Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovApril 25.… Yesterday was the wedding—a real Cossack wedding withmusic, feminine bleating, and revolting drunkenness …. The brideis sixteen. They were married in the cathedral. I acted as best man,and was dressed in somebody else’s evening suit with fearfully widetrousers, and not a single stud on my shirt. In Moscow such a bestman would have been kicked out, but here I looked smarter thananyone.I saw many rich and eligible young ladies. The choice is enormous,but I was so drunk all the time that I took bottles for youngladies and young ladies for bottles. Probably owing to my drunkencondition the local ladies found me witty and satirical! The youngladies here are regular sheep, if one gets up from her place and walksout of the room all the others follow her. One of them, the boldestand the most brainy, wishing to show that she is not a stranger tosocial polish and subtlety, kept slapping me on the hand and saying,“Oh, you wretch!” though her face still retained its scared expression.I taught her to say to her partners, “How naive you are!”The bride and bridegroom, probably because of the local customof kissing every minute, kissed with such gusto that their lips madea loud smack, and it gave me a taste of sugary raisins in my mouthand a spasm in my left calf. The inflammation of the vein in my leftleg got worse through their kisses.… At Zvyerevo I shall have to wait from nine in the evening tillfive in the morning. Last time I spent the night there in a secondclassrailway-carriage on the siding. I went out of the carriage in thenight and outside I found veritable marvels: the moon, the limitlesssteppe, the barrows, the wilderness; deathly stillness, and the carriagesand the railway lines sharply standing out from the dusk. Itseemed as though the world were dead …. It was a picture onewould not forget for ages and ages.59