To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 10 November 1888. Moscow.
А. Н. ПЛЕЩЕЕВУ, 10 ноября 1888 г. Москва.
Headnote
1 Written from Moscow on 10 November 1888 to the poet and "Severny Vestnik" editor Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheyev, this letter opens with an update on the Garshin memorial-collection story (cf. letters 470, 500, 519, 527): it is nearly finished, will be copied out fair within a day or two, and will reach Pleshcheyev by Monday afternoon. Chekhov notes he is writing it with deliberate restraint, calling the subject so "ticklish" that the smallest misstep could look enormous, and predicts the finished piece – sad, dull, and serious in tone – will not clash with the collection’s overall mood.
2 He asks Pleshcheyev to send the subscription book along with the collection’s price, then turns sharply to a grievance: an "impudent" article by Evgeny Garshin in the newspaper "Den" ("Day"), forwarded to him by an unnamed well-wisher. Chekhov reads Garshin’s belated praise of his "willfulness" as opportunistic, contrasting it with Garshin’s earlier attacks on him, and generalizes the complaint into a broader tirade against reflexive, conformist literary criticism that barks at any writer or journal daring to show independence.
3 Chekhov continues in the same vein, suggesting Garshin’s changed tune follows from "Den" not paying its contributors, leaving him eager to curry favor with "Novoye Vremya" instead. He then draws a pointed comparison between the restrained decorum of court reporters covering actual criminal defendants and the crude, contemptuous vocabulary ("riffraff,puppies,brats") that literary critics feel free to use against writers who are neither robbers nor thieves.
4 The letter turns to theater business: Chekhov has sent his one-act farce "The Bear" to Ivan Leontyev (Shcheglov) for submission to the St. Petersburg Theatrical Committee, which he needles by the joking nickname "the chamber of Venetian doges," on which Pleshcheyev himself sits. He reports that the Moscow production of "The Bear" is playing to great success, with the caveat that the two lead performers – described here through the play’s own animal imagery as "the bear and the she-bear" – are not acting it particularly well.
5 The letter closes with the standing formula of greetings to Pleshcheyev’s family and, by name, to his wife Anna Mikhailovna; a note that Korolenko is currently away from Moscow; a warm closing blessing (good appetite, peaceful sleep, and money); the signature; and a postscript asking Pleshcheyev to pass along regards to V. N. Davydov if their paths cross.