Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchdrivers double and almost treble, for it has been fiendishly hardwork. My trunk, a very charming article, has turned out unsuitablefor the journey; it takes a lot of room, pokes one in the ribs, andrattles, and worst of all threatens to burst open. “Don’t take boxeson long journeys!” good people said to me, but I remembered thisadvice only when I had gone half-way. Well, I am leaving my trunkto reside permanently at Tomsk, and am buying instead of it a sortof leather carcase, which has the advantage that it can be tied so asto form two halves at the bottom of the chaise as one likes. I paidsixteen roubles for it. Next point. To travel to the Amur, changingone’s conveyance at every station, is torture. You shatter both yourselfand all your luggage. I was advised to buy a trap. I bought oneto-day for one hundred and thirty roubles. If I don’t succeed inselling it at Sryetensk, where my horse journey ends, I shall be in afix and shall howl aloud. To-day I dined with the editor of the SibirskyVyestnik, a local Nozdryov, a broad nature …. He drank to the tuneof six roubles.Stop! They announce that the deputy police master wants to seeme. What can it be?!?My alarm was unnecessary. The police officer turns out to be devotedto literature and himself an author; he has come to pay hisrespects to me. He went home to fetch his play, and I believe intendsto regale me with it. He is just coming again and preventingme from writing to you ….… My greetings to Nastyusha and Boris. I should be genuinelydelighted for their satisfaction to fling myself into the jaws of a tigerand call them to my aid, but, alas! I haven’t reached the tigers here:the only furry animals I have seen so far in Siberia are many haresand one mouse.Stop! The police officer has returned. He has not read me hisdrama though he brought it, but regaled me with a story. It’s notbad, only too local. He showed me a nugget of gold. He asked forsome vodka. I don’t remember a single educated Siberian who hasnot asked for vodka on coming to see me. He told me he had amistress, a married woman; he gave me a petition to the Tsar aboutdivorce to read ….166