At dusk, the postman, an elderly man who had been through a great deal and who did not dare sit down in my presence, started getting ready for the trip to the Tom. So did I. We started off. As soon as we reached the river, a boat appeared, a longer boat than I had ever dreamed of. While the mail was being loaded onto the boat I witnessed a strange phenomenon: there was a peal of thunder, and that with snow on the ground and a cold wind blowing. The boat took on its load and cast off. Forgive me, Misha [his brother Mikhail], but I was glad I had not taken you along. How clever I had been in not taking anybody along on this trip! At first our boat floated over a flooded meadow, close to a clump of willow shrubs . . . As usually happens before a storm, a strong wind suddenly swept over the water, raising waves. The boatman seated at the helm was of the opin- ion that we should weather the storm among the willow shrubs. The others countered that if the weather wors- ened we might have to stay among the willows until nightfall, and be drowned anyway. We put the matter to a vote, and it was decided to go on. My bad luck, how it mocks me! Why all those pranks? We rowed on silently, concentrating on the task before us . . . I re- member the figure of the postman who had been through the mill. I remember a little soldier, who sud- denly turned as crimson as cherry juice. Should the boat capsize, I thought, I would throw off my furlined jacket and my leather coat, then the felt boots, then, and so on. But now the bank was coming nearer and nearer . . . Lighter, lighter grew my soul, my heart contracted with joy; for some reason I sighed deeply, as though I were suddenly at rest, and then jumped onto the wet, slippery bank . • • Thank God!
At Ilya Markovich's, the convert's, we are told that we can't start out at night—the going is bad, we'll have to stay overnight. Well and good; I stay over. Mter din- ner I sit down to write you this letter, which is inter- rupted by the arrival of the assessor. This assessor is a thick mixture of Nozdryov [the bully in Gogol's Dead Souls], Hlestakov [the braggart in Gogol's Inspector
General], and plain dog. A drunkard, a lecher, a liar, a singer, a raconteur, and, with all that, a kindhearted man. He has brought with him a large chest full of official papers, a bed and mattress, a gun, and a clerk. The clerk is a splendid, cultivated fellow, an outspoken liberal who had studied in Petersburg. Though a free man, he finds himself for some reason in Siberia, is in- fected to the marrow of his bones with every disease, and is drinking himself to death thanks to his superior, who calls him familiarly Kolya. The representative of the law sends for some cordial. "Doctor," he vociferates, "drink one more glass, and I'll bow down to your very feet!" I drink, of course. The representative of the law drinks mightily, lies like a trooper, and swears foully. We go to bed. In the morning cordial is again sent for. They swill it until ten, and at last start out. Ilya Marko- vich, the convert, whom the peasants hereabouts wor- ship, I was told, gives me horses to take me as far as Tomsk.
to nikolay a. leikin
(This correspondent was the editor of a Petersburg comic weekly for which Chekhov wrote in his youth.)
Irkutsk, June 5, 1890
Greetings, my most kind Nikolay Alexandrovich! I send you the warmest regards from Irkutsk, from the depths of Siberia. I arrived in Irkutsk last night, and ^ very glad I did, since the journey knocked me out completely, and I was missing my relatives and friends, to whom I have not written for a long time. And now, what is there of interest to write you about? I'll begin by saying that the trip is unusually long. I have covered some two thousand miles by carriage from Tyumen to Irkutsk. From Tyumen to Irkutsk I waged war against cold and rivers in flood; the frosts were terrible; on the Feast of Ascension there was a frost and a snowfall, so that I didn't get a chance to take off my sheepskin coat and felt boots until I got to the hotel at Tomsk. As for the rivers in flood, they are a plague of Egypt. The rivers overflowed their banks and inundated the meadowlands for miles around, and the roads with them; it was con- stantly necessary to exchange my carriage for a boat— and as for boats, they weren't to be had for nothing; for a good boat one had to pay with one's heart's blood, since it was necessary to sit for days and nights on end in the rain and the cold wind, and wait and wait . • • From Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk there was a desperate war against insuperable mud. My God, it's fearful even to recaU itl How many times I had to have my carriage re^ paired, to trudge beside it, to curse, to crawl out of it and climb back into it again, and so on. There were times when the ride from one station to the next took six to ten hours, and from ten to sixteen hours were needed to repair the vehicle. The heat and dust during the trip from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk were dreadful. Add to this hunger, dust in your nose, eyes glued together for want of sleep, eternal fear that something may break in the carriage (which was my own), and boredom . . . But just the same I am content and thank God for having given me the strength and opportunity to make this journey. I have seen and lived through a great deal, and everything is exceedingly interesting and new to me, not as a man of letters but simply as a human being. The Yenisey river, the taiga [forest], the stations, the drivers, untamed Nature, the wild life, the physical agonies caused by the hardships of travel, the delights of resting —altogether everything is so wonderful that I can't even describe it. For one thing, during more than a month I have been out in the fresh air day and night,
which is interesting and wholesome; for a whole month
I have seen the sunrise from beginning to end.
From here I am going to Baikal, then to Chita, and on to Sretensk, where I exchange my horses for a steamer and sail down the Amur to my journey's end. I am in no hurry, since I have no wish to be in Sakhalin before the first of July.
Your Homo Sachaliensis
A. CHEKHOV
TO ALEXEY s. suvorin
Moscow, December 9, 1890 Greetings, my precious friend! Hurrah! There, I am at home at last sitting at my desk, praying to my moult- ing penates and writing to you. I have a pleasant feel- ing, as if I had never left home. I'm well, and serene to the marrow of my bones. Here is a report, of the briefest sort, for you. It wasn't two months I spent on Sakhalin, as you have it in your paper, but three, plus two days. My work was intensive; I took a full and detailed census of the entire population of the island and saw eoery- thing, except an execution. When we meet, I will show you a whole trunkful of odds and ends about the con- victs, raw material that cost me plenty. I know a great deal now, but I came back with a wretched feeling. As long as I was staying in Sakhalin, I only felt a certain bitterness in my innards, as if from rancid butter; but now, in retrospect, the island seems to me a perfect helL For two months I worked hard, without sparing myself in any way, while during the third month I began to feel the strain of the bitterness I spoke of, the tedium, and the thought that cholera was heading from Vladivos- tok to Sakhalin and that I was running the risk of hav- ing to winter in the penal colony. But, thank Heaven, the cholera let up, and on October 13th the steamer bore me away from Sakhalin.