To A. S. Souvorin, January 23, 1900:
The new play, Acts I and 11, I liked, and I find that it is even better than Tatyana Repina. The other is closer to the theatre, this to life. The third act was not definite, because there is no action; there is not even clarity of idea. It may be that to make it more certain and clearer, a fourth act will be required. In the third act the explanation between the husband and the wife is modeled after Sumbatov's Chains; and I would prefer that the wife remain behind the curtain all the time, and that Varya, as happens in life in similar circumstances, should believe more in the father than in the mother.
I have few comments to make. A cultured nobleman entering the priesthood, that has become stale, and no longer arouses curiosity. Those who entered the priesthood just fell into the water; some, remaining ordinary abbots, waxed fat and have long since forgotten every idea; others gave up all and are living in peace. Nothing definite was expected of them, and they gave nothing; and on the stage a young man preparing for the priesthood will simply be received without sympathy by the public, and in his activities and chastity they will see something of the Skoptsi. And, indeed, the actor will not play the part well. You would do better to take a young, learned, mysterious Jesuit dreaming of a united church; or someone else, but someone who will appear greater than a nobleman entering the priesthood.
Varya is well done. At first sight there is an excessive hysteria in the language. She must not use witticisms; but you make all of them fall into this habit; they keep playing on words, and that tires the attention a little; it is too flashy; the language of your characters is like a white silk dress on which the sun is always shining in full force and which it hurts the eyes to look at. The words "vulgarity" and "vulgar" are hackneyed.
Natasha is very good. You make her a different person in the third act.,
The families "Ratishchev" and "Muratov" are too theatrical, not simple. Give Ratishchev to a Little Russian family, for variety.
The father is without a weakness, without a distinct appearance; he does not drink, or smoke, or gamble, or fall ill. You must stitch onto him some attribute or other, so that the actor can have something to grasp.
The father knows of Varya's sin or does not know,—I think it makes no difference, and is of no importance. The sexual sphere, of course, plays an important part in this world, but not everything depends on it,—far from everything; and not everywhere, by far, does it have decisive significance.
When you send the fourth act I shall write more if I think of anything to say. I am glad that you have almost completed the play, and again repeat that you ought to write both plays and novels, first because it is necessary, and second, because for you it is healthful, as it is pleasant to vary your life.
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