Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (585 page)
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Authors: ANTON CHEKHOV
PETERSBURG,
January 16, 1891.
DEAR SIR, ANATOLY FYODOROVITCH,
I did not hasten to answer your letter because I am not leaving Petersburg before next Saturday. I am sorry I have not been to see Madame Naryshkin, but I think I had better defer my visit till my book has come out, when I shall be able to turn more freely to the material I have. My brief Sahalin past looms so immense in my imagination that when I want to speak about it I don’t know where to begin, and it always seems to me that I have not said what was wanted.
I will try and describe minutely the position of the children and young people in Sahalin. It is exceptional. I saw starving children, I saw girls of thirteen prostitutes, girls of fifteen with child. Girls begin to live by prostitution from twelve years old, sometimes before menstruation has begun. Church and school exist only on paper, the children are educated by their environment and the convict surroundings. Among other things I have noted down a conversation with a boy of ten years old. I was making the census of the settlement of Upper Armudano; all the inhabitants are poverty-stricken, every one of them, and have the reputation of being desperate gamblers at the game of shtoss. I go into a hut; the people are not at home; on a bench sits a white-haired, round-shouldered, bare-footed boy; he seems lost in thought. We begin to talk.
I. “What is your father’s second name?”
He. “I don’t know.”
I. “How is that? You live with your father and don’t know what his name is?
Shame!”
He. “He is not my real father.”
I. “How is that?”
He. “He is living with mother.”
I. “Is your mother married or a widow?”
He. “A widow. She followed her husband here.”
I. “What has become of her husband, then?”
He. “She killed him.”
I. “Do you remember your father?”
He. “No, I don’t, I am illegitimate. I was born when mother was at Kara.”
On the Amur steamer going to Sahalin, there was a convict with fetters on his legs who had murdered his wife. His daughter, a little girl of six, was with him. I noticed wherever the convict moved the little girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. At night the child slept with the convicts and soldiers all in a heap together. I remember I was at a funeral in Sahalin. Beside the newly dug grave stood four convict bearers ex officio; the treasury clerk and I, in the capacity of Hamlet and Horatio, wandering about the cemetery; the dead woman’s lodger, a Circassian, who had come because he had nothing better to do; and a convict woman who had come out of pity and had brought the dead woman’s two children, one a baby, and the other, Alyoshka, a boy of four, wearing a woman’s jacket and blue breeches with bright-coloured patches on the knees. It was cold and damp, there was water in the grave, the convicts were laughing. The sea was in sight. Alyoshka looked into the grave with curiosity; he tried to wipe his chilly nose, but the long sleeve of his jacket got into his way. When they began to fill in the grave I asked him: “Alyoshka, where is your mother?” He waved his hand with the air of a gentleman who has lost at cards, laughed, and said: “They have buried her!”
The convicts laughed, the Circassian turned and asked what he was to do with the children, saying it was not his duty to feed them.
Infectious diseases I did not meet with in Sahalin. There is very little congenital syphilis, but I saw blind children, filthy, covered with eruptions — all diseases that are evidence of neglect. Of course I am not going to settle the problem of the children. I don’t know what ought to be done. But it seems to me that one will do nothing by means of philanthropy and what little is left of prison and other funds. To my thinking, to make something of great importance dependent upon charity, which in Russia always has a casual character, and on funds which do not exist, is pernicious. I should prefer it to be financed out of the government treasury.
MOSCOW,
January 31, 1891.
At home I found depression. My nicest and most intelligent mongoose had fallen ill and was lying very quietly under a quilt. The little beast eats and drinks nothing. The climate has already laid its cold claw on it and means to kill it. What for?
We have received a dismal letter. In Taganrog we were on friendly terms with a well-to-do Polish family. The cakes and jam I ate in their house when I was a boy at school arouse in me now the most touching reminiscences; there used to be music, young ladies, home-made liqueurs, and catching goldfinches in the immense courtyard. The father had a post in the Taganrog customs and got into trouble. The investigation and trial ruined the family. There were two daughters and a son. When the elder daughter married a rascal of a Greek, the family took an orphan girl into the house to bring up. This little girl was attacked by disease of the knee and they amputated the leg. Then the son died of consumption, a medical student in his fourth year, an excellent fellow, a perfect Hercules, the hope of the family…. Then came terrible poverty…. The father took to wandering about the cemetery, longed to take to drink but could not: vodka simply made his head ache cruelly while his thoughts remained the same, just as sober and revolting. Now they write that the younger daughter, a beautiful, plump young girl, is consumptive…. The father writes to me of that and writes to me for a loan of ten roubles…. Ach!
I felt awfully unwilling to leave you, but still I am glad I did not remain another day — I went away and showed that I had strength of will. I am writing already. By the time you come to Moscow my novel [Footnote: “The Duel.”] will be finished, and I will go back with you to Petersburg.
Tell Borya, Mitya, and Andrushka that I vituperate them. In the pocket of my greatcoat I found some notes on which was scrawled: “Anton Pavlovitch, for shame, for shame, for shame!” O pessimi discipuli! Utinam vos lupus devoret!
Last night I did not sleep, and I read through my “Motley Tales” for the second edition. I threw out about twenty stories.
MOSCOW,
February 5, 1891.
My mongoose has recovered and breaks crockery again with unfailing regularity.
I am writing and writing! I must own I was afraid that my Sahalin expedition would have put me out of the way of writing, but now I see that it is all right. I have written a great deal. I am writing diffusely a la Yasinsky. I want to get hold of a thousand roubles.
I shall soon begin to expect you. Are we going to Italy or not? We ought to.
In Petersburg I don’t sleep at night, I drink and loaf about, but I feel immeasurably better than in Moscow. The devil only knows why it is so.
I am not depressed, because in the first place I am writing, and in the second, one feels that summer, which I love more than anything, is close at hand. I long to prepare my fishing tackle….
February 23.
Greetings, my dear friend.
Your telegram about the Tormidor upset me. I felt dreadfully attracted to Petersburg: now for the sake of Sardou and the Parisian visitors. But practical considerations pulled me up. I reflected that I must hurry on with my novel; that I don’t know French, and so should only be taking up someone else’s place in the box; that I have very little money, and so on. In short, as it seems to me now, I am a poor comrade, though apparently I acted sensibly.
My novel is progressing. It’s all smooth, even, there is scarcely anything that is too long. But do you know what is very bad? There is no movement in my novel, and that frightens me. I am afraid it will be difficult to read to the middle, to say nothing of reading to the end. Anyway, I shall finish it. I shall bring Anna Pavlovna a copy on vellum paper to read in the bathroom. I should like something to sting her in the water, so that she would run out of the bathroom sobbing.
I was melancholy when you went away….
Send me some money. I have none and seem to have nowhere to borrow. By my reckoning I cannot under favourable circumstances get more than a thousand roubles from you before September. But don’t send the money by post, as I can’t bear going to post offices….
March 5.
We are going!!! I agree to go, where you like and when you like. My soul is leaping with delight. It would be stupid on my part not to go, for when would an opportunity come again? But, my dear friend, I leave you to weigh the following circumstances.
(1) My work is still far from being finished; if I put it by till May, I shall not be able to begin my Sahalin work before July, and that is risky. For my Sahalin impressions are already evaporating, and I run the risk of forgetting a great deal.
(2) I have absolutely no money. If without finishing my novel I take another thousand roubles for the tour abroad, and then for living after the tour, I shall get into such a tangle that the devil himself could not pull me out by the ears. I am not in a tangle yet because I am up to all sorts of dodges, and live more frugally than a mouse; but if I go abroad everything will go to the devil. My accounts will be in a mess and I shall get myself hopelessly in debt. The very thought of a debt of two thousand makes my heart sink.
There are other considerations, but they are all of small account beside that of money and work. And so, thoroughly digest my objections, put yourself into my skin for a moment, and decide, wouldn’t it be better for me to stay at home? You will say all this is unimportant. But lay aside your point of view? and look at it from mine.
I await a speedy answer.
My novel [Footnote: “The Duel.”] is progressing, but I have not got far.
I have been to the Kiselyovs’. The rooks are already arriving.
MOSCOW,
March 11, 1891.
As I depart for France, Spain, and Italy, I beseech you, oh, Heavens, keep
Babkino in good health and prosperity!
Yes, Marya Vladimirovna! As it is written in the scripture: he had not time to cry out, before a bear devoured him. So I had not time to cry out before an unseen power has drawn me again to the mysterious distance. To-day I am going to Petersburg, from there to Berlin, and so further. Whether I climb Vesuvius or watch a bull-fight in Spain, I shall remember you in my holiest prayers. Good-bye.
I have been to a seminary and picked out a seminarist for Vassilisa. There were plenty with delicate feelings and responsive natures, but not one would consent. At first, especially when I told them that you sometimes had peas and radishes on your table, they consented; but when I accidentally let out that in the district captain’s room there was a bedstead on which people were flogged, they scratched their heads and muttered that they must think it over. One, however, a pockmarked fellow called Gerasim Ivanovitch, with very delicate feelings and a responsive nature, is coming to see you in a day or two. I hope that Vassilisa and you will make him welcome. Snatch the chance: it’s a brilliant match. You can flog Gerasim Ivanovitch, for he told me: “I am immensely fond of violent sensations;” when he is with you you had better lock the cupboard where the vodka is kept and keep the windows open, as the seminary inspiration and responsiveness is perceptible at every minute.
“What a happy girl is Vassilisa!”
Idiotik has not been to see me yet.
The hens peck the cock. They must be keeping Lent, or perhaps the virtuous widows don’t care for their new suitor.
They have brought me a new overcoat with check lining.
Well, be in Heaven’s keeping, happy, healthy and peaceful. God give you all everything good. I shall come back in Holy Week. Don’t forget your truly devoted,
ANTON CHEKHOV.
PETERSBURG,
March 16. Midnight.
I have just seen the Italian actress Duse in Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. I don’t know Italian, but she acted so well that it seemed to me I understood every word. A remarkable actress! I have never seen anything like it before. I gazed at that Duse and felt overcome with misery at the thought that we have to educate our temperaments and tastes on such wooden actresses as N. and her like, whom we call great because we have seen nothing better. Looking at Duse I understood why it is that the Russian theatre is so dull.
I sent three hundred roubles to-day, did you get them?
After Duse it was amusing to read the address I enclose. [Footnote: A newspaper cutting containing an address: From the Students of the Technological Institute of Harkov to M. M. Solovtsov, was enclosed.] My God, how low taste and a sense of justice have sunk! And these are the students — the devil take them! Whether it is Solovtsov or whether it is Salvini, it’s all the same to them, both equally “stir a warm response in the hearts of the young.” They are worth a farthing, all those hearts.
We set off for Warsaw at half-past one to-morrow. My greetings to all, even the mongooses, though they don’t deserve it. I will write.
VIENNA,
March 20, 1891.
MY DEAR CZECHS,
I write to you from Vienna, which I reached yesterday at four o’clock in the afternoon. Everything went well on the journey. From Warsaw to Vienna I travelled like a railway Nana in a luxurious compartment of the “Societe Internationale des Wagons-Lits.” Beds, looking-glasses, huge windows, rugs, and so on.
Ah, my dears, if you only knew how nice Vienna is! It can’t be compared with any of the towns I have seen in my life. The streets are broad and elegantly paved, there are numbers of boulevards and squares, the houses have always six or seven storeys, and shops — they are not shops, but a perfect delirium, a dream! There are myriads of neckties alone in the windows! Such amazing things made of bronze, china, and leather! The churches are huge, but they do not oppress one by their hugeness; they caress the eye, for it seems as though they are woven of lace. St. Stephen and the Votiv-Kirche are particularly fine. They are not like buildings, but like cakes for tea. The parliament, the town hall, and the university are magnificent. It is all magnificent, and I have for the first time realized, yesterday and to-day, that architecture is really an art. And here the art is not seen in little bits, as with us, but stretches over several versts. There are numbers of monuments. In every side street there is sure to be a bookshop. In the windows of the bookshops there are Russian books to be seen — not, alas, the works of Albov, of Barantsevitch, and of Chekhov, but of all sorts of anonymous authors who write and publish abroad. I saw “Renan,” “The Mysteries of the Winter Palace,” and so on. It is strange that here one is free to read anything and to say what one likes. Understand, O ye peoples, what the cabs are like here! The devil take them! There are no droshkys, but they are all new, pretty carriages with one and often two horses. The horses are splendid. On the box sit dandies in top-hats and reefer jackets, reading the newspaper, all politeness and readiness to oblige.
The dinners are good. There is no vodka; they drink beer and fairly good wine. There is one thing that is nasty: they make you pay for bread. When they bring the bill they ask, Wie viel brodchen? — that is, how many rolls have you devoured? And you have to pay for every little roll.
The women are beautiful and elegant. Indeed, everything is diabolically elegant.
I have not quite forgotten German. I understand, and am understood.
When we crossed the frontier it was snowing. In Vienna there is no snow, but it is cold all the same.
I am homesick and miss you all, and indeed I am conscience-stricken, too, at deserting you all again. But there, never mind! I shall come back and stay at home for a whole year. I send my greetings to everyone, everyone.
I wish you all things good; don’t forget me with my many transgressions. I embrace you, I bless you, send my greetings and remain,
Your loving
A. CHEKHOV.
Everyone who meets us recognises that we are Russians, and stares not at my face, but at my grizzled cap. Looking at my cap they probably think I am a very rich Russian Count.