Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketcha white blouse, beautiful and languid.* I look at her, she looks at me…. I put on my glasses, she does the same …. Oh, lovely vision! Icaught a catarrh of the heart and continued my journey. The weatheris devilishly, revoltingly fine. Little Russians, oxen, ravens, whitehuts, rivers, the line of the Donets railway with one telegraph wire,daughters of landowners and farmers, red dogs, the trees—it all flitsby like a dream …. It is hot. The inspector begins to bore me. Therissoles and pies, half of which I have not got through, begin tosmell bitter …. I shove them under somebody else’s seat, togetherwith the remains of the vodka.… I arrive at Taganrog …. It gives one the impression ofHerculaneum and Pompeii; there are no people, and instead ofmummies there are sleepy drishpaks** and melon-shaped heads. Allthe houses look flattened out, and as though they had long neededreplastering, the roofs want painting, the shutters are closed ….At eight o’clock in the evening my uncle, his family, Irina, thedogs, the rats that live in the storeroom, the rabbits were fast asleep.There was nothing for it but to go to bed too. I sleep on the drawing-roomsofa. The sofa has not increased in length, and is as shortas it was before, and so when I go to bed I have either to stick up mylegs in an unseemly way or to let them hang down to the floor. Ithink of Procrustes and his bed ….*See the story “Two Beauties.”**Uneducated young men in the jargon of Taganrog.56