Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchAnd so my horse-journey is over. It has lasted two months (I setout on the 21st of April). If we exclude the time spent on the railwayand the steamer, the three days spent in Ekaterinburg, the weekin Tomsk, the day in Krasnoyarsk, the week in Irkutsk, the two dayson the shores of Lake Baikal, and the days wasted in waiting forboats to cross the floods, you can judge of the rate at which I havedriven. My journey has been most successful, I wish nothing betterfor anyone. I have not once been ill, and of the mass of things I hadwith me I have lost nothing but a penknife, the strap off my trunk,and a little jar of carbolic ointment. My money is safe. It is notoften that anyone succeeds in travelling a thousand versts so well.I have grown so used to driving that now I don’t feel like myself,and cannot believe that I am not in a chaise and that I don’t hear therattling and the jingling of the bells. It seems strange that when I goto bed I can stretch out my legs full length, and that my face is notcovered with dust. But what is stranger still is that the bottle ofbrandy Kuvshinnikov gave me has not been broken, and that thebrandy is still in it, every drop of it. I have vowed not to uncork itexcept on the shore of the Pacific.I am sailing down the Shilka, which runs into the Amur at thePokrovskaya Stanitsa. The river is not broader than the Psyol, it iseven narrower. The shores are stony: there are crags and forests. It isabsolutely wild …. We tack about to avoid foundering on a sandbank,or running our helm into the banks: steamers and barges oftendo so in the rapids. It’s stifling. We have just stopped at Ust-Kara, where we have landed five or six convicts. There are mineshere and a convict prison.Yesterday we were at Nertchinsk. The little town is nothing toboast of, but one could live there.And how are you, messieurs and mesdames? I know positivelynothing about you. You might subscribe twopence each and sendme a full telegram.The steamer will stay the night at Gorbitsa. The nights here arefoggy, sailing is dangerous, I shall send off this letter at Gorbitsa.… I am going first class because my companions are in the second.I have got away from them. We have driven together (three inone chaise), we have slept together and are sick of each other, espe-188