Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton Chekhovall over me. Our journey over Lake Baikal was wonderful. I shallnever forget it as long as I live. But I will tell you what was not nice.We travelled third class, and the whole deck was occupied by thewaggon-horses, which were wild as mad things. These horses gave aspecial character to our crossing: it seemed as though we were in abrigand’s steamer. At Klyuevo the watchman undertook to conveyour luggage to the station; he drove the cart while we walked alongthe very picturesque shore. Levitan was an ass not to come with me.The way was through woods: on the right, woods running uphill;on the left, woods running down to the Lake. Such ravines, suchcrags! The colouring of Lake Baikal is soft and warm. It was, by theway, very warm. After walking eight versts we reached the station ofMyskan, where a Kyahtan official, who was also on his travels, regaledus with excellent tea, and where we got the horses forBoyarskaya; and so we set off on Thursday instead of Friday; what ismore, we got twenty-four hours in advance of the post, which usuallytakes all the horses at the station. We began driving as fast as wecould, cherishing a faint hope of reaching Sryetensk by the 20th. Iwill tell you when we meet about my journey along the bank of theSelenga and across Transbaikalia. Now I will only say that Selenga isone continuous loneliness, and in Transbaikalia I found everythingI wanted: the Caucasus, and the valley of the Psyol, and theZvenigorod district, and the Don. By day you gallop through theCaucasus, at night along the steppe of the Don; in the morning,rousing yourself from slumber, behold the province of Poltava—and so for the whole thousand versts. Verhneudinsk is a nice littletown. Tchita is a wretched place, in the style of Sumy. I need hardlysay that we had no time to think of sleep or dinner. One gallops onthinking of nothing but the chance that at the next station we mightnot get horses, and might be kept five or six hours. We did twohundred versts in twenty-four hours—one can’t do more than thatin the summer. We were stupefied. The heat was fearful by day,while at night it was so cold that I had to put on my leather coatover my cloth one. One night I even wore my sheepskin. Well, wedrove on and on, and reached Sryetensk this morning just an hourbefore the steamer left, giving the drivers from the last two stationsa rouble each for themselves.187