I stopped at Vladivostok. About our Maritime Region and our east coast, with its fleet, its problems, its dreams of the Pacific I shall say but one thing: it's all appalling poverty! Poverty, ignorance, and paltriness, such as can drive one to despair. One honest man to ninety-nine thieves, who desecrate the name of Russia . . . We by- passed Japan, since there was cholera there. For that reason I did not buy any Japanese articles for you, and the 500 rubles you gave me for such purchases I spent upon my own needs, which, according to law, gives you the right to have me deported to Siberia. The first for- eign port we touched was Hong Kong. The bay is won- derful; the sea traffic is such as I haven't seen the like of even in pictures; there are splendid roads, horse-drawn streetcars, a railway going up the mountain, museums, botanical gardens; no matter where you look you see the Englishmen's tender solicitude for the men in their service; there is even a club for sailors. I rode in jinrick- shas, which is to say, in a vehicle drawn by a man; bought all sorts of rubbish from the Chinese, and waxed indignant as I listened to my Russian fellow-travelers upbraiding the English for their exploitation of the na- tives. Yes, thought I, the Englishman exploits Chinese, sepoys, Hindus, but then he gives them roads, aque- ducts, museums, Christianity; you too exploit, but what do you give?
When we left Hong Kong the steamer began to roll. It had no cargo and it swung through an angle of 38 degrees, so that we were afraid it would capsize. I am not subject to seasickness; this discovery was a pleasant surprise. On the way to Singapore we threw two corpses into the ocean. When you see a dead man, wrapped in canvas, go flving head over heels into the water, and when you recall that there are several miles to the bot- tom, a fear comes over you, and for some reason you imagine that you yourself will die and be cast into the sea. The horned cattle we were carrying sickened. Dr. Shcherbak and your humble servant having passed sen- tence upon them, they were slaughtered and thrown into the ocean.
Singapore I remember poorly because while I was touring it I felt sad for some reason and all but wept. Ceylon came next—the site of Paradise. Here I covered some 70 miles by rail and had my fill of palm groves and bronze-skinned women. When I have children, I'll say to them, not without pride: "You sons of bitches, in my time I had dalliance with a dark-eyed Hindu—and where? In a coconut grove, on a moonlit night!" From Ceylon we sailed for thirteen days and nights without a single stop and grew dazed with boredom. I can stand heat well. The Red Sea is dismal. As I gazed on Mount Sinai I was deeply moved.
God's world is good. Only one thing isn't good: our- selves. How little there is in us of justice and humility, how poor is our conception of patriotism! The drunken, bedraggled, good-for-nothing of a husband loves his wife and child, but what's the good of that love? We, so the newspapers say, love our great country, but how is that love expressed? Instead of knowledge—inordinate brazenness and conceit, instead of hard work—laziness and swinishness; there is no justice; the concept of honor does not go beyond "the honor of the uniform," the uni- form which is the everyday adornment of the prisoners' dock. What is needed is work; everything else can go to the devil. The main thing is to be just—the rest will be added unto us. * * *
May Heaven protect you.
Your A. CHEKHOV
TO MME. MARIA V. KISELEVA
Rome, April 1, [1891] The Pope has charged me to offer you birthday greet- ings and wish you as much money as he has room. And he has 11,000 rooms! Wandering through the Vatican, I wilted with exhaustion, and when I returned home, my feet felt as if they were made of cotton.
I eat at the table d'hote. Fancy, opposite me sit two Dutch girls, one resembles Pushkin's Tatyana, the other, her sister Olga. I look at both all through dinner and picture to myself a spotless little white cottage with a turret, excellent butter, superb Dutch cheese, Dutch herring, a venerable-looking pastor, a sedate schoolmas- ter—and I want to marry a Dutch girl and be painted with her beside the spotless little cottage on a tray.
I have seen everything, trotted everywhere, sniffed at everything I was told to. But so far I feel simply fatigue and a desire for cabbage soup with buckwheat porridge. Venice fascinated me and turned my head, but since I bade it good-by, it has been just Baedecker and bad weather * * *
Ties are wonderfully cheap here. So cheap that maybe I'll try eating them. Two for a franc.
Tomorrow I go to Naples. Pray that I meet a beautiful Russian lady there, preferably a widow or a divorcee. The guidebooks say that a love affair is indispensable to an Italian tour. Well, devil take it, if a love affair, then a love affair! Don't forget your sinful but respectful and sincerely devoted,
A. Chekhov
Greetings to Messieurs the starlings.
TO alexey s. suvorin
Melihovo, April 8, 1892 Levitan, the artist, is staying with me. Last evening we were out shooting. He shot at a snipe, and the bird, hit in the wing, fell into a puddle. I picked it up: a long beak, big black eyes, and beautiful plumage. It looked astonished. What were we to do with it? Levitan frowned, shut his eyes, and begged me with a tremor in his voice, "My dear fellow, hit his head against the gun- stock." I said, "I can't." He went on nervously shrugging his shoulders, twitching his head, and begging me; and the snipe went on looking at us in astonishment. I had to obey Levitan and kill it. One more beautiful enam- ored creature gone, while two fools went home and sat down to supper.
(The writer begins this letter by pointing out that the artists of his generation, whether writers or painters, have produced nothing but "lemonade," nothing capable of going to a man's head.)
Melihovo, Nov. 25, 1892 Science and technology are passing through a great period now, but for our writing fraternity it is a fl.abby, sour, dull time; we ourselves are sour and dull, and can only beget rubber boys, and the only one who does not see it is Stasov [an art critic] whom Nature has endowed with the rare ability to get drunk even on slops. The cause of this is not our stupidity, or our lack of talent, or our insolence * * * but a disease which for an artist is worse than syphilis and impotence. We lack "something" —that is true, and it means that if you lift the skirt of our Muse, you will find the spot level. Remember that the writers whom we call eternal or simply good and who in- toxicate us have one very important characteristic in com- mon: they move in a certain direction and they summon you there too, and you feel, not with your mind alone, but with your whole being, that they have a goal, like the ghost of Hamlet's father who docs not come and trouble the imagination for nothing. Some, depending on their caliber, have immediate objects: abolition of serfdom, liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or, like Denis Davydov [author of drinking songs], simply vodka; others have remote objectives: God, immortality, the happiness of mankind, and so forth. The best of them are realistic, and paint life as it is, but because every line is permeated, as with sap, by the consciousness of a purpose, you are aware not only of life as it is, but of life as it ought to be, and that captivates you. And we? We! We paint life as it is, and beyond that neither whoa! nor giddap! Whip us and we cannot go a step farther. We have neither im- mediate nor distant aims and our souls are a yawning void. We have no politics, we don't believe in revolution, we have no God, we are not afraid of ghosts, and I per- sonally am not afraid even of death and blindness. One who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing cannot be an artist. Whether it is a disease or not—that is a question of name and doesn't matter, but it must be admitted that our situation is unenviable . . .