get used to them....

An excellent well had been dug in Melihovo before this. Chekhov had been very anxious that it should be in Little Russian style with a crane. But the position did not allow of this, and it was made with a big wheel painted yellow like the wells at Russian railway stations. The question where to dig this well and whether the water in it would be good greatly interested Chekhov....

For several months Chekhov scarcely got out of his chaise. During that time he had to drive all over his section, receive patients at home, and do his literary work. He returned home shattered and exhausted, but always behaved as though he were doing something trivial; he cracked little jokes and made everyone laugh as before, and carried on conversations with his dachshund, Quinine, about her supposed sufferings

They took a house dating from the days of Catherine. Chekhov's mother had to sit down and rest halfway when she crossed the hall, the rooms were so large. He liked the place with its endless avenues of lime-trees and poetical river, while fishing and gathering mushrooms soothed him and put him in the mood for work. Here he went on with his story "The Duel," which he had begun before going abroad.

Both the grandsons of serfs,both cultivated and talented men, they were greatly attracted by each other. Their friendship lasted for several years,and on account of Suvorin's reactionary opinions, exposed Chekhov to a great deal of criticism in Russia. Chekhov's feelings for Suvorin began to change at the time of the Dreyfus case,but he never broke entirely with him.Suvorin's feelings for Chekhov remained unchanged

She thinks that she is strong; she is deceived
   By her heroic courage; she believes
   She has no need of nourishment; yet still
   A hard and painful task's allotted her.
   Her enemies shall not enjoy the triumph;
   They shall not say that fear hath blanched her cheeks
   When her fatigues have conquered human weakness.

TALBOT.
[...] When she, a woman, helpless and hemmed in
   By a rude crowd of rebel vassals, sought
   Protection in a powerful chieftain's arms.
   God knows what arts were used to overcome her!
   For woman is a weak and fragile thing.

   ELIZABETH.
   Woman's not weak; there are heroic souls
   Among the sex; and, in my presence, sir,
   I do forbid to speak of woman's weakness.

She scorns us, she defies us! will defy us,
   Even at the scaffold's foot.
This haughty heart
   Is not to be subdued.
Say, did the sentence
   Surprise her? Did you see her shed one tear,
   Or even change her color?
She disdains
   To make appeal to our compassion.
Well
   She knows the wavering mind of England's queen.
   Our apprehensions make her bold.

BURLEIGH
   Acknowledge you the court, or not, that is
   Only a point of mere formality,
   Which cannot here arrest the course of justice.
   You breathe the air of England; you enjoy
   The law's protection, and its benefits;
   You therefore are its subject.


   MARY
                   Sir, I breathe
   The air within an English prison walls:
   Is that to live in England

As I one day
   Roamed through the bishop's dwelling, I was struck
   With a fair female portrait; it was full
   Of touching wond'rous charms; with magic might
   It moved my inmost soul, and there I stood
   Speechless, and overmastered by my feelings...

“KENNEDY.
   You did not murder him; 'twas done by others.

   MARY.
   But it was known to me; I suffered it,
   And lured him with my smiles to death's embrace.

   KENNEDY.
   Your youth extenuates your guilt. You were
   Of tender years.

   MARY.
            So tender, yet I drew
   This heavy guilt upon my youthful head.”

“PAULET.
   I prize him most for that which makes you hate him
   He is not, truly, one of those poor fools
   Who melt before a woman's treacherous tears.
   He has seen much—has been to Rheims and Paris,
   And brings us back his true old English heart.
   Lady, your cunning arts are lost on him.”

Ah! madam, Elizabeth replied impatiently, do you not know that Mary Stuart has given birth to a son, while I am but a barren stock, who will die without offspring?
Yet Elizabeth was too good a politician, in spite of her liability to be carried away by a first impulse, to compromise herself by a longer display of her grief. The ball was not discontinued on that account, and the interrupted quadrille was resumed...