Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
242
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
world-wide success, at least in the present, and perhaps also in
the future. We are quite foolish about it. If we can only do
it, it would reconcile us to everything. Sönya would forget that
Sweden is the greatest Philistia on earth, and would no longer
complain that she is wasting the best years of her life here.
And I—well, I should forget all that I am brooding over. You
will of course exclaim: What children you are! But fortunately
there exists a realm better than all the kingdoms of earth, a
kingdom of which we have the key—the realm of the
imagination, where he who will may rule, and where everything is
precisely as you wish it to be. But perhaps Sönya’s plot, which
was at first intended for a novel, will not do for a drama, and I
could not write a novel upon some one else’s plan, for in a novel
you are in much closer relation to your production than in a
drama.
February 10th.
Sönya is overjoyed at this new project, and the fresh
possibility in her life. She says she now understands how a man
grows more and more deeply in love with the mother of his
children. Of course I am the mother, because I am to bring this
mental offspring into the world; and she is so devoted to me
that it makes me happy to see her beaming eyes. We enjoy
ourselves immensely. I do not think two women-friends have
ever enjoyed each other’s society so much as we do—and we
shall be the first example in literature of two
women-collaborators. I have never been so kindled by an idea as by this one.
As soon as Sönya told me of it, it shot through me like a
thunderbolt. It was a real explosion. She told me her plot on the
3d, but it was made for a novel in Russian surroundings. When
she left me I sat up half the night in the dark in my
rocking-chair, and when I went to bed the whole plot lay clear before
me. On Friday I talked it over with Sönya, and on Saturday I
began to write. Now the whole first portion, a prologue and five
acts, is sketched out. That is to say, I did it in five days,
working only two hours a day, for when working at high pressure one
cannot sustain it long. I have never done anything so quickly.
Generally I contemplate an idea for months, even for years,
before I begin to write.
April 21st.
The most pleasant thing about this work is, as you will have
noticed, that I admire it so much. This is the result of collabo-
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
