Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO A. I. SMAGIN.MOSCOW, December 11, 1891.… Well, now I have something to tell you, my good sir. I amsitting at home in Moscow, but meantime my enterprise in theNizhni Novgorod province is in full swing already! Together withmy friend the Zemsky Natchalnik, an excellent man, we are hatchinga little scheme, on which we expect to spend a hundred thousandor so, in the most remote section of the province, where thereare no landowners nor doctors, nor even well-educated young ladieswho are now to be found in numbers even in hell. Apart fromfamine relief of all sorts, we are making it our chief object to savethe crops of next year. Owing to the fact that the peasants are sellingtheir horses for next to nothing, there is a grave danger that thefields will not be ploughed for the spring corn, so that the faminewill be repeated next year. So we are going to buy up the horses andfeed them, and in spring give them back to their owners; our workis already firmly established, and in January I am going there tobehold its fruits. Here is my object in writing to you. If in the courseof some noisy banquet you or anyone else should chance to collect,if only half a rouble, for the famine fund, or if some Korobotchkabequeaths a rouble for that object, or if you yourself should win ahundred roubles, remember us sinners in your prayers, and spare usa part of your wealth! Not at once but when you like, only not laterthan in the spring ….286