Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchthe first time in my life I saw her eating. She eats no less thanother people, but she eats mechanically, as though she were munchingoats.Kostroma is a nice town. I saw the stretch of river on which thelanguid Levitan used to live. I saw Kineshma, where I walked alongthe boulevard and watched the local beaus. Here I went into thechemist’s shop to buy some Bertholet salts for my tongue, whichwas like leather after the medicine I had taken. The chemist, onseeing Olga Petrovna, was overcome with delight and confusion;she was the same. They were evidently old acquaintances, and judgingfrom the conversation between them they had walked more thanonce about the ravines near Kineshma.… It’s rather cold and rather dull, but interesting on the whole.The steamer whistles every minute; its whistle is midway betweenthe bray of an ass and an Aeolian harp. In five or six hours we shallbe in Nizhni. The sun is rising. I slept last night artistically. Mymoney is safe; that is because I am constantly pressing my hands onmy stomach.Very beautiful are the steam-tugs, dragging after them four or fivebarges each; they look like some fine young intellectual trying torun away while a plebeian wife, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, andwife’s grandmother hold on to his coat-tails.* * *The sun is hiding behind the clouds, the sky is overcast, and thebroad Volga looks gloomy. Levitan ought not to live on the Volga. Itlays a weight of gloom on the soul. Though it would not be bad tohave an estate on its banks.* * *If the waiter would wake I should ask him for some coffee; as it is, Ihave to drink water without any relish for it. My greetings toMaryushka and Olga.**The Chekhovs’ servants.138