STEAMER “ALEXANDR NEVSKY 23,”
April, 1890, early in the morning.
My dear Tunguses!
Did you have rain when Ivan was coming back from the monastery? In
Yaroslavl there was such a downpour that I had to swathe myself in my
leather chiton. My first impression of the Volga was poisoned by the rain,
by the tear-stained windows of the cabin, and the wet nose of G., who came
to meet me at the station. In the rain Yaroslavl looks like Zvenigorod, and
its churches remind me of Perervinsky Monastery; there are lots of
illiterate signboards, it’s muddy, jackdaws with big heads strut about the
pavement.
In the steamer I made it my first duty to indulge my talent--that is, to
sleep. When I woke I beheld the sun. The Volga is not bad; water meadows,
monasteries bathed in sunshine, white churches; the wide expanse is
marvellous, wherever one looks it would be a nice place to sit down and
begin fishing. Class ladies [Translator’s Note: I.e., School chaperons,
whose duty it is to sit in the classroom while the girls are receiving
instruction from a master.] wander about on the banks, nipping at the green
grass. The shepherd’s horn can be heard now and then. White gulls, looking
like the younger Drishka, hover over the water.
The steamer is not up to much....
* * * * *
Kundasova is travelling with me. Where she is going and with what object I
don’t know. When I question her about it, she launches off into extremely
misty allusions about someone who has appointed a tryst with her in a
ravine near Kineshma, then goes off into a wild giggle and begins stamping
her feet or prodding with her elbow whatever comes first. We have passed
both Kineshma and the ravine, but she still goes on in the steamer, at
which of course I am very much pleased; by the way, yesterday for the first
time in my life I saw her eating. She eats no less than other people, but
she eats mechanically, as though she were munching oats.
Kostroma is a nice town. I saw the stretch of river on which the languid
Levitan used to live. I saw Kineshma, where I walked along the boulevard
and watched the local _beaus_. Here I went into the chemist’s shop to
buy some Bertholet salts for my tongue, which was like leather after the
medicine I had taken. The chemist, on seeing Olga Petrovna, was overcome
with delight and confusion; she was the same. They were evidently old
acquaintances, and judging from the conversation between them they had
walked more than once about the ravines near Kineshma.
... It’s rather cold and rather dull, but interesting on the whole. The
steamer whistles every minute; its whistle is midway between the bray of an
ass and an Aeolian harp. In five or six hours we shall be in Nizhni. The
sun is rising. I slept last night artistically. My money is safe; that is
because I am constantly pressing my hands on my stomach.
Very beautiful are the steam-tugs, dragging after them four or five barges
each; they look like some fine young intellectual trying to run away while
a plebeian wife, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and wife’s grandmother hold
on to his coat-tails.
* * * * *
The sun is hiding behind the clouds, the sky is overcast, and the broad
Volga looks gloomy. Levitan ought not to live on the Volga. It lays a
weight of gloom on the soul. Though it would not be bad to have an estate
on its banks.
* * * * *
If the waiter would wake I should ask him for some coffee; as it is, I have
to drink water without any relish for it. My greetings to Maryushka and
Olga. [Footnote: The Chekhovs’ servants.]
Well, keep well and take care of yourselves. I will write regularly.
Your bored Volga-travelling
Homo Sachaliensis,
A. CHEKHOV.
FROM THE STEAMER,
Evening, April 24, 1890.