Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends
comes to an end--we go splash! 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 fashion 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 mass, 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 dashing 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 God, into a basketwork chaise and drove me with two horses; one sits in
the basket like a goldfinch, looking at God’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 masses 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 woodcock flutter
about in the birch copses. The hares which are not eaten or shot here,
stand on their hindlegs, and, pricking up their ears, watch the passer-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 glass when they hand you milk or water; the crockery is
clean, the kvass 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.
Towards the evening the road and the puddles begin to freeze, and at night
there is a regular frost, one wants an extra fur coat ... Brrr! It’s
jolting, for the mud is transformed into hard lumps. One’s soul is shaken
inside out.... Towards daybreak one is fearfully exhausted by the cold, by
the jolting and the jingle of the bells: one has a passionate longing for
warmth and a bed. While they change horses one curls up in some corner and
at once drops asleep, and a minute later the driver pulls at one’s sleeve
and says: “Get up, friend, it is time to start.” On the second night I had
acute toothache in my heels. It was unbearably painful. I wondered whether
they were frostbitten.
I can’t write more though. The “president,” that is the district police
inspector, has come. We have made acquaintance and are beginning to talk.
Goodbye till to-morrow.
TOMSK,
May 16.
It seems my strong boots were the cause, being too tight at the back. My
sweet Misha, if you ever have any children, which I have no doubt you will,
the advice I bequeath to them is not to run after cheap goods. Cheapness in
Russian goods is the label of worthlessness. To my mind it is better to go
barefoot than to wear cheap boots. Picture my agony! I keep getting out of
the chaise, sitting down on damp ground and taking off my boots to rest my
heels. So comfortable in the frost! I had to buy felt over-boots in
Ishim.... So I drove in felt boots till they collapsed from the mud and the
damp.
In the morning between five and six o’clock one drinks tea at a hut. Tea on
a journey is a great blessing. I know its value now, and drink it with the
fury of a Yanov. It warms one through and drives away sleep; one eats a lot
of bread with it, and in the absence of other nourishment, bread has to be
eaten in great quantities; that is why peasants eat so much bread and
farinaceous food. One drinks tea and talks with the peasant women, who are
sensible, tenderhearted, industrious, as well as being devoted mothers and
more free than in European Russia; their husbands don’t abuse or beat them,
because they are as tall, as strong, and as clever as their lords and
masters are. They act as drivers when their husbands are away from home;