Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTAGANROG, May 11.… From K.’s I went to the Holy Mountains.... I came to Slavyanskon a dark evening. The cabmen refuse to take me to the Holy Mountainsat night, and advise me to spend the night at Slavyansk, whichI did very willingly, for I felt broken and lame with pain …. Thetown is something like Gogol’s Mirgorod; there is a hairdresser and awatchmaker, so that one may hope that in another thousand yearsthere will be a telephone. The walls and fences are pasted with theadvertisements of a menagerie …. On green and dusty streets walkpigs, cows, and other domestic creatures. The houses look cordialand friendly, rather like kindly grandmothers; the pavements aresoft, the streets are wide, there is a smell of lilac and acacia in the air;from the distance come the singing of a nightingale, the croaking offrogs, barking, and sounds of a harmonium, of a woman screeching....I stopped in Kulikov’s hotel, where I took a room for seventyfivekopecks. After sleeping on wooden sofas and washtubs it was avoluptuous sight to see a bed with a mattress, a washstand …. Fragrantbreezes came in at the wide-open window and green branchesthrust themselves in. It was a glorious morning. It was a holiday(May 6th) and the bells were ringing in the cathedral. People werecoming out from mass. I saw police officers, justices of the peace,military superintendents, and other principalities and powers comeout of the church. I bought two kopecks’ worth of sunflower seeds,and hired for six roubles a carriage on springs to take me to theHoly Mountains and back (in two days’ time). I drove out of thetown through little streets literally drowned in the green of cherry,apricot, and apple trees. The birds sang unceasingly. Little Russianswhom I met took off their caps, taking me probably for Turgenev;my driver jumped every minute off the box to put the harness torights, or to crack his whip at the boys who ran after the carriage ….There were strings of pilgrims along the road. On all sides therewere white hills, big and small. The horizon was bluish-white, therye was tall, oak copses were met with here and there—the onlythings lacking were crocodiles and rattlesnakes.I came to the Holy Mountains at twelve o’clock. It is a remarkablybeautiful and unique place. The monastery stands on the bank of62