To A. S. Suvorin, 15 May 1889. Sumy.

1 Written from Sumy (in the Kharkov province, where the Chekhov family was spending the summer of 1889 on the Lintvaryov estate) on 15 May 1889, to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, the newspaper publisher (Novoye Vremya) who was Chekhov’s closest literary correspondent. The letter is a continuation of an ongoing argument with Suvorin over Paul Bourget’s novel Le Disciple ("Ученик"/"The Disciple"), touching off a broader statement of Chekhov’s views on the supposed conflict between science and art, before closing with brief personal news.

2 After the double dateline (1-2), Chekhov picks up a dispute over Bourget’s novel that Suvorin had apparently raised in a letter answering an earlier one of Chekhov’s own (3): Suvorin had argued that some space should be preserved for "the life of the spirit" apart from "the science of matter," and Chekhov counters that no real war exists between the two, since all knowledge – anatomy and literature alike – share a common noble origin and a common enemy, citing Goethe as proof that the scientist and the poet can coexist in one man (3). He elaborates that actual conflict arises not from knowledge itself but from people’s uncomprehending reaction to it, citing the medieval transformation of alchemy into chemistry and astrology into astronomy, and naming the radical critic Pisarev as a modern example of a mind that "made war" out of not understanding (4). He then turns the argument back onto Bourget specifically, arguing that the novel itself does make war – it cannot help but provoke rather than reconcile whichever kind of reader encounters it (5) – and, granting that a novelist may rightly satirize deviations from a norm, objects that Bourget has caricatured the scientific type itself (the character Sixte) through absurd "psychological experiments," floating two deliberately grotesque hypothetical scenes of his own (a vivisectionist husband, a lady scientist copulating with Nile wildlife) to show how such exaggeration slanders science without needing to (6). He explains Bourget’s appeal to Russian readers as a contrast effect: Russian fiction’s heroes and authors strike readers as ignorant and small next to Bourget’s cultivated cast, even though that popularity does not vindicate the character Sixte’s sincerity when he prays (7). Chekhov then closes the literary argument, praising Suvorin’s own skill in summarizing "Disciple" in compact form for his newspaper (8), before shifting to personal notes: he is bored and disappointed that the poet Pleshcheyev will not be visiting after all (9), promises a future letter written partly in French and German, and sends regards to members of Suvorin’s family (10), closing with a farewell for Suvorin’s planned trip abroad (11) and the signature (12).