Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO A. F. KONI.PETERSBURG, January 16, 1891.DEAR SIR, ANATOLY FYODOROVITCH,I did not hasten to answer your letter because I am not leavingPetersburg before next Saturday. I am sorry I have not been to seeMadame Naryshkin, but I think I had better defer my visit till mybook has come out, when I shall be able to turn more freely to thematerial I have. My brief Sahalin past looms so immense in myimagination that when I want to speak about it I don’t know whereto begin, and it always seems to me that I have not said what waswanted.I will try and describe minutely the position of the children andyoung people in Sahalin. It is exceptional. I saw starving children, Isaw girls of thirteen prostitutes, girls of fifteen with child. Girls beginto live by prostitution from twelve years old, sometimes beforemenstruation has begun. Church and school exist only on paper,the children are educated by their environment and the convict surroundings.Among other things I have noted down a conversationwith a boy of ten years old. I was making the census of the settlementof Upper Armudano; all the inhabitants are poverty-stricken,every one of them, and have the reputation of being desperate gamblersat the game of shtoss. I go into a hut; the people are not athome; on a bench sits a white-haired, round-shouldered, bare-footedboy; he seems lost in thought. We begin to talk.I. “What is your father’s second name?”He. “I don’t know.”I. “How is that? You live with your father and don’t know what hisname is? Shame!”He. “He is not my real father.”I. “How is that?”214
Anton ChekhovHe. “He is living with mother.”I. “Is your mother married or a widow?”He. “A widow. She followed her husband here.”I. “What has become of her husband, then?”He. “She killed him.”I. “Do you remember your father?”He. “No, I don’t, I am illegitimate. I was born when mother was atKara.”On the Amur steamer going to Sahalin, there was a convict withfetters on his legs who had murdered his wife. His daughter, a littlegirl of six, was with him. I noticed wherever the convict moved thelittle girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. At night thechild slept with the convicts and soldiers all in a heap together. Iremember I was at a funeral in Sahalin. Beside the newly dug gravestood four convict bearers ex officio; the treasury clerk and I, in thecapacity of Hamlet and Horatio, wandering about the cemetery;the dead woman’s lodger, a Circassian, who had come because hehad nothing better to do; and a convict woman who had come outof pity and had brought the dead woman’s two children, one a baby,and the other, Alyoshka, a boy of four, wearing a woman’s jacketand blue breeches with bright-coloured patches on the knees. It wascold and damp, there was water in the grave, the convicts were laughing.The sea was in sight. Alyoshka looked into the grave with curiosity;he tried to wipe his chilly nose, but the long sleeve of hisjacket got into his way. When they began to fill in the grave I askedhim: “Alyoshka, where is your mother?” He waved his hand withthe air of a gentleman who has lost at cards, laughed, and said:“They have buried her!”The convicts laughed, the Circassian turned and asked what he215
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Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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