September 29. ... Life is grey, there are no happy people to be seen.... Life is a nasty business for everyone. When I am serious I begin to think that people who have an aversion for death are illogical. So far as I understand the order of things, life consists of nothing but horrors, squabbles, and trivialities mixed together or alternating! December 3. This morning an individual sent by Prince Urusov turned up and asked me for a short story for a sporting magazine edited by the said Prince. I refused, of course, as I now refuse all who come with supplications to the foot of my pedestal. In Russia there are now two unattainable heights: Mount Elborus and myself. The Prince’s envoy was deeply disappointed by my refusal, nearly died of grief, and finally begged me to recommend him some writers who are versed in sport. I thought a little, and very opportunely remembered a lady writer who dreams of glory and has for the last year been ill with envy of my literary fame. In short, I gave him your address.... You might write a story “The Wounded Doe”--you remember, how the huntsmen wound a doe; she looks at them with human eyes, and no one can bring himself to kill her. It’s not a bad subject, but dangerous because it is difficult to avoid sentimentality--you must write it like a report, without pathetic phrases, and begin like this: “On such and such a date the huntsmen in the Daraganov forest wounded a young doe....” And if you drop a tear you will strip the subject of its severity and of everything worth attention in it. December 13. ... With your permission I steal out of your last two letters to my sister two descriptions of nature for my stories. It is curious that you have quite a masculine way of writing. In every line (except when dealing with children) you are a man! This, of course, ought to flatter your vanity, for speaking generally, men are a thousand times better than women, and superior to them. In Petersburg I was resting--i.e., for days together I was rushing about town paying calls and listening to compliments which my soul abhors. Alas and alack! In Petersburg I am becoming fashionable like Nana. While Korolenko, who is serious, is hardly known to the editors, my twaddle is being read by all Petersburg. Even the senator G. reads me.... It is gratifying, but my literary feeling is wounded. I feel ashamed of the public which runs after lap-dogs simply because it fails to notice elephants, and I am deeply convinced that not a soul will know me when I begin to work in earnest. TO HIS BROTHER NIKOLAY. MOSCOW, 1886. ... You have often complained to me that people “don’t understand you”! Goethe and Newton did not complain of that.... Only Christ complained of it, but He was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself.... People understand you perfectly well. And if you do not understand yourself, it is not their fault.