Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends Part 15

We begin to come across natives; there are lots of Tatars: they are a respectable and well-behaved people.

I beg Father and Mother not to worry, and not to imagine dangers which do not exist.

Excuse me for writing about nothing but food. If I did not write about food I should have to write about cold, for I have no other subjects.

April 29, 1890.

MY DEAR TUNGUSES!

The Kama is a very dull river. To realise its beauties one would have to be a native sitting motionless on a barge beside a barrel of naphtha, or a sack of dried fish, continually taking a pull at the bottle. The river banks are bare, the trees are bare, the earth is a dull brown, there are patches of snow, and there is such a wind that the devil himself could not blow as keenly and hatefully. When a cold wind blows and ruffles up the water, which now after the floods is the colour of coffee slops, one feels cold and bored and miserable; the strains of a concertina on the bank sound dejected, figures in tattered sheepskins standing motionless on the barges that meet us look as though they were petrified by some unending grief. The towns on the Kama are grey; one would think the inhabitants were employed in the manufacture of clouds, boredom, soaking fences and mud in the streets, as their sole occupation. The stopping-places are thronged with inhabitants of the educated cla.s.s, for whom the arrival of a steamer is an event....

... To judge from appearances not one of them earns more than thirty-five roubles, and all of them are ailing in some way.

I have told you already there are some legal gentlemen in the steamer: the president of the court, one of the judges, and the prosecutor. The president is a hale and hearty old German who has embraced Orthodoxy, is pious, a h.o.m.oeopath, and evidently a devotee of the s.e.x. The judge is an old man such as dear Nikolay used to draw; he walks bent double, coughs, and is fond of facetious subjects. The prosecutor is a man of forty-three, dissatisfied with life, a liberal, a sceptic, and a very good-natured fellow. All the journey these gentlemen have been occupied in eating, settling mighty questions and eating, reading and eating. There is a library on the steamer, and I saw the prosecutor reading my "In the Twilight." They began talking about me. Mamin-Sibiryak, who has described the Urals, is the author most liked in these parts. He is more talked of than Tolstoy.

I have been two and a half years sailing to Perm, so it seems to me. We reached there at two o'clock in the night. The train went at six o'clock in the evening. I had to wait. It rained. Rain, cold, mud ... brrr! The Uralsky line is a good one.... That is due to the abundance of business-like people here, factories, mines, and so on, for whom time is precious.

Waking yesterday morning and looking out of the carriage window I felt an aversion for nature: the earth was white, trees covered with h.o.a.r-frost, and a regular blizzard pursuing the train. Now isn't it revolting? Isn't it disgusting? ... I have no goloshes, I pulled on my big boots, and on my way to the refreshment-room for coffee I made the whole Ural region smell of tar. And when we got to Ekaterinburg there was rain, snow, and hail. I put on my leather coat. The cabs are something inconceivable, wretched, dirty, drenched, without springs, the horse's four legs straddling, huge hoofs, gaunt spines ... the droshkies here are a clumsy parody of our britchkas. A tattered top is put on to a britchka, that is all. And the more exactly I describe the cabman here and his vehicle, the more it will seem like a caricature. They drive not on the middle of the road where it is jolting, but near the gutter where it is muddy and soft. All the cabmen are like Dobrolyubov.

In Russia all the towns are alike. Ekaterinburg is exactly the same as Perm or Tula. The note of the bells is magnificent, velvety. I stopped at the American Hotel (not at all bad), and at once sent word of my arrival to A.

M. S., telling him I meant to stay in my hotel room for two days.

The people here inspire the newcomer with a feeling akin to horror. They are big-browed, big-jawed, broad-shouldered fellows with huge fists and tiny eyes. They are born in the local iron foundries, and at their birth a mechanic officiates instead of an accoucheur. A specimen comes into your room with a samovar or a bottle of water, and you expect him every minute to murder you. I stand aside. This morning just such a one came in, big-browed, big-jawed, huge, towering up to the ceiling, seven feet across the shoulders and wearing a fur coat too.

Well, I thought, this one will certainly murder me. It appeared that this was our relation A. M. S. We began to talk. He is a member of the local Zemstvo and manager of his cousin's mill, which is lighted by electric light; he is editor of the _Ekaterinburg Week_ which is under the censors.h.i.+p of the police-master Baron Taube, is married and has two children, is growing rich and getting fat and elderly, and lives in a "substantial way." He says he has no time to be bored. He advised me to visit the museum, the factories, and the mines; I thanked him for his advice. He invited me to tea to-morrow evening; I invited him to dine with me. He did not invite me to dinner, and altogether did not press me very much to visit him. From this mother may conclude that the relations' heart is not softened.... Relations are a race in which I take no interest.

There is snow in the street, and I have purposely let down the blind over the windows so as not to see the Asiatic sight. I am sitting here waiting for an answer from Tyumen to my telegram. I telegraphed: "Tyumen. Kurbatov steamer line. Reply paid. Inform me when the pa.s.senger steamer starts Tomsk." It depends on the answer whether I go by steamer or gallop fifteen hundred versts in the slush of the thaw.

All night long they beat on sheets of iron at every corner here. You need a head of iron not to go crazy from the incessant clanging. To-day I tried to make myself coffee. The result was a horrid mess. I just drank it with a shrug. I looked at five sheets, handled them, and did not take one. I am going to-day to buy rubber overshoes.

Shall I find a letter from you at Irkutsk?

Ask Lika not to leave such big margins in her letters.

Your h.o.m.o Sachaliensis, A. CHEKHOV.

TO MADAME KISELYOV.

THE BANK OF THE IRTYSH, May 7, 1890.

My greetings, honoured Marya Vladimirovna! I meant to write you a farewell letter from Moscow, but I had not time; I write to you now sitting in a hut on the bank of the Irtysh.

It is night. This is how I have come to be here. I am driving across the plain of Siberia. I have already driven 715 versts; I have been transformed from head to foot into a great martyr. This morning a keen cold wind began blowing, and it began drizzling with the most detestable rain. I must observe that there is no spring yet in Siberia. The earth is brown, the trees are bare, and there are white patches of snow wherever one looks; I wear my fur coat and felt overboots day and night.... Well, the wind has been blowing since early morning.... Heavy leaden clouds, dull brown earth, mud, rain, wind.... Brrr! I drive on and on.... I drive on endlessly, and the weather does not improve. Towards evening I am told at the station I can't go on further, as everything is under water, the bridges have been carried away, and so on. Knowing how fond these drivers are of frightening one with the elements so as to keep the traveller for the night (it is to their interest), I did not believe them, and ordered them to harness the three horses; and now--alas for me!--I had not driven more than five versts when I saw the land on the bank of the Irtysh all covered with great lakes, the road disappeared under water, and the bridges on the road really had been swept away or had decayed. I was prevented from turning back partly by obstinacy and partly by the desire to get out of these dreary parts as quickly as possible. We began driving through the lakes.... My G.o.d, I have never experienced anything like it in my life! The cutting wind, the cold, the loathsome rain, and one had to get out of the chaise (not a covered one), if you please, and hold the horses: at each little bridge one could only lead the horses over one at a time.... What had I come to? Where was I? All around, desert, dreariness; the bare sullen bank of the Irtysh in sight.... We drive into the very biggest lake. Now I should be glad to turn back, but it is not easy.... We drive on a long strip of land ... the strip comes to an end--we go splas.h.!.+ Again a strip of land, again a splash.... My hands were numb, and the wild ducks seemed jeering at us and floated in huge flocks over our heads.... It got dark. The driver said nothing--he was bewildered. But at last we reached the last strip that separated the Irtysh from the lake.... The sloping bank of the Irtysh was nearly three feet above the level; it was of clay, bare, hollowed out, and looked slippery.

The water was muddy.... White waves splashed on the clay, but the Irtysh itself made no roar or din, but gave forth a strange sound as though someone were nailing up a coffin under the water.... The further bank was a flat, disconsolate plain.... You often dream of the Bozharovsky pool; in the same way now I shall dream of the Irtysh....

But behold a ferry. We must be ferried across to the other side. A peasant shrinking from the rain comes out of a hut, and tells us that the ferry cannot cross now as it is too windy.... (The ferries are worked by oars).

He advises us to wait for calm weather....

And so I am sitting at night in a hut on a lake at the very edge of the Irtysh. I feel a penetrating dampness to the very marrow of my bones, and a loneliness in my soul; I hear my Irtysh banging on the coffins and the wind howling, and wonder where I am, why I am here.

In the next room the peasants who work the ferry and my driver are asleep.

They are good-natured people. But if they were bad people they could perfectly well rob me and drown me in the Irtysh. The hut is the only one on the river bank; there would be no witnesses.

The road to Tomsk is absolutely free from danger as far as brigands are concerned. It isn't the fas.h.i.+on even to talk of robbery. There is no stealing even from travellers. When you go into a hut you can leave your things outside and they will all be safe.

But they very nearly did kill me all the same. Imagine the night just before dawn.... I was driving along in a chaise, thinking and thinking....

All at once I see coming flying towards us at full gallop a post-cart with three horses; my driver had hardly time to turn to the right, the three horses dashed by, and I noticed in it the driver who had to take it back.... Behind it came another, also at full speed; we had turned to the right, it turned to the left. "We shall smash into each other," flashed into my mind ... one instant, and--there was a crash, the horses were mixed up in a black ma.s.s, my chaise was rearing in the air, and I was rolling on the ground with all my bags and boxes on the top of me. I leap up and see--a third troika das.h.i.+ng upon us....

My mother must have been praying for me that night, I suppose. If I had been asleep, or if the third troika had come immediately after the second, I should have been crushed to death or maimed. It appeared the foremost driver lashed on the horses, while the drivers in the second and the third carts were asleep and did not see us. The collision was followed by the blankest amazement on both sides, then a storm of ferocious abuse. The traces were torn, the shafts were broken, the yokes were lying about on the road.... Ah, how the drivers swore! At night, in that swearing turbulent crew, I felt in utter solitude such as I have never felt before in my life....

But my paper is running out.

TO HIS SISTER.

THE VILLAGE OF YAR, 45 VERSTS FROM TOMSK, May 14, 1890.

My glorious mother, my splendid Masha, my sweet Misha, and all my household! At Ekaterinburg I got my reply telegram from Tyumen. "The first steamer to Tomsk goes on the 18th May." This meant that, whether I liked it or not, I must do the journey with horses. So I did. I drove out of Tyumen on the third of May after spending in Ekaterinburg two or three days, which I devoted to the repair of my coughing and haemorrhoidal person. Besides the public posting service, one can get private drivers that take one across Siberia. I chose the latter: it is just the same. They put me, the servant of G.o.d, into a basketwork chaise and drove me with two horses; one sits in the basket like a goldfinch, looking at G.o.d's world and thinking of nothing.... The plain of Siberia begins, I think, from Ekaterinburg, and ends goodness knows where; I should say it is very like our South Russian Steppe, except for the little birch copses here and there and the cold wind that stings one's cheeks. Spring has not begun yet. There is no green at all, the woods are bare, the snow has not thawed everywhere. There is opaque ice on the lakes. On the ninth of May there was a hard frost, and to-day, the fourteenth, snow has fallen to the depth of three or four inches. No one speaks of spring but the ducks. Ah, what ma.s.ses of ducks!

Never in my life have I seen such abundance. They fly over one's head, they fly up close to the chaise, swim on the lakes and in the pools--in short, with the poorest sort of gun I could have shot a thousand in one day. One can hear the wild geese calling.... There are lots of them here too. One often comes upon a string of cranes or swans.... Snipe and woodc.o.c.k flutter about in the birch copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here, stand on their hindlegs, and, p.r.i.c.king up their ears, watch the pa.s.ser-by with an inquisitive stare without the slightest misgiving. They are so often running across the road that to see them doing so is not considered a bad omen.

It's cold driving ...; I have my fur coat on. My body is all right, but my feet are freezing. I wrap them in the leather overcoat-but it is no use....

I have two pairs of breeches on. Well, one drives on and on.... Telegraph poles, pools, birch copses flash by. Here we overtake some emigrants, then an etape.... We meet tramps with pots on their back; these gentry promenade all over the plain of Siberia without hindrance. One time they will murder some poor old woman to take her petticoat for their leg-wrappers; at another they will strip from the verst post the metal plate with the number on it--it might be useful; at another will smash the head of some beggar or knock out the eyes of some brother exile; but they never touch travellers.

Altogether, travelling here is absolutely safe as far as brigands are concerned. Neither the post-drivers nor the private ones from Tyumen to Tomsk remember an instance of any things being stolen from a traveller.

When you reach a station you leave your things outside; if you ask whether they won't be stolen, they merely smile in answer. It is not the thing even to speak of robbery and murder on the road. I believe, if I were to lose my money in the station or in the chaise, the driver would certainly give it me if he found it, and would not boast of having done so. Altogether the people here are good and kindly, and have excellent traditions. Their rooms are simply furnished but clean, with claims to luxury; the beds are soft, all feather mattresses and big pillows. The floors are painted or covered with home-made linen rugs. The explanation of this, of course, is their prosperity, the fact that a family has sixteen dessyatins [Footnote: I.e., about 48 acres.] of black earth, and that excellent wheat grows in this black earth. (Wheaten flour costs thirty kopecks a _pood_ here.

[Footnote: i.e., about 7-1/2d. for 36 lb.]) But it cannot all be put down to prosperity and being well fed. One must give some of the credit to their manner of life. When you go at night into a room where people are asleep, the nose is not aware of any stuffiness or "Russian smell." It is true one old woman when she handed me a teaspoon wiped it on the back of her skirt; but they don't set you down to drink tea without a tablecloth, and they don't search in each other's heads in your presence, they don't put their fingers inside the gla.s.s when they hand you milk or water; the crockery is clean, the kva.s.s is transparent as beer--in fact, there is a cleanliness of which our Little Russians can only dream, yet the Little Russians are far and away cleaner than the Great Russians! They make the most delicious bread here--I over-ate myself with it at first. The pies and pancakes and fritters and the fancy rolls, which remind one of the spongy Little Russian ring rolls, are very good too.... But all the rest is not for the European stomach. For instance, I am regaled everywhere with "duck broth." It's perfectly disgusting, a muddy-looking liquid with bits of wild duck and uncooked onion floating in it.... I once asked them to make me some soup from meat and to fry me some perch. They gave me soup too salt, dirty, with hard bits of skin instead of meat; and the perch was cooked with the scales on it. They make their cabbage soup from salt meat; they roast it too. They have just served me some salt meat roasted: it's most repulsive; I chewed at it and gave it up. They drink brick tea. It is a decoction of sage and beetles--that's what it is like in taste and appearance.

By the way, I brought from Ekaterinburg a quarter of a pound of tea, five pounds of sugar, and three lemons. It was not enough tea and there is nowhere to buy any. In these scurvy little towns even the government officials drink brick tea, and even the best shops don't keep tea at more than one rouble fifty kopecks a pound. I have to drink the sage brew.

The distance apart of the posting stations depends on the distance of the nearest villages from each other--that is, 20 to 40 versts. The villages here are large, there are no little hamlets. There are churches and schools everywhere, the huts are of wood and there are some with two storeys.