Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends

November 11, 1888.

I finished to-day the story [Footnote: “A Nervous Breakdown.”] for the Garshin sbornik: it is such a load off my mind. In this story I have told my own opinion—which is of no interest to anyone—of such rare men as Garshin. I have run to almost 2,000 lines. I speak at length about prostitution, but settle nothing. Why do they write nothing about prostitution in your paper? It is the most fearful evil, you know. Our Sobolev street is a regular slave-market.