Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchwas paid four thousand down, and received a mortgage for five thousandat five per cent, for five years. The remaining four thousandthe artist will receive from the Land Bank when in the spring Imortgage the estate to a bank. You see what a good arrangement. Intwo or three years I shall have five thousand, and shall pay off themortgage, and shall be left with only the four thousand debt to thebank; but I have got to live those two of three years, hang it all!What matters is not the interest—that is small, not more than fivehundred roubles a year—but that I shall be obliged all the time tothink about quarter-days and all sorts of horrors attendant on beingin debt. Moreover, your honour, as long as I am alive and earningfour or five thousand a year, the debts will seem a trifle, and even aconvenience, for to pay four hundred and seventy interest is mucheasier than to pay a thousand for a flat in Moscow; that is all true.But what if I depart from you sinners to another world—that is,give up the ghost? Then the ducal estate with the debts would seemto my parents in their green old age and to my sister such a burdenthat they would raise a wail to heaven.I was completely cleaned out over the move.Ah, if you could come and see us! In the first place it would bevery delightful and interesting to see you; and in the second, youradvice would save us from a thousand idiocies. You know we don’tunderstand a thing about it. Like Raspluev, all I know about agricultureis that the earth is black, and nothing more. Write. How is itbest to sow clover?—among the rye, or among the spring wheat? …294