"\Ve have no assistants, and have to act as doctors and orderlies at the same time; the mujiks are crude, filthy, mistrustful; but the thought that our labors won't be wasted makes all these things practically unnoticeable. Of all the Serpukhov doctors I am the sorriest specimen; I have a scurvy horse and carriage, don't know the roads, cant see at night, haven't any money, get tired very easily, and most important of all—I cannot forget for a moment that I must write, and I feel very much like spitting on the cholera and getting down to my work. And I would like to have a talk with you. I am utterly lonely.
Our farming efforts have been crowned with complete suc- cess. The harvest is a solid one, and when we sell our grain, Melikhovo will net us more than a thousand rubles. The truck garden is a brilliant success. "\Ve have regular mountains of cucumbers, and wonderful cabbage. If it weren't for the damned cholera I could say I had never spent as good a summer as this one. . . .
Nothing is heard of cholera riots any more. There is talk of arrests, proclamations and so on. They say Astyrev/ the literary man, has been scntenced to a fifteen-year prison term. If our socialists actually exploit cholera for their own ends, I shall
1 Astyrc\' was a sociologist.
despise them. Using vile means to attain worthy ends makes the ends themselves vile. Let them ride on the backs of doctors and medical assistants, but why lie to the people? Why assure the people they are right in their ignorance and that their crude prejudices are sacred truth? Can any splendid future possibly justify this base lie? Were I a politician, I could never make up my mind to shame my present for the sake of the future, even though I might be promised tons of bliss for a pinch of foul lying.
Shall we see each other in the fall, and will we be together in Feodosia? You, after your trip abroad, and I, after the cholera, might have a good deal that is interesting to tell each other. Let's spend October together in the Crimea. It wouldn't be boring, honestly. We can write, talk, eat. . . . There is no more cholera in Feodosia.
Write me if possible more often. ... I can't be in very good spirits now, but your letters do tear me away from worries over the cholera and carry me briefly into another world.
Keep well. My regards to my classmate, Alexei Petrovich.
Yours,
A. Chek.hov
I am going to treat cholera by the Cantani method: lots of enemas with tannin at 40 degrees and injections under the skin of a solution of sodium chloride. The fonner have an ex- cellent effect: they wann, and decrease the diarrhea. The in- jection sometimes produces miracles, but on other occasions causes a stroke.
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
August 16, 1892, Melikhovo I won't write any more, not if you cut me down. I wrote to Abbazzio, to St. Moritz, wrote at least ten times. . . . It's mortify- ing, particularly so when, after a whole group of my letters on
our worries over cholera, you suddenly write from gay, tur- quoise-hued Biarritz that you envy me my leisure! May Allah forgive you!
\Vell, sir, I'm alive and well. The summer is an admirable one, dry, warm, teeming with fruits of the earth, but all its dclight, from July on, was totally spoiled by news of a cholera epidemic. During the time you were inviting me first to Vienna, then to Abbazzio, I had alrcady become the section doctor of the Scrpukhov community, was trying to catch cholera by the tail and had organized a new section like a whirlwind. In my sec- tion I have twenty-five villages, four factories and one mon- astery. In the morning I hold office hours for patients, in the afternoon I pay visits . ... I have turned out to be a first-rate beggar; what with my beggar-like eloquence, my section now has two cxcellent barracks completely equipped and five that are not exccllent but miserable. I have even relieved the com- munity council of expenditures for disinfection purposes. I have begged lime, vitriol and assorted stinking junk from manu- facturers for all of my twenty-five villages. . . . My soul is spent and I am weary. Not to belong to yourself, to think only of diarrhea, to tremble at night at the bark of a dog and knock at the gate (haven't thcy come to get me out of bed?) to drive scurvy horses along unknown roads, to read only about cholera and wait only for cholera and at the same time to be completely indiffercnt to the malady and the pcople you are treating— my dear sir, you can't have even a bowing acquaintance with the stew that is going on within me. Cholera has already hit Moscow and Moscow District. \Ve must expect it hourly. Judg- ing by its progress in Moscow, we have reason to believe it has already abatcd and the bacillus is beginning to lose its vigor. \Ve must also rcalize that it must readily give way before the measures takcn herc and in Moscow. The educated class is work- ing diligently without sparing its body or its purse; I see evi- dencc of it evcry day and am moved, and then whcn I recall how Inhabitant and Burcnin poured forth their vcnom on this class, I get a pretty choked feeling. In Nizhni the doctors and educated people generally have performed wonders. I was over- come with delight when I read about the handling of cholera. In the good old days, when people sickened and died by the thousands, people couldn't even have dreamed of the astound- ing victories that are now being won before our eyes. It is a pity you are not a physician and cannot share my gratification, i.e., properly feel, recognize and value all that is being done. However, it is not possible to talk of this in a brief paragraph.
The method of treating cholera requires that the doctor, above all else, take his time, i.e., give five to ten hours to each patient, and sometimes more. As I mean to use the Cantani method—enemas of tannin and injections of a solution of sodi- um chloride under the skin—my situation will be stupider than a fool's. \Vhile I am fussing around with one patient, ten others will manage to get sick and die. You know I am the only one serving twenty-five villages, aside from the medical assistant, who calls me Your Honor, is timid about smoking in my pres- ence and won't take a step without my advice. If we have iso- lated cases, I will be in full control, but if the epidemic spreads to even as few as five cases a day, I will lose my temper, worry and feel I am to blame. . ..
\Vhen you learn from the papers that the cholera has abated, you will know I have again taken up writing. While I serve the community, don't consider me a literary man. I can't try to catch two rabbits at once.
You write I have abandoned "Sakhalin." No, I cannot aban- don my big baby. When boredom with fiction gets me down, I find it pleasant to take up with non-fiction. I don't think the question of when I shall finish "Sakhalin" and where I shall publish it is important. While Galkin-Vraski is king of the prison system I am strongly disposed against publishing the book. Though if I am forced to it, that will be another matter.
In all my letters I have insistently put one question to you which you don't have to answer, however: where will you be in the fall and don't you want to pass a part of September and October in Feodosia and Crimea with me. I feel an irresistible desire to eat, drink, sleep and talk about literature, i.e., do nothing and at the same time feel I am a decent person. But if you find my indolence distasteful, I can promise to write a play or novel with or near you. How about it? You don't want to? Well, the hell with it. ...