In the morning the invasion of priests and singers gets under way. I go to the Agalis'. Paulina Ivanovna is in a happy mood. Lipochka didn't come near me because her jealous husband won't let her. Nikolai Agali is a healthy idiot who is forever taking exams, doesn't pass them and hopes to attend Zurich University. Stupid. From the Agalis' I went to Mme. Savelyev's on Kontorskaya St., where she lives in the creaking wing of a decrepit house. In two tiny rooms are two virginal couches and a cradle . . . . Eugenia Jasonovna is living apart from her hus- band. She has two children and has become terribly ugly and like a bag of bones. From all appearances she is unhappy. Her Mitya is in the service in a Cossack village somewhere in the Caucasus and lives a bachelor's life. An unmitigated swine. . . .
Threading my way through the New Bazaar, I become aware of how dirty, drab, empty, lazy and illiterate is Taganrog. There isn't a single grammatical signboard and there is even a "Rushian Inn"; the streets are deserted; the dumb faces of the dock- workers are smugly satisfied; the dandies are arrayed in long overcoats and caps. Novostroyenka is decked out in olive-colored dresses; cavaliers, young ]eddies, peeling plaster, universal lazi- ness, satisfaction with a futile present and an uncertain future —all this thrust before the eyes is so disheartening that even Moscow with its grime and typhus seems attractive . . . .
"I say, old man, how about coming over to my place?" asks one of the local clowns who pops in on me. "I always read your weekly articles. My old man is quite a type! Co11e on and look him over. I bet you forgot I'm married! I've got a little girl now. Ye gods, how you've changed!" and so on.
After dinner (soup with hard rice and chicken) I go over to Khodakovski's. Mr. K. doesn't live badly at all, although not on the luxurious scale he used to maintain when we knew him. His fair Manya is a fat, well-cooked Polish lump of flesh, agree- able in profile but unpleasant in full face. Bags under the eyes and intensified activity of the sebaceous glands. Obviously up to tricks. Later I learned that this past season she all but ran off with an actor and even sold her rings, earrings and so on. Of course, this is all being told you in confidence. I would say it's the fashion here in Taganrog to run off with actors. Many are they who find their wives and daughters missing. . . .
On my way home from Loboda's I meet Mme. Savelyeva and her daughter. The daughter takes right after her daddy; giggles a lot and is already a good talker. When I helped her put on an overshoe which had fallen off, as a token of gratitude she looked at me languidly and said, "Do come and spend the night with us."
At home I found Father John Yakimovski, an obese, over- stuffed priest who graciously deigned to interest himself in my medical career and, to Uncle's great satisfaction, condescend- ingly expressed himself, "It's very nice for parents to have such good children."
A reverend deacon who was present also deigned to interest himself in me and said that their choir at St. Michael's (a rabble of hungry jackals headed by a hard-drinking choir- master) was considered the best in town. I agreed with him, although I knew that Father John and the deacon don't under- stand a damned thing about singing. A little country deacon sat at a respectable distance and cast longing glances at the preserves and wine with which the priest and reverend deacon were regaling themselves. . . .
I sleep on a couch in the living room. The couch has not grown any bigger, is still as short as it used to be, and so, getting into bed, I had to poke my feet indecently into the air or put them down on the floor. It brings to mind Procrustes and his bed. I cover myself with a pink quilt, stiff and stuffy, which be- comes intolerably obnoxious at night when the stoves lit by Irina make their presence felt. A Yakov Andreyevich3 is a fond but unattainable dream. Only two persons permit themselves this luxury in Taganrog: the mayor and Alferaki. All the rest must either pee in bed or take a trip to God's outdoors.
6th of April. I awaken at 5 a.m. The sky is clouded, and a cold, disagreeable wind, reminiscent of Moscow, is blowing. I am weary. I wait for the cathedral chimes and go to late mass. It is lovely, dignified and thrilling in the cathedral. The choir
3 Chekhov's name for a chamber pot.
sings well, not like tradespeople and Philistines, while the listeners consist wholly of young ladies in olive dresses and chocolate jackets. There are many pretty ones, so many that I am sorry I am not Mishka, who needs pretty faces so badly. The majority of the local girls are well built, have splendid profiles and are not averse to making a little amour. Of cavaliers there are none, if you don't take into account the Greek brokers and shady local sparks, and for that reason officers and male new- comers here live in clover.
From the cathedral to Yeremeyev's. I find his wife at home, a very nice little lady. Yeremeyev has set himself up not half bad, in Moscow style, and looking at his huge apartment, I cannot believe Alexander's statement that it is not possible to live decently in Taganrog. A flock of visitors, including all the local aristocrats—insignificant, cheap little people, amongst whom, however, one can make a tolerable selection. . . . At 3 o'clock Yeremeyev comes home, drunk as a lord. He is ecstatic over my arrival, and swears eternal friendship; I was never on very good terms with him but he swears he has only two true friends in the world: Korobov and me. \Ve sit down to eat and split a bottle. A very decent dinner: good soup without hard rice, and broilers. Despite the cold wind we visit Quarantine after dinner. There are many summer cottages in this section, cheap and comfortable; they can be rented for next year, but I am taken aback by the abundance of places: wherever you have so many of them, you are bound to have lots of people and noise. . . . Many people advise me to drive out five miles from Taganrog to Meeus, where there are more summer cottages. I'll write you if I do
7th, 8th, gth and ioth of April. The most boring days pos- sible, cold and overcast. I "have to go" continually every day. I run outside day and night. The nights are pure torture: pitch darkness, wind, hard-to-open, creaking doors, groping through dark yards, a suspicious quietness, no newspaper in the toilet. . . . Every night I am constrained to swear at myself for volun- tarily accepting torture, for having left Moscow for the land of . . . pitch darkness, and toilets next to fences. The constant feel- ing of uncomfortable camping out, accompanied by the ceaseless "blah-blah-blah," "you don't eat much, you should eat more," "but you forgot to use the good tea . . ." Only one consolation: Yeremeyev and his wife and their comfortable apartment. Fate has had mercy on me: I haven't run into Anisim Vasilich and not once yet have I been forced to talk politics. IЈ I meet him I'll pop a bullet through my head.
I've "got to go" and so I rarely leave the house. It isn't pos- sible to leave here right now, for it's coldish, and anyway I would like to have a look at the procession through the ceme- tery. The igth and 2oth I shall be having a big time as best man at a wedding in N ovocherkassk, while before and after those dates I'll be at Kravtsov's, where the daily discomforts are a thousand times more comfortable than the Taganrog com- forts.
iith of April. A drunken party at Yeremeyev's, then a trip in gay company to the cemetery and Quarantine. . . .
I have been making the acquaintance of young girls every day, i.e., the young girls visit Yeremeyev's to have a look at what kind of bird this writer Chekhov is. Most oЈ them are not bad-look- ing or stupid, but I am indifferent, for I have intestinal catarrh, which stifles all tender emotions. . . .