Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO HIS SISTER.THE VILLAGE OF YAR, 45 VERSTS FROM TOMSK, May 14,1890.My glorious mother, my splendid Masha, my sweet Misha, andall my household! At Ekaterinburg I got my reply telegram fromTyumen. “The first steamer to Tomsk goes on the 18th May.” Thismeant that, whether I liked it or not, I must do the journey withhorses. So I did. I drove out of Tyumen on the third of May afterspending in Ekaterinburg two or three days, which I devoted to therepair of my coughing and haemorrhoidal person. Besides the publicposting service, one can get private drivers that take one acrossSiberia. I chose the latter: it is just the same. They put me, the servantof God, into a basketwork chaise and drove me with two horses;one sits in the basket like a goldfinch, looking at God’s world andthinking of nothing …. The plain of Siberia begins, I think, fromEkaterinburg, and ends goodness knows where; I should say it isvery like our South Russian Steppe, except for the little birch copseshere and there and the cold wind that stings one’s cheeks. Springhas not begun yet. There is no green at all, the woods are bare, thesnow has not thawed everywhere. There is opaque ice on the lakes.On the ninth of May there was a hard frost, and to-day, the fourteenth,snow has fallen to the depth of three or four inches. No onespeaks of spring but the ducks. Ah, what masses of ducks! Never inmy life have I seen such abundance. They fly over one’s head, theyfly up close to the chaise, swim on the lakes and in the pools—inshort, with the poorest sort of gun I could have shot a thousand inone day. One can hear the wild geese calling …. There are lots ofthem here too. One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans…. Snipe and woodcock flutter about in the birch copses. The hareswhich are not eaten or shot here, stand on their hindlegs, and, prickingup their ears, watch the passer-by with an inquisitive stare withoutthe slightest misgiving. They are so often running across theroad that to see them doing so is not considered a bad omen.It’s cold driving …; I have my fur coat on. My body is all right,but my feet are freezing. I wrap them in the leather overcoat-but it148