Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends
in Italy was much cheaper than travelling in the Caucasus. But alas! I
am with the Suvorins.... In Venice we lived in the best of hotels like
Doges; here in Rome we live like Cardinals, for we have taken a salon of
what was once the palace of Cardinal Conti, now the Hotel Minerva; two
huge drawing-rooms, chandeliers, carpets, open fireplaces, and all sorts
of useless rubbish, costing us forty francs a day.
My back aches, and the soles of my feet burn from tramping about. It’s
awful how we walk!
It seems odd to me that Levitan did not like Italy. It’s a fascinating
country. If I were a solitary person, an artist, and had money, I should
live here in the winter. You see, Italy, apart from its natural scenery and
warmth, is the one country in which you feel convinced that art is really
supreme over everything, and that conviction gives one courage.
NAPLES,
April 4, 1891.
I arrived in Naples, went to the post-office and found there five letters
from home, for which I am very grateful to you all. Well done, relations!
Even Vesuvius is so touched it has gone out.
Vesuvius hides its top in clouds and can only be seen well in the evening.
By day the sky is overcast. We are staying on the sea-front and have a view
of everything: the sea, Vesuvius, Capri, Sorrento.... We drove in the
daytime up to the monastery of St. Martini: the view from here is such as I
have never seen before, a marvellous panorama. I saw something like it at
Hong Kong when I went up the mountain in the railway.
In Naples there is a magnificent arcade. And the shops!! The shops make me
quite giddy. What brilliance! You, Masha, and you, Lika, would be rabid
with delight.
* * * * *
There is a wonderful aquarium in Naples. There are even sharks and squids.
When a squid (an octopus) devours some animals it’s a revolting sight.
I have been to a barber’s and watched a young man having his beard clipped
for a whole hour. He was probably engaged to be married or else a
cardsharper. At the barber’s the ceiling and all the four walls were made
of looking-glass, so that you feel that you are not at a hairdresser’s but
at the Vatican where there are eleven thousand rooms. They cut your hair
wonderfully.
I shan’t bring you any presents, as you don’t write to me about the summer
villa and the mongoose. I bought you a watch, Masha, but I have cast it to
the swine. But there, God forgive you!
P.S.--I shall be back by Easter, come and meet me at the station.
NAPLES,
April 7, 1891.
Yesterday I went to Pompeii and went over it. As you know, it is a Roman
town buried under the lava and ashes of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. I walked about
the streets of the town and saw the houses, the temples, the theatre, the
squares.... I saw and marvelled at the faculty of the Romans for combining
simplicity with convenience and beauty. After viewing Pompeii, I lunched at
a restaurant and then decided to go to Vesuvius. The excellent red wine I
had drunk had a great deal to do with this decision. I had to ride on
horseback to the foot of Vesuvius. I have in consequence to-day a sensation
in some parts of my mortal frame as though I had been in the Third
Division, and had there been flogged. What an agonising business it is
climbing up Vesuvius! Ashes, mountains of lava, solid waves of molten
minerals, mounds of earth, and every sort of abomination. You take one step
forward and fall half a step back, the soles of your feet hurt you, your
breathing is oppressed.... You go on and on and on, and it is still a long
way to the top. You wonder whether to turn back, but you are ashamed to
turn back, you would be laughed at. The ascent began at half-past two, and
ended at six. The crater of Vesuvius is a great many yards in diameter. I
stood on its edge and looked down as into a cup. The soil around, covered
by a layer of sulphur, was smoking vigorously. From the crater rose white
stinking smoke; spurts of hot water and red-hot stones fly out while Satan
lies snoring under cover of the smoke. The noise is rather mixed, you hear
in it the beating of breakers and the roar of thunder, and the rumble of
the railway line and the falling of planks. It is very terrible, and at the
same time one has an impulse to jump right into the crater. I believe in
hell now. The lava has such a high temperature that copper coins melt in
it.
Coming down was as horrid as going up. You sink up to your knees in ashes.
I was fearfully tired. I went back on horseback through a little village
and by houses; there was a glorious fragrance and the moon was shining. I
sniffed, gazed at the moon, and thought of _her_--that is, of Lika L.
All the summer, noble gentlemen, we shall have no money, and the thought of
that spoils my appetite. I have got into debt for a thousand for a tour,
which I could have made _solo_ for three hundred roubles. All my hopes
now are in the fools of amateurs who are going to act my “Bear.”
Have you taken a house for the holidays, signori? You treat me piggishly,
you write nothing to me, and I don’t know what’s going on, and how things
are at home.
Humble respects to you all. Take care of yourselves, and don’t completely
forget me.
MONTE CARLO,
April 13, 1891.
I am writing to you from Monte Carlo, from the very place where they play
roulette. I can’t tell you how thrilling the game is. First of all I won
eighty francs, then I lost, then I won again, and in the end was left with
a loss of forty francs. I have twenty francs left, I shall go and try my
luck again. I have been here since the morning, and it is twelve o’clock at
night. If I had money to spare I believe I should spend the whole year
gambling and walking about the magnificent halls of the casino. It is
interesting to watch the ladies who lose thousands. This morning a young
lady lost 5000 francs. The tables with piles of gold are interesting too.
In fact it is beyond all words. This charming Monte Carlo is extremely like
a fine ... den of thieves. The suicide of losers is quite a regular thing.
Suvorin _fils_ lost 300 francs.
We shall soon see each other. I am weary of wandering over the face of the
earth. One must draw the line. My heels are sore as it is.
TO HIS BROTHER MIHAIL.
NICE,
Monday in Holy Week, April, 1891.
We are staying in Nice, on the sea-front. The sun is shining, it is warm,
green and fragrant, but windy. An hour’s journey from Nice is the famous
Monaco. There is Monte Carlo, where roulette is played. Imagine the rooms
of the Hall of Nobility but handsomer, loftier and larger. There are big
tables, and on the tables roulette--which I will describe to you when I get
home. The day before yesterday I went over there, played and lost. The game
is fearfully fascinating. After losing, Suvorin _fils_ and I fell to
thinking it over, and thought out a system which would ensure one’s
winning. We went yesterday, taking five hundred francs each; at the first
staking I won two gold pieces, then again and again; my waistcoat pockets
bulged with gold. I had in hand French money even of the year 1808, as well
as Belgian, Italian, Greek, and Austrian coins.... I have never before seen
so much gold and silver. I began playing at five o’clock and by ten I had
not a single franc in my pocket, and the only thing left me was the
satisfaction of knowing that I had my return ticket to Nice. So there it
is, my friends! You will say, of course: “What a mean thing to do! We are
so poor, while he out there plays roulette.” Perfectly just, and I give you
permission to slay me. But I personally am much pleased with myself.
Anyway, now I can tell my grandchildren that I have played roulette, and
know the feeling which is excited by gambling.
Beside the Casino where roulette is played there is another swindle--the
restaurants. They fleece one frightfully and feed one magnificently. Every
dish is a regular work of art, before which one is expected to bow one’s
knee in homage and to be too awe-stricken to eat it. Every morsel is rigged
out with lots of artichokes, truffles, and nightingales’ tongues of all
sorts. And, good Lord! how contemptible and loathsome this life is with its
artichokes, its palms, and its smell of orange blossoms! I love wealth and
luxury, but the luxury here, the luxury of the gambling saloon, reminds one
of a luxurious water-closet. There is something in the atmosphere that
offends one’s sense of decency and vulgarizes the scenery, the sound of the
sea, the moon.
Yesterday--Sunday--I went to the Russian church here. What was peculiar was
the use of palm-branches instead of willows; and instead of boy choristers
a choir of ladies, which gives the singing an operatic effect. They put
foreign money in the plate; the verger and beadle speak French, and so
on....
Of all the places I have been in hitherto Venice has left me the loveliest
memories. Rome on the whole is rather like Harkov, and Naples is filthy.
And the sea does not attract me, as I got tired of it last November and
December.
I feel as though I have been travelling for a whole year. I had scarcely
got back from Sahalin when I went to Petersburg, and then to Petersburg
again, and to Italy....
If I don’t manage to get home by Easter, when you break the fast, remember
me in your prayers, and receive my congratulations from a distance, and my
assurance that I shall miss you all horribly on Easter night.
TO HIS SISTER.
PARIS,
April 21, 1891.
To-day is Easter. So Christ is risen! It’s my first Easter away from home.
I arrived in Paris on Friday morning and at once went to the Exhibition.
Yes, the Eiffel Tower is very very high. The other exhibition buildings I
saw only from the outside, as they were occupied by cavalry brought there
in anticipation of disorders. On Friday they expected riots. The people
flocked in crowds about the streets, shouting and whistling, greatly
excited, while the police kept dispersing them. To disperse a big crowd a
dozen policemen are sufficient here. The police make a combined attack, and
the crowd runs like mad. In one of these attacks the honour was vouchsafed
to me--a policeman caught hold of me under my shoulder, and pushed me in
front of him.
There was a great deal of movement, the streets were swarming and surging.
Noise, hubbub. The pavements are filled with little tables, and at the
tables sit Frenchmen who feel as though they were at home in the street. A
magnificent people. There is no describing Paris, though; I will put off
the description of it till I get home.
I heard the midnight service in the Church of the Embassy....
I am afraid you have no money.
Misha, get my pince-nez mended, for the salvation of your soul! I am simply
a martyr without spectacles. I went to the Salon and couldn’t see half the
pictures, thanks to my short sight. By the way, the Russian artists are far
more serious than the French.... In comparison with the landscape painters
I saw here yesterday Levitan is a king....
PARIS,
April 24.
A change again. One of the Russian sculptors living in Paris has undertaken
to do a bust of Suvorin, and this will keep us till Saturday.
... How are you managing without money? Bear it till Thursday.
Imagine my delight. I was in the Chamber of Deputies just at the time of
the sitting when the Minister for Internal Affairs was called to account
for the irregularities which the government had ventured upon in putting
down the riots in Fourmis (there were many killed and wounded). It was a
stormy and extremely interesting sitting.
Men who tie boa-constrictors round their bodies, ladies who kick up to the
ceiling, flying people, lions, _cafe’-chantants_, dinners and lunches begin
to sicken me. It is time I was home. I am longing to work.