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Translated by S. S. KOTELIANSKY and LEONARD WOOLF
1921
This volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works whichAnton Chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methodsof his artistic production. Among his papers was found a series ofsheets in a special cover with the inscription: "Themes, thoughts,notes, and fragments." Madame L.O. Knipper-Chekhov, Chekhov's wife,also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themesfor his future work, quotations which he liked, etc. If he used anymaterial, he used to strike it out in the note-book. The significancewhich Chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the factthat he recopied most of it into a special copy book.
1896
My neighbor V.N.S. told me that his uncle Fet-Shenshin, the famouspoet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably letdown the window of his carriage and spit at the University. He wouldexpectorate and spit: Bah! His coachman got so used to this that everytime he drove past the University, he would stop.
In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin. I oftensaw Potapenko. Met Korolenko. I often went to the Maly Theatre.As Alexander [Chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G.simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the NovoyeVremya and said to me indignantly: "Why do you set the old man(i.e. Souvorin) against Burenin?" I have never spoken ill of thecontributors to the Novoye Vremya in Souvorin's presence, although Ihave the deepest disrespect for the majority of them.
In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N. Tolstoi. Hewas irritated, made stinging remarks about the décadents, and foran hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talkednonsense all the time. Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi's daughters] laidout a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out;I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and thatannoyed them. By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack.Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude totheir father is touching. The countess denounced the painter Gé allthe evening. She too was irritated.
May 5. The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he haspainted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N.He is director of the Foreign Department … editor of a magazine …and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusuallystupid person and a reptile. He said: "There's nothing more perniciouson earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently,the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine freeof charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants withexasperation and loathing.
June 1. I was at the Vagankov Cemetery and saw the graves there ofthe victims of the Khodinka. [During the coronation of Nicholas IIin Moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the KhodinkaFields.] I. Pavlovsky, the Paris correspondent of the Novoye Vremya,came with me to Melikhovo.
August 4. Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh,Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, anicon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made as