LETTERS ABOUT WRITING
383
bells, memories of the past. Do come! By the way, Duse will be
playing here. . . .
Yours,
A.
CHEKHOV
To
MAXIM GORKI
December
3, 1898,
Yalta
Dear Alexei Maximovich,
Your last letter afforded me great pleasure. Thank you with
all
my heart.
Uncle Van
ya
was written long ago, a very long time ago;
I have never seen it on the stage. During these past few years it has
been presented often on provincial stages--perhaps because a collec–
tion of my plays has been published. On the whole I react coolly
toward my plays, have long ago lost touch with the theater and don't
feel like writing for it any more.
You ask for my opinion of your stories. My opinion? You have
undoubted talent, truly a genuine, immense talent. In your story
"On
the Steppe," for example, your talent
is
shown as extraordinarily
powerful, and I even experienced a moment of envy that it was not I
who had written it. You are an artist and a brilliant man. You feel
things magnificently; you are plastic, i.e., when you depict a thing,
you see it and touch it with your hands. That is true
art.
There you
have my opinion, and I am very glad that I can come out with
it. I repeat, I am very glad, and if we could meet and chat for an
hour or two, you would be convinced how highly I value you and
what hope I have in your gifts.
Now shall I speak of your defects? This is not so easy, though.
Referring to shortcomings in the way of talent is like talking of the
defects of a fine tree in an orchard; in the main it is certainly not a
question of the tree itself but of the tastes of those who look at it.
Isn't that so?
I will begin by pointing out that in my opinion you have no
restraint. You are like a spectator in a theater who expresses his rap–
ture so unrestrainedly that he prevents himself and others from hear–
ing. This lack of restraint is especially evident in your descriptions of
nature, which break up the continuity of your dialogues; one would
like these descriptions to be more compact and concise, just two or
three lines or so. The frequent references to voluptuousness, whisper-
