It must not cast away the goods of civilisation because
civilisation is largely a sham.
'Alas! I shall never be a Tolstoyan. In women I love beauty above
all things, and in the history of mankind, culture expressed in
carpets, carriages with springs, and keenness of wit. Ach! To make
haste and become an old man and sit at a big table!'
Not that there is a trace of the hedonist in Tchehov, who voluntarily
endured every imaginable hardship if he thought he could be of service
to his fellow-men, but, as he wrote elsewhere, 'we are concerned with
pluses alone.' Since life is what it is, its amenities are doubly
precious. Only they must be amenities without humbug.
'Pharisaism, stupidity, and despotism reign not in bourgeois houses
and prisons alone. I see them in science, in literature, in the
younger generation.... That is why I have no preference either for
gendarmes, or for butchers, or for scientists, or for writers, or
for the younger generation. I regard trade marks and labels as a
superstition.
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