LETTERS ABOUT WRITING
375
avoid the fate of all works created by man, none of which are perfect
or free from error.
So my Petersburg friends and acquaintances are all angry with
me? Why? Because I didn't bore them much with my presence,
which has been a bore to myself for so long! Calm their minds, tell
them that
I
ate a lot of dinners and suppers there, but did not cap–
tivate a
single
lady, that every day
I
felt sure
I
would be leaving on
that evening's express, but that
I
was detained by my friends and
The Marine Miscellany
which
I
had to leaf through in its entirety,
going back to
1852. I
did as much in one month in St. Pete as my
young friends would not be able to do in a year. However, let them
rave! ...
. . . Good-by, dear fellow, please pay us a visit. Regards to your
family. My sister and mother send their compliments.
Yours,
A.
CHEKHOV
To
ALEXEI SUVORIN
September
8, 1891,
Moscow
M. Dmitrovka, c/o Firgang
I have already moved to Moscow and am staying indoors....
"The Lie," the title you recommended for my long story, won't
do. It would be appropriate only in cases where the lie is a conscious
one. An unconscious lie really isn't a lie, but an error. Having money
and eating meat Tolstoy calls a lie-which is going too far.
Yesterday I was informed that Kurepin is hopelessly ill with
cancer of the neck. Before he dies the cancer will have eaten up half
his head and torment
him
with neuralgic pains. I was told his wife
has written you.
Little by little death takes its toll. It knows its job. Try writing
a play along these lines: an old chemist has concocted an elixir of
immortality-a dose of
15
drops and one lives eternally; but the
chemist breaks the vial with the elixir out of fear that such carrion
as he and his wife will continue to live forever. Tolstoy denies immor–
tality to mankind, but good God, how much there is that's personal
in his denial! The day before yesterday I read his "Epilogue."s Strike
5 The "Epilogue" to Tolstoy's
Kreutzer S<mata.
