I almost dropped with weariness, and when I got home I felt my legs were stuffed with cotton.
I dine at a table d'hote. Just picture it, opposite me sit two Dutch girls, one of them looking like Pushkin's Tatiana, and the other like her sister Olga.i I stare at them all through dinner and visualize a clean little white house with a little turret, excellent butter, prime Dutch cheese, Dutch herrings, a good- looking pastor, a sedate teacher . . .and I feel like marrying the little Dutch girl and then having both of us painted on a tray as we stand by the clean little house.
I have seen and climbed into everything as ordered. 'Vhen I was told to smell, I smelled. But meanwhile I experience nothing but weariness and a desire to eat cabbage soup with kasha. Venice fascinated me, infatuated me, but after I left it, on came Baedeker and bad weather.
Goodbye for now, Maria Vladimirovna, and the Lord God protect you. A most respectful bow from me and the Pope of Rome to His Honor, Vasilissa and Elisaveta Alexandrovna.
Neckties are wonderfully cheap here. Terribly cheap, so that I daresay I'll start eating them. A franc a pair.
Tomorrow I leave for Naples. Please hope I meet a handsome Russian lady there, if possible a widow or divorcee.
The guidebooks state that a love affair is indispensable in contemplating a trip to Naples. 'Vell, I don't care—I'm ready for anything. If it's to be a love affair, let's have it.
Don't forget your miserably sinning, sincerely devoted and respectful,
A. Chekhov
To MIKHAIL CHEKHOV
ApriZ i), /89/) Nice Monday of Ho/y Week
• • • We are living at the seaside in Nice. The sun shines, it is warm and green and the air is like perfume, but it is windy.
1 Tatiana and Olga are characters in Pushkin's Eugene Ortegin.
We are one hour away from the celebrated Monaco with its town of Monte Carlo, where roulette is played. Just imagine the ballrooms of our House of Nobles, but even more beautiful, high-ceilinged and even larger. These rooms are furnished with large tables with roulette wheels placed on them, which I will describe to you upon my return. I played there three days ago and lost. The game tempts one terribly. After counting our losses, Suvorin fils and I began putting on our thinking caps and after due thought devised a system whereby we couldn't help winning. Last night we went there again, each of us with 5oo francs; my first bet netted me a couple of gold pieces, and then I won more and more; my vest pockets were weighted down with gold; I was even handed some 1808 French coins, Belgian, Italian, Greek and Austrian coins. ... I had never seen so much gold and silver. I started playing at five in the afternoon and by ten at night there wasn't a single franc left in my pocket and the only satisfaction left was the thought that I had previously purchased a return ticket to Nice. So there you have it, my friends! You will of course say, "\Vhat baseness! We are poverty-stricken and he plays roulette." You are absolutely right and have my permission to kill me. But personally I am very well satisfied with myself. At any rate I can now tell my grandchildren I have played roulette and experienced the sensa- tion that this game arouses.
Next to the casino where roulette is played there is another form of roulette—the restaurants. They fleece you here un- mercifully and feed you magnificently. Whatever dish you order is a regular composition before which one should bend the knee in reverence, but by no means have the daring to consume. Every mouthful is abundantly garnished with artichokes, truffles, an assortment of nightingales' tongues. . . . Yet good God, how contemptible and loathsome is this life with its artichokes, palms and the aroma of orange blossoms! I like luxury and wealth, but the local roulette type of luxury affects me like a luxurious toilet. You feel there is something in the air that offends your sense of decency, vulgarizes the charm of nature, the roar of the sea, the moon.
This past Sunday I attended the local Russian church. Peculi- arities: palm branches instead of pussy willows, women in the choir instead of boys, so that the singing has an operatic tinge, people put foreign money in the collection plates, the verger and beadle speak French, etc. They sang Bortnianski's Cherubim No. 7 splendidly, and a plain Our Father.
Of all the places I have visited up to now, my loveliest mem- ories are of Venice. Rome bears a general resemblance to Khar- kov, and Naples is filthy. The sea does not fascinate me, though, as I had already wearied of it in November and December. The devil only knows what goes on, I seem to have been on the go for a whole year. I hardly managed to get back from Sakhalin when I left for St. Pete, then another trip to St. Pete and to Italy. . . .
If I don't manage to return by Easter, when you celebrate remember me in your prayers, and accept my good wishes sight unseen and the assurance that I shall be terribly lonesome with- out you on Easter eve.
Are you saving the newspapers for me?
. . . Do keep well, and may the Heavens preserve you. I have the honor to give an accounting of myself and remain,
Your homesick
Antonio
To MARIA CHEKHOVA
April 21, 1891, Paris It is Easter today, so Christ has risen! This is my first Easter spent away from home.
I arrived in Paris Friday morning and immediately went to the Exposition.! The Eiffel Tower is really very, very high. I 1 The Exposition of 1891.
saw the other exposition buildings only from the outside, as the cavalry was stationed inside in case of riots.[3] Disorders were expected on Friday. People surged through the streets, shouted, whistled, flared up and were dispersed by the police. A dozen policemen are enough to break up a big mob. They rush them in a body and the crowd runs like crazy. During one of these rushes I had the honor of being grabbed by the shoulder by a policeman and shoved forward.
The streets swarm and seethe with continual movement. . . . The noise and uproar is general. The sidewalks are set out with little tables, behind which sit the French, who feel very much at home on the streets. An excellent people. However, there's no describing Paris, so I'll postpone descriptions until I get home.
I heard midnight mass at the Embassy church. ... -
We leave for Russia tomorrow or the day after. I will be in Moscow either Friday or Saturday. I am returning via Smolensk and so if you want to meet me, go to the Smolensk station. . . .
am afraid you have no money.
Misha, I implore you by all that's holy to have my glasses repaired, using the same lenses as in yours. I am simply a martyr without eyeglasses. I was at a picture exhibition (The Salon) and didn't see half of them on account of my short-sightedness. I may say in passing that Russian artists are far more serious than the French. In comparison with the local landscapists I saw yesterday, Levitan is a king.
This is my last letter, so goodbye for now. I left with an empty trunk and am returning with a full one. You will all receive something according to your merits.
Good health to you.
Yours,
A. Chekhov
May /0, /89/, Alexin
. . . Yes, you are right, my soul needs balm. I would with pleasure, even with joy, read something weighty not only about myself but about things in general. I yearn for serious reading; Russian criticism of the present time does not help me. It irri- tates me. I would be delighted to read something new about Pushkin or Tolstoy—that would be balm for my idle mind.
I also miss Venice and Florence and would be ready to climb Vesuvius again; Bologna has been wiped out and become a dim memory, and as for Nice and Paris, when I think of them "I look with loathing upon my life."1
The last number of the "Foreign Literature Herald" contains a story by Ouida translated from the English by our Mikhail, the assessor. 'Vhy don't I know languages? It seems to me I would translate fiction superbly; when I read other people's translations I am always changing and shifting the words around mentally, and I get something light and ethereal, like lace.