Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovis no use …. I have two pairs of breeches on. Well, one drives onand on …. Telegraph poles, pools, birch copses flash by. Here weovertake some emigrants, then an etape …. We meet tramps withpots on their back; these gentry promenade all over the plain ofSiberia without hindrance. One time they will murder some poorold woman to take her petticoat for their leg-wrappers; at anotherthey will strip from the verst post the metal plate with the numberon it—it might be useful; at another will smash the head of somebeggar or knock out the eyes of some brother exile; but they nevertouch travellers. Altogether, travelling here is absolutely safe as faras brigands are concerned. Neither the post-drivers nor the privateones from Tyumen to Tomsk remember an instance of any thingsbeing stolen from a traveller. When you reach a station you leaveyour things outside; if you ask whether they won’t be stolen, theymerely smile in answer. It is not the thing even to speak of robberyand murder on the road. I believe, if I were to lose my money in thestation or in the chaise, the driver would certainly give it me if hefound it, and would not boast of having done so. Altogether thepeople here are good and kindly, and have excellent traditions. Theirrooms are simply furnished but clean, with claims to luxury; thebeds are soft, all feather mattresses and big pillows. The floors arepainted or covered with home-made linen rugs. The explanation ofthis, of course, is their prosperity, the fact that a family has sixteendessyatins* of black earth, and that excellent wheat grows in thisblack earth. (Wheaten flour costs thirty kopecks a pood here.**) Butit cannot all be put down to prosperity and being well fed. Onemust give some of the credit to their manner of life. When you go atnight into a room where people are asleep, the nose is not aware ofany stuffiness or “Russian smell.” It is true one old woman whenshe handed me a teaspoon wiped it on the back of her skirt; butthey don’t set you down to drink tea without a tablecloth, and theydon’t search in each other’s heads in your presence, they don’t puttheir fingers inside the glass when they hand you milk or water; thecrockery is clean, the kvass is transparent as beer—in fact, there is a*I.e., about 48 acres.** I.e., about 7-1/2d. for 36 lb.149