Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchcleanliness of which our Little Russians can only dream, yet theLittle Russians are far and away cleaner than the Great Russians!They make the most delicious bread here—I over-ate myself with itat first. The pies and pancakes and fritters and the fancy rolls, whichremind one of the spongy Little Russian ring rolls, are very goodtoo …. But all the rest is not for the European stomach. For instance,I am regaled everywhere with “duck broth.” It’s perfectlydisgusting, a muddy-looking liquid with bits of wild duck and uncookedonion floating in it …. I once asked them to make me somesoup from meat and to fry me some perch. They gave me soup toosalt, dirty, with hard bits of skin instead of meat; and the perch wascooked with the scales on it. They make their cabbage soup fromsalt meat; they roast it too. They have just served me some salt meatroasted: it’s most repulsive; I chewed at it and gave it up. They drinkbrick tea. It is a decoction of sage and beetles—that’s what it is likein taste and appearance.By the way, I brought from Ekaterinburg a quarter of a pound oftea, five pounds of sugar, and three lemons. It was not enough teaand there is nowhere to buy any. In these scurvy little towns eventhe government officials drink brick tea, and even the best shopsdon’t keep tea at more than one rouble fifty kopecks a pound. I haveto drink the sage brew.The distance apart of the posting stations depends on the distanceof the nearest villages from each other—that is, 20 to 40 versts.The villages here are large, there are no little hamlets. There arechurches and schools everywhere, the huts are of wood and thereare some with two storeys.Towards the evening the road and the puddles begin to freeze, andat night there is a regular frost, one wants an extra fur coat … Brrr! It’sjolting, for the mud is transformed into hard lumps. One’s soul isshaken inside out …. Towards daybreak one is fearfully exhausted bythe cold, by the jolting and the jingle of the bells: one has a passionatelonging for warmth and a bed. While they change horses one curls upin some corner and at once drops asleep, and a minute later the driverpulls at one’s sleeve and says: “Get up, friend, it is time to start.” Onthe second night I had acute toothache in my heels. It was unbearablypainful. I wondered whether they were frostbitten.150