To Al. P. Chekhov, 6 April 1886. Moscow.

6 April 1886. Moscow.

86, IV, 6.

Now, now, my customs-and-quarantine fellow, what’s the use of such strong words? Where could this "shade of a man who once was" have come from, and why on earth don’t you recognize yourself in the mirror?

1) Davydov will send the money, and if he hasn’t sent it before now, it’s because he himself is walking around without trousers.

2) You have money coming from "The Cricket," and from "The Alarm Clock" too. Tomorrow Mishka will gather up all your crumbs and send them the day after. In general: for fee matters, go to Mishka. He’s a good lawyer. "The Cricket" pays handsomely, and they’ll give you 8 kopecks a line.

3) You’re a naturalist, and yet the naturalness of your own situation escapes you. You write that you are "being burned, cut, gnawed, and leeched." Meaning, debts are being demanded of you? My dear fellow, but debts must be paid! One must, come what may, even to the little Armenian moneylenders, even at the cost of going hungry... If men of the university and men of letters see suffering in debts, what’s left for the rest of us? I don’t know, but the whole matter is one of principle... And why go into debt at all? Forgive this well-fed question, but, God is my witness, it isn’t a lecture. One can easily do without debts. I judge by myself, and on my neck sits a family bigger by far than yours, and provisions in Moscow cost ten times what they do where you are. For your lodgings you pay as much as I pay for a piano, I dress no better than you do... The whole trouble is in the purchases and expenses you had no right to make and which you should long ago have given up: Nestlé flour (?!?), an extra servant, and so on. When husband and wife have no money, they don’t keep a servant — that’s an ordinary rule...

4) But the debts are made, and it’s useless to discuss their origin... What remains is to speak of their payment... For you a debt of 1,000–2,000 rubles ought to be frightening, but 300–500, which you presumably owe, aren’t worth "moral suffering." Sooner or later you’ll pay it off, especially since there exists that beneficent measure — deduction from salary. Before you get around to it yourself, the treasury will relieve you of the debt. A deduction from salary, of course, brings its inconveniences, but what’s to be done! The inconveniences are temporary, especially for a man who has, besides his salary, another source of income besides...

The justice of the peace has sentenced me to pay 105 rubles, which you and Nikolai owed to the shopkeeper Semyonov. To the tailor I owe, for myself and for those for whom I stood surety, more than a hundred... But I don’t ask myself the question "What will happen next?"... I believe that everything will be paid, will grind itself out, and will sink into Lethe in due time. I’ll squeeze by somehow at the dacha, live with my family on 50 rubles a month, and there’ll be no debts...

5) Why do you write so little? What sort of disgrace is this? At "The Cricket" and "The Alarm Clock" there’s a standing vacancy, and you sit there with your hands folded, whimpering like Gershka when the fleas bite him in his sleep. Why are you too lazy to work for "Splinters"? All those stories you sent me to pass on to Leikin reek strongly of laziness. Did you write them in a single day? Out of the whole lot I could pick out one excellent, talented story; the rest is all worthy of the pen of the Taganrog Quicksilver. Impossible subjects... Only laziness could write, for a censored journal, about a priest baptizing a child in the font!.. A laziness that doesn’t reason, that works in one headlong burst, for nothing... Where have you ever seen a married couple like the one in your story who dine and talk about scholarly papers... and where under the moon do such papers exist? Respect yourself, for Christ’s sake, don’t give your hands free rein when your brain is idle! Write no more than two stories a week, cut them down, work them over, so that the labor is labor. Don’t invent sufferings you haven’t experienced, and don’t paint pictures you haven’t seen — for a lie in a story is far more tiresome than a lie in conversation...

Remember every minute that your pen, your talent, will be needed by you in the future more than now — don’t profane them... Write, and keep watch over every line, so as not to make a mess of it...

Have you ever written a single piece that took longer than one evening? Only "The Sleepwalker"... I ask you, did you, you jester Ivanych? Of course not! No and no! Literature has never cost you any labor, and yet it is labor! If you were a decent sort, you’d sit over a story (of 150–200 pages) for five or seven days — what would come of it then! You wouldn’t recognize yourself in your own lines, just as now you don’t recognize yourself in the mirror... Bear in mind that you aren’t overwhelmed with pressing work and can therefore fuss over one little piece for several evenings running... Is this profitable? Reckon it up... At the height of painstaking effort you’ll turn out 5–7 stories a month, which comes to about a hundred, whereas now, writing a great deal, you don’t even manage 50... I’ll close this sermon with an excerpt from a letter I got the other day from Grigorovich: "for this one needs: respect for talent, which is given so rarely... save your impressions for work that is considered, finished, not written at a single sitting... You will at once carry off the prize and take your place in a conspicuous position in the eyes of discerning people and then of the whole reading public..."

Another great authority, Suvorin by name, writes to me: "When you write a great deal, far from everything comes out equally well."

A third great man, our I. Grek (Bilibin), curses foully in his letters that I write too much. There you have it, Sasha!

I am now working at "New Time," where I get 12 kopecks a line. I’ll manage to drag Gilyai over to the Petersburg press — he isn’t developed, but he’s talented. Couldn’t the same be done with you, especially since you are a thousand times more developed and talented than those corks who write for "The Cause" and "The Observer"? Work, my dear fellow! Keep watch, toil away, and don’t waste yourself on fuss! Don’t turn yourself and your work into Nestlé flour... For a start it would be good for you to work at the "Petersburg Gazette," from which you won’t be slow to move on to "New Time." For you both papers are terra incognita. What they need, you don’t know... Couldn’t you, where you are in N., hunt up these papers and get acquainted with them? "New Time" is surely obtainable in N. Look at the Saturday issues... Leikin has gone out of fashion. I have taken his place. Now in Petersburg I am very much in fashion, and I’d like you not to fall behind...

Can it really be that you’re leaving N.? Couldn’t you put off leaving until autumn? If you don’t leave, I give you my word of honor I’ll come visit you in the summer. As for the debts. The dead and the talented know no shame. Kolka owes 3,000 and — nothing happens to him! And how well we might live together, you and I! Your departure is all the more distasteful to me because I’m certain Petersburg will give you nothing but new debts... Wait until autumn! I’ll be in Petersburg, I’ll introduce Grigorovich and the rest to your person, and — who knows? — Grigorovich is an actual state councillor and a knight of orders... He’ll find something for you sooner than you will yourself... All the ministers know him... So remember: toil away over your stories. I judge from experience. Write. Write to Mother. Let me know the route, how to get to you. My regards.

Your A. Chekhov.