Funny—journeying to Sakhalin and back I felt absolutely well, but now that I am home the devil only knows what goes on within me. I have a continual slight headache, a general feel- ing of lassitude, I tire easily, am apathetic, and the thing that bothers me most—have palpitations of the heart. Every minute my heart stops for several seconds and does n0t beat.
Misha got himself the uniform of a Grade VI official and is wearing it tomorrow on his round of holiday calls. Mother and Father look at him with tender pride, with expressions on their faces like those in paintings of the Blessed St. Simeon when he says, "Now absolve the sins of thy slave, O Lord . . ."
Baroness Ichschul (Madam Muskrat) is printing little books for popular consumption. Every booklet is adorned with the slogan "Truth"; and the price for truth runs from three to five kopeks a copy. Here you will find Uspenski, and Korolenko, and Potapenko, and other eminent personages. She asked my advice on what to publish. I couldn't reply to her question but in pass- ing recommended that she poke around in old papers, almanacs, etc. . . . When she complained that it was hard for her to ob- tain books, I promised to get your help. If she comes with a request, don't refuse it. The Baroness is an honest lady and won't muss or soil the books. She'll return them and will re- ward you with an enchanting smile at the same time.
Alexei Alexeyevich sent me some elegant wine. According to the testimony of all who have drunk it, it is good enough to warrant your being boldly proud of your son. He also sent me a letter in Latin. Splendid.
I mailed you a story yesterday. I'm afraid I was late. It's a choppy affair, but the hell with it.
Our medical circles in Moscow have adopted a cautious at- titude toward Koch, and nine tenths of the doctors don't believe in him.
God grant you the best of everything, and, principally, good health.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
T0 MARIA CHEKHOVA
January 14, 1891, St. Petersburg
I am as weary as a ballerina after five acts and eight tableaux. Dinners. letters I am too lazy to answer, conversations and as- sorted nonsense. Right now I must drive to Vassili Island for dinner, but I am bored and ought to be at work . . . .
I am enveloped in a heavy aura of bad feeling, extremely vague and to me incomprehensible. People feed me dinners and sing me vulgar hymns of praise, but at the same time are ready to devour me, the devil only knows why. If I were to shoot my- self I would afford great pleasure to nine-tenths of my friends and admirers. And how pettily they express their petty feelings! Burenin's! article abuses me, although abusing one's colleagues in print just isn't done; Maslov [Bejetski] won't have dinner with the Suvorins; Shcheglov gossips about me to everyone he meets, etc. All this is terribly stupid and dreary. They are not people, but a sort of fungus growth. . . .
My "Children" has come out in a second edition. I got one hundred rubles on the occasion.
I am well but go to bed late. . . .
I spoke to Suvorin about you: you are not to work with him— I have decreed it. He is terribly well disposed toward you, and enamored of Kundasova. . . .
My respects to Lydia. . . . Tell her not to eat starchy things and to avoid Levitan. She won't find a more devoted admirer than me in the Duma or in high society.
Shcheglov has arrived.
Yesterday Grigorovich came to see me; he kissed me fondly, lied, and kept begging me to tell him about Japanese women.
My greetings to all.
Your
A. Chekhov.
1 Burenin was a critic on New Times who seldom had a good word for any- body. In one article he said that it would be a good idea for Chekhov to retum to Sakhalin and stay there.
January 26, 1891, St. Petersburg
Dear Sir,
I have not answered your letter in a hurry, as I am not leav- ing St. Petersburg before Saturday.
I shall attempt to describe in detail the situation of Sakhalin children and adolescents. It is extraordinary. I saw hungry children, thirteen-year-old mistresses, girls of fifteen pregnant. Little girls enter upon prostitution at the age of twelve, some- times before the coming of menstruation. The church and the school exist only on paper, the children are educated instead by their environment and convict atmosphere. By the way, I wrote down a conversation I had with a ten-year old boy. I was taking the census of the village of Upper Armudan; its inhab- itants are to a man beggars, and notorious as reckless stoss play- ers. I entered a hut: the parents were not at home, and on a bench sat a towheaded little fellow, round-shouldered, bare- footed, in a brown study. \Ve started talking:
I. \Vhat is your father's middle name?
He. I don't know.
I. How's that? You live with your father and don't know his name? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
He. He isn't my real father.
I. What do you mean—not real?
He. He's living with Mom.
I. Does your mother have a husband or is she a widow?
He. A widow. She came here on account of her husband.
I. What do you mean by that?
He. She killed him.
I. Do you remember your father?
He. No. I'm illegitimate. She gave birth to me on Kara.
A prisoner, in foot shackles, who had murdered his wife, was with us on the Amur boat to Sakhalin. His poor half-orphaned daughter, a little girl of about six, was with him. I noticed that
when the father went down from the upper to the lower deck, where the toilet was, his guard and daughter followed; while the former sat in the toilet the armed soldier and the little girl stood at the door. When the prisoner climbed the staircase on his way back, the little girl clambered up and held on to his fetters. At night the little girl slept in a heap with the convicts and soldiers. Then I remember attending a funeral in Sakhalin. The wife of a transported criminal, who had left for Nikolay- evsk, was being buried. Around the open grave stood four con- victs as pallbearers—ex ollicio; the island treasurer and I in the capacity of Hamlet and Horatio, roamed about the cemetery; the dead woman's lodger, a Circassian, who had nothing else to do; and a peasant woman prisoner, who was here out of pity; shc had brought along two children of the deceased—one an infant and the other little Alyosha, a boy of four dressed in a woman's jacket and blue pants with brightly colored patches on the knees. It was cold, raw, there was water in the grave, and the convicts stood around laughing. The sea was visible. Alyosha looked at the grave with curiosity; he wanted to wipe his chilly nose, but the long sleeves of the jacket got in the way. While the grave was being filled I asked him, "Where is your mother, Alyosha?"
He waved his arm like a gentleman who had lost at cards, laughed and said, "Buried!"
The prisoners laughed; the Circassian turned to us and asked what he was to do with the children, as he was not obliged to take care of them.
I did not come upon infectious diseases in Sakhalin, there was very little congenital syphilis, but I did see children blind, filthy, covered with rashes—all maladies symptomatic of neglect.
Of course I shall not solve the children's problem, and I don't know what should be done. But it seems to me you will not get anyvhere with charity and leftovers from prison appropriations and other sums. To my way of thinking, it is harmful to ap- proach this important problem by depending upon charity, which in Russia is a casual affair, or upon nonexistent funds. I should prefer to have the government be financially respon- sible.
My Moscow address is c/o Firgang, M. Dmitrovka Street. Permit me to thank you for your cordiality and for your promise to visit me and to remain,
Your sincerely respectful and devoted,
A. Chekhov
T0 MARIA CHEKHOVA