Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchSiberiennes” with their Yakut-Buriat physiognomies, who do notknow how to dress, to sing, and to laugh, our Jamais, Drishka, andGundassiha are simply queens. The Siberian girls and women arelike frozen fish; one would have to be a walrus or a seal to get up aflirtation with them.I am tired of my companions. It is much nicer travelling alone. Ilike silence better than anything on the journey and my companionstalk and sing without stopping, and they talk of nothing butwomen. They borrowed a hundred and thirty-six roubles from metill to-morrow and have already spent it. They are regular sieves.… The stations are sometimes thirty to thirty-five versts apart. Youdrive by night, you drive and drive, till you feel silly and light-headed,and if you venture to ask the driver how far it is to the next station, hewill never say less than seventeen versts. That’s particularly agonizingwhen you have to go at a walking pace along a muddy road full ofholes, and when you are thirsty. I have learned to do without sleep; Idon’t mind a bit when they wake me. As a rule one does not sleep forone day and night, and then the next day at dinner-time there is astrained feeling in one’s eyelids; in the evening and in the night towardsdaybreak of the third day, one dozes in the chaise and sometimesfalls asleep for a minute as one sits; at dinner and after dinner atthe stations, while the horses are being harnessed, one lolls on thesofa, and the real torture only begins at night. In the evening, afterdrinking five glasses of tea, one’s face begins to burn, one’s body feelslimp all over and longs to bend backwards; one’s eyes close, one’s feetache in one’s big boots, one’s brain is in a tangle. If I allow myself toput up for the night I fall into a dead sleep at once; if I have strengthof will to go on, I drop asleep in the chaise, however violent the joltingmay be; at the stations the drivers wake one up, as one has to getout of the chaise and pay for the journey. They wake one not so muchby shouting and tugging at one’s sleeve, as by the stink of garlic thatissues from their lips; they smell of garlic and onion till they make mesick. I only learned to sleep in the chaise after Krasnoyarsk. On theway to Irkutsk I slept for fifty-eight versts, and was only once wokenup. But the sleep one gets as one drives makes one feel no better. It’snot real sleep, but a sort of unconscious condition, after which one’shead is muddled and there’s a bad taste in one’s mouth.180
Anton ChekhovChinamen are like those decrepit old gentlemen dear Nikolay*used to like drawing. Some of them have splendid pigtails.The police came to see me at Tomsk. Towards eleven o’clock thewaiter suddenly announced to me that the assistant police-masterwanted to see me. What was this for? Could it be politics? Could theysuspect me of being a Voltairian? I said to the waiter, “Ask him in.” Agentleman with long moustaches walks in and introduces himself. Itappears he is devoted to literature, writes himself, and has come to mein my hotel room as though to Mahomed at Mecca to worship. I’lltell you why I thought of him. Late in the autumn he is going toPetersburg, and I have foisted my trunk upon him and asked him toleave it at the Novoye Vremya office. You might keep that in mind incase any one of us or our friends goes to Petersburg.You might, by the way, look out for a place in the country. WhenI get back to Russia I shall take five years’ rest—that is, stay in oneplace and twiddle my thumbs. A place in the country will come invery handy. I think the money will be found, for things don’t lookbad. If I work off the money I have had in advance (half of it isworked off already) I shall certainly borrow two or three thousandin the spring, to be paid off over a period of five years. That will notbe against my conscience, as I have already let the publishing departmentof the Novoye Vremya make two or three thousand out ofmy books, and I shall let them make more.I think I shall not begin on any serious work till I am five andthirty …. I want to try personal life, of which I have had somebefore, but have not noticed it owing to various circumstances.To-day I rubbed my leather coat with grease. It’s a splendid coat.It has saved me from catching cold. My sheepskin is a capital thing,too: it serves me as a coat and a mattress, both. One is as warm in itas on a stove. It’s wretched without pillows. Hay does not take theplace of them, and with the continual friction there’s a lot of dustfrom it which tickles one’s face and prevents one from dozing. Ihaven’t a single sheet. That’s horrid too. And I ought to have takensome more trousers. The more luggage one has the better—there’sless jolting and more comfort.*Chekhov’s brother.181
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