Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends

TO HIS SISTER.

THE STEAMER “MURAVYOV,” June 29, 1890.

Meteors are flying in my cabin—these are luminous beetles that look like electric sparks. Wild goats swim across the Amur in the day-time. The flies here are huge. I am sharing my cabin with a Chinaman—Son-Luli—who is constantly telling me how in China for the merest trifle it is “off with his head.” Last night he got drunk with opium, and was talking in his sleep all night and preventing me from sleeping. On the 27th I walked about the Chinese town Aigun. Little by little I seem gradually to be stepping into a fantastic world. The steamer rocks, it is hard to write.

To-morrow I shall reach Habarovsk. The Chinaman began to sing from music written on his fan.