June 7, 1890.
... The steamer from Sryetensk leaves on June 20th. Good Christians, what am I to do till the 20th? How am I to dispose of myself? The journey to Sryetensk will only take five or six days. I have greatly altered the route of my journey. From Habarovsk (look at the map [Footnote: Chekhov’s family had, during his absence, a map of Siberia on the wall by means of which they followed his progress.]) I am going not to Nikolaevsk, but by the Ussuri to Vladivostok, and from there to Sahalin. I must have a look at the Ussuri region. At Vladivostok I shall bathe in the sea and eat oysters.
It was cold till I reached Kansk; from Kansk (see map) I began to go down to the south. Everything is as green as with you, even the oaks are out. The birches here are darker than in Russia, the green is not so sentimental. There are masses of the Russian white service-tree, which here takes the place of both the lilac and the cherry. They say they make an excellent jam from the service-tree. I tasted some of the fruit pickled; it was not bad.
Two lieutenants and an army doctor are travelling with me. They have received their travelling expenses three times over, but have spent all the money, though they are travelling in one carriage. They are sitting without a farthing, waiting for the pay department to send them some money. They are nice fellows. They have had from fifteen hundred to two thousand roubles each for travelling expenses, and the journey will cost them next to nothing (excluding, of course, the cost of the stopping places). They do nothing but pitch into everybody at hotels and stations so that people are positively afraid to present their bills. In their company I pay less than usual.... To-day for the first time in my life I saw a Siberian cat. It has long soft fur, and a gentle disposition.
... I felt homesick and sent you a telegram today asking you to subscribe together and send me a long telegram. It would be nothing to all of you, inhabitants of Luka, to fling away five roubles.
... With whom is Mishka in love? To what happy woman is Ivanenko telling stories of his uncle? ... I must be in love with Jamais as I dreamed of her yesterday. In comparison with all the “jeunes Siberiennes” with their Yakut-Buriat physiognomies, who do not know how to dress, to sing, and to laugh, our Jamais, Drishka, and Gundassiha are simply queens. The Siberian girls and women are like frozen fish; one would have to be a walrus or a seal to get up a flirtation with them.
I am tired of my companions. It is much nicer travelling alone. I like silence better than anything on the journey and my companions talk and sing without stopping, and they talk of nothing but women. They borrowed a hundred and thirty-six roubles from me till to-morrow and have already spent it. They are regular sieves.
... The stations are sometimes thirty to thirty-five versts apart. You drive by night, you drive and drive, till you feel silly and light-headed, and if you venture to ask the driver how far it is to the next station, he will never say less than seventeen versts. That’s particularly agonizing when you have to go at a walking pace along a muddy road full of holes, and when you are thirsty. I have learned to do without sleep; I don’t mind a bit when they wake me. As a rule one does not sleep for one day and night, and then the next day at dinner-time there is a strained feeling in one’s eyelids; in the evening and in the night towards daybreak of the third day, one dozes in the chaise and sometimes falls asleep for a minute as one sits; at dinner and after dinner at the stations, while the horses are being harnessed, one lolls on the sofa, and the real torture only begins at night. In the evening, after drinking five glasses of tea, one’s face begins to burn, one’s body feels limp all over and longs to bend backwards; one’s eyes close, one’s feet ache in one’s big boots, one’s brain is in a tangle. If I allow myself to put up for the night I fall into a dead sleep at once; if I have strength of will to go on, I drop asleep in the chaise, however violent the jolting may be; at the stations the drivers wake one up, as one has to get out of the chaise and pay for the journey. They wake one not so much by shouting and tugging at one’s sleeve, as by the stink of garlic that issues from their lips; they smell of garlic and onion till they make me sick. I only learned to sleep in the chaise after Krasnoyarsk. On the way to Irkutsk I slept for fifty-eight versts, and was only once woken up. But the sleep one gets as one drives makes one feel no better. It’s not real sleep, but a sort of unconscious condition, after which one’s head is muddled and there’s a bad taste in one’s mouth.
Chinamen are like those decrepit old gentlemen dear Nikolay [Footnote: Chekhov’s brother.] used to like drawing. Some of them have splendid pigtails.
The police came to see me at Tomsk. Towards eleven o’clock the waiter suddenly announced to me that the assistant police-master wanted to see me. What was this for? Could it be politics? Could they suspect me of being a Voltairian? I said to the waiter, “Ask him in.” A gentleman with long moustaches walks in and introduces himself. It appears he is devoted to literature, writes himself, and has come to me in my hotel room as though to Mahomed at Mecca to worship. I’ll tell you why I thought of him. Late in the autumn he is going to Petersburg, and I have foisted my trunk upon him and asked him to leave it at the Novoye Vremya office. You might keep that in mind in case any one of us or our friends goes to Petersburg.
You might, by the way, look out for a place in the country. When I get back to Russia I shall take five years’ rest—that is, stay in one place and twiddle my thumbs. A place in the country will come in very handy. I think the money will be found, for things don’t look bad. If I work off the money I have had in advance (half of it is worked off already) I shall certainly borrow two or three thousand in the spring, to be paid off over a period of five years. That will not be against my conscience, as I have already let the publishing department of the Novoye Vremya make two or three thousand out of my books, and I shall let them make more.
I think I shall not begin on any serious work till I am five and thirty.... I want to try personal life, of which I have had some before, but have not noticed it owing to various circumstances.
To-day I rubbed my leather coat with grease. It’s a splendid coat. It has saved me from catching cold. My sheepskin is a capital thing, too: it serves me as a coat and a mattress, both. One is as warm in it as on a stove. It’s wretched without pillows. Hay does not take the place of them, and with the continual friction there’s a lot of dust from it which tickles one’s face and prevents one from dozing. I haven’t a single sheet. That’s horrid too. And I ought to have taken some more trousers. The more luggage one has the better—there’s less jolting and more comfort.
Good-bye, though. I have got nothing more to write about. My greetings to all.
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