Regards to Praskovya Nikiforovna and Fedya.
Your
A. Chekhov
The banks of the Shilka are exquisite, like a stage setting, but alas! the utter absence of human beings depresses me. The place is like a cage without a bird.
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
June 27, 1890, Blagoveshchensk
Greetings, my dear friend,
The Amur is a very fine river; I derived more pleasure from it than I had a right to expect, and have for a long time been wishing to share my delight with you, but the villainous boat quivered for all seven days of the trip and hindered me from writing. In addition, I am absolutely unable to convey such beauty as one linds on the banks of the Amur; I confess I am bankrupt before beauty which is beyond my powers to describe. How can I, though? Imagine the Suram Pass transformed into ihe bank of a river—that is the Amur for you. Cliffs, crags, forests, thousands of ducks, herons and assorted long-nosed rascals, and utter wilderness. To the left the Russian bank, to the right the Chinese. I can look at Russia or China, whichever suits me. China is just as wild and desolate as Russia; villages and sentry boxes are few. My head is in a whirl, and small wonder, Your Excellency! I sailed the Amur for more than 650 miles, in the process of which I gazed upon millions of landscapes; and as you are aware, the Amur was preceded by the Baikal and Trans-Baikal. Verily, I saw such wealth and derived such enjoyment that I can now look upon death with equanimity. The Amur people are singular, the life they lead interesting and unlike ours. All the talk is about gold. Gold, gold and more gold. . . .
I am in love with the Amur and would be delighted to remain here a couple of years. It is beautiful, and expansive, and free and warm. Switzerland and France have never known such freedom. The lowliest exile breathes more freely on the Amur than the top general in Russia. If you had spent some time here you would have set down a lot of good material of interest to readers, but I am not up to it.
You begin running across Chinese from Irkutsk on, and here they are thicker than flies. They are a most good-natured race. . . .
From Blagoveshchensk on you meet Japanese, or, more pre- cisely, Japanese women. They are petite brunettes with big, complicated hair-dos, handsome torsos and, the way it looks to me, short thighs. They dress beautifully. The sound "ts" pre- dominates in their language. . . .
When I asked a Chinese to join me at the refreshment coun- ter in a glass of vodka, he extended his glass to me, the bartender and the flunkies before drinking and said, "Taste!" This is a Chinese ritual. He did not drain the glass at one gulp as we do, but in small sips, nibbling a bite of food after each one and then, to thank me, gave me a few Chinese coins. They are terribly polite people. They dress poorly but beautifully, eat delicious food in ceremonious fashion.
The Chinese are going to take the Amur from us—no doubt of it. They themselves may not do so, but it will be given them by others, the English, for example, who are the ruling group there and are even building forts. The people living along the Amur are a scoffing lot; they remark jeeringly that Russia is making a fuss over Bulgaria, which isn't worth a damn, and is forgetting the Amur entirely. This is neither prudent nor intelligent. However, more about politics later, when we meet.
You have wired me to return via America. I myself was thinking of doing so. But people frighten me with the expenses involved. A transfer of money can be arranged not only in New York but also in Vladivostok, via the Siberian Bank in Irkutsk, which treated me with overwhelming courtesy. My money has not all disappeared yet, although I spend it god- lessly. I took a loss of more than 160 rubles on the carriage and my fellow-traveling lieutenants did me out of more than 150 rubles. But still I will hardly require a transfer of funds. If the need arises I will apply to you in due course. I am com- pletely well. You can judge for yourself; here it is more than two months that I have been living day and night under the open skies. What exercise! . . .
I am treating patients along the way. In the village of Reinov on the Amur, inhabited exclusively by gold miners, a husband asked me to have a look at his pregnant wife. As I left he thrust a wad of bills into my hand; I was ashamed and started pro- testing, assuring him I was a very rich man who didn't need the money. The patient's spouse began assuring me he was also a very rich man. We wound up by giving him back the wad, but still fifteen rubles remained with me.
Yesterday I treated a little boy and refused six rubles which his Mama shoved into my hand. I regret I did so.
Be well and happy. Forgive me for writing so badly and without giving details. Have you sent letters to Sakhalin for me?
I am bathing in the Amur. Bathing in the river, conversing and dining with gold smugglers—don't you find it interesting? I must hurry now to the "Yermak." So long! Thanks for the news of your family.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
To ALEXEI SUVORIN
September ii, 1890, S.S. Baikal, Tatar Straits
Greetings!
I am sailing along Tatar Sound from North Sakhalin to South. I write this letter though I am not sure it will reach you. I am well, although green-eyed cholera, which is all set to trap me, gazes at me everywhere. In Vladivostok, Japan, Shanghai, Chifu, Suez and even on the moon, I suppose, there is cholera; everywhere there is quarantine and fear. They are waiting for it in Sakhalin and holding all boats in quarantine. To put it briefly, it's a bad business. Europeans are dying in Vladivostok, among others a general's wife.
I spent exactly two months in North Sakhalin. I was wel- comed with extreme cordiality by the local administration, although Galkin had not sent ahead a word about me. Neither Galkin nor Baroness Muskrat1 nor the other genii to whom I had the stupidity to turn for help gave me any assistance; I had to proceed on my own hook.
The General of Sakhalin, Kononovich, is an intelligent and honorable man. \Ve quickly hit it off and everything went along smoothly. I am bringing some papers with me which will show you that the conditions under which I worked from the very beginning were most favorable. I saw everything; now the question is not what I saw, but how I saw it.
I do not know what will come of it, but I have done quite a bit. The material gathered would be sufficient for three
1 Chekhov's nickname for the Baroness Barbara Ichschul von Hildeband.
dissertations. I rose every morning at five, went to bed late and every day felt under intense strain in the realization that a great deal had not yet been done, and now that I have already finished my study of the penal system my feeling is that I have ■ seen the trees but missed the forest.
By the way, let me tell you that I was patient enough to take a census of the entire population of Sakhalin. I made the rounds of every settlement, entered every cabin and spoke with every individual; I used a card system and have already ac- counted for approximately ten thousand convicts and penal settlers. In other words, there is not a single convict or penal settler on Sakhalin with whom I have not had a word. My inventory of the children was particularly successful, and I lay a great deal of hope in it.
I had dinner at Landsberg's and sat in the kitchen of ex- Baroness Hembruck . ... I paid calls on all the celebrities. I witnessed a flogging, after which I had nightmares for three or four nights about the flogger and his horrible accessories. I spoke with people chained to their wheelbarrows. One day when I was having tea in a mine, the former Petersburg mer- chant Borodavkin,2 sent up for arson, pulled a teaspoon out of his pocket and presented it to me, with the result that my nerves were upset and I vowed I would never more visit Sak- halin.