to indolence, indifference, and an enlarged liver....




November 25, 1892.


It is easy to understand you, and there is no need for you to abuse
yourself for obscurity of expression. You are a hard drinker, and I have
regaled you with sweet lemonade, and you, after giving the lemonade its
due, justly observe that there is no spirit in it. That is just what is
lacking in our productions--the alcohol which could intoxicate and
subjugate, and you state that very well. Why not? Putting aside "Ward
No. 6" and myself, let us discuss the matter in general, for that is
more interesting. Let ms discuss the general causes, if that won't bore
you, and let us include the whole age. Tell me honestly, who of my
contemporaries--that is, men between thirty and forty-five--have given
the world one single drop of alcohol? Are not Korolenko, Nadson, and all
the playwrights of to-day, lemonade? Have Ryepin's or Shishkin's
pictures turned your head? Charming, talented, you are enthusiastic; but
at the same time you can't forget that you want to smoke. Science and
technical knowledge are passing through a great period now, but for our
sort it is a flabby, stale, and dull time. We are stale and dull
ourselves, we can only beget gutta-percha boys, [Footnote: An allusion
to Grigorovitch's well-known story.] and the only person who does not
see that is Stassov, to whom nature has given a rare faculty for getting
drunk on slops. The causes of this are not to be found in our stupidity,
our lack of talent, or our insolence, as Burenin imagines, but in a
disease which for the artist is worse than syphilis or sexual exhaustion.