Tolstoy had gotten better and while I was there Chekhov wished to pay him a visit. He was greatly agitated. “I am afraid of Tolstoy. I am being very serious here. I really am afraid of him.”

For almost an hour, Chekhov could not decide what pants he would wear to see Tolstoy. Having taken off his pince-nez, he looked younger. As was his custom, he kept mixing serious and silly things, coming out of the bedroom with different pairs of pants. “No, these are obscenely narrow! Tolstoy will think that I am a hack!” He went to put on the other pair and again came out, laughing, “These are as wide as the Black Sea! Tolstoy will think that I am a dandy!

I’m already twenty-three, I’ve been working for a long time, and my brain is dried up, I’ve become thin and ugly and old, and nothing, nothing gives me any satisfaction, and time is going on, and I keep thinking I’m moving away from any genuine, free life, moving further and further away, into some abyss. I’m in despair, and I can’t understand how I’m alive, how I haven’t yet killed myself…