Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovTO HIS BROTHER MIHAIL.YALTA, October 26, 1898.… I am buying a piece of land in Yalta and am going to build soas to have a place in which to spend the winters. The prospect ofcontinual wandering with hotel rooms, hotel porters, chance cooking,and so on, and so on, alarms my imagination. Mother willspend the winter with me. There is no winter here; it’s the end ofOctober, but the roses and other flowers are blooming freely, thetrees are green and it is warm.There is a great deal of water. Nothing will be needed apart fromthe house, no outbuildings of any sort; it will all be under one roof.The coal, wood and everything will be in the basement. The henslay the whole year round, and no special house is needed for them,an enclosure is enough. Close by there is a baker’s shop and thebazaar, so that it will be very cosy for Mother and very convenient.By the way, there are chanterelles and boletuses to be gathered allthe autumn, and that will be an amusement for Mother. I am notdoing the building myself, the architect is doing it all. The houseswill be ready by April. The grounds, for a town house, are considerable.There will be a garden and flowerbeds, and a vegetable garden.The railway will come to Yalta next year ….As for getting married, upon which you are so urgent—what amI to say to you? To marry is interesting only for love; to marry a girlsimply because she is nice is like buying something one does notwant at the bazaar solely because it is of good quality.The most important screw in family life is love, sexual attraction,one flesh, all the rest is dreary and cannot be reckoned upon, howevercleverly we make our calculations. So the point is not in thegirl’s being nice but in her being loved; putting it off as you seecounts for little ….My “Uncle Vanya” is being done all over the province, and everywherewith success. So one never knows where one will gain andwhere one will lose; I had not reckoned on that play at all ….363