Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

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Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchMELIHOVO, October 10, 1892.Your telegram telling me of Svobodin’s death caught me just as Iwas going out of the yard to see patients. You can imagine my feelings.Svobodin stayed with me this summer; he was very sweet andgentle, in a serene and affectionate mood, and became very muchattached to me. It was evident to me that he had not very long tolive, it was evident to him too. He had the thirst of the aged foreveryday peace and quiet, and had grown to detest the stage andeverything to do with the stage and dreaded returning to Petersburg.Of course I ought to go to the funeral, but to begin with, yourtelegram came towards evening, and the funeral is most likely tomorrow,and secondly the cholera is twenty miles away, and I cannotleave my centre. There are seven cases in one village, and twohave died already. The cholera may break out in my section. It isstrange that with winter coming on the cholera is spreading over awider and wider region.I have undertaken to be the section doctor till the fifteenth ofOctober—my section will be officially closed on that day. I shalldismiss my feldsher, close the barracks, and if the cholera comes, Ishall cut rather a comic figure. Add to that the doctor of the nextsection is ill with pleurisy and so, if the cholera appears in his section,I shall be bound, from a feeling of comradeship, to undertakehis section.So far I have not had a single case of cholera, but I have hadepidemics of typhus, diphtheria, scarlatina, and so on. At the beginningof summer I had a great deal of work, then towards the autumnless and less.312* * *The sum of my literary achievement this summer, thanks to thecholera, has been almost nil. I have written little, and have thoughtabout literature even less. However, I have written two small stories—onetolerable, one bad.Life has been hard work this summer, but it seems, to me nowthat I have never spent a summer so well as this one. In spite of the
Anton Chekhovturmoil of the cholera, and the poverty which has kept tight hold ofme all the summer, I have liked the life and wanted to live. Howmany trees I have planted! Thanks to our system of cultivation,Melihovo has become unrecognizable, and seems now extraordinarilysnug and beautiful, though very likely it is good for nothing.Great is the power of habit and the sense of property. And it’s marvelloushow pleasant it is not to have to pay rent. We have madenew acquaintances and formed new relations. Our old terrors infacing the peasants now seem ludicrous. I have served in the Zemstvo,have presided at the Sanitary Council and visited the factories, andI liked all that. They think of me now as one of themselves, and staythe night with me when they pass through Melihovo. Add to that,that we have bought ourselves a new comfortable covered carriage,have made a new road, so that now we don’t drive through the village.We are digging a pond …. Anything else? In fact hitherto everythinghas been new and interesting, but how it will be later on, Idon’t know. There is snow already, it is cold, but I don’t feel drawnto Moscow. So far I have not had any feeling of dulness.* * *The educated people here are very charming and interesting. Whatmatters most, they are honest. Only the police are unattractive.We have seven horses, a broad-faced calf, and puppies, called Muirand Merrilees ….313
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