I shall have to stay at Tomsk till the rains are over. They say the road to
Irkutsk is awful.
TOMSK,
May 20.
It is Trinity Sunday with you, while with us even the willow has not yet
come out, and there is still snow on the banks of the Tom. To-morrow I am
starting for Irkutsk. I am rested. There is no need for hurry, as steam
navigation on Lake Baikal does not begin till the 10th of June; but I shall
go all the same.
I am alive and well, my money is safe; I have a slight pain in my right
eye. It aches.
... Everyone advises me to go back across America, as they say one may die
of boredom in the Volunteer Fleet; it’s all military discipline and red
tape regulations, and they don’t often touch at a port.
To fill up my time I have been writing some impressions of my journey and
sending them to _Novoye Vremya_; you will read them soon after the 10th of
June. I write a little about everything, chit-chat. I don’t write for glory
but from a financial point of view, and in consideration of the money I
have had in advance.
Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the drunkards whose acquaintance I
have made, and from the intellectual people who have come to the hotel to
pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are very dull too.
* * * * *
In two and a half days I shall be in Krasnoyarsk, and in seven or eight in
Irkutsk. It’s fifteen hundred versts to Irkutsk. I have made myself coffee
and am just going to drink it.
... After Tomsk the Taiga begins. We shall see it.
My greeting to all the Lintvaryovs and to our old Maryushka. I beg mother
not to worry and not to put faith in bad dreams. Have the radishes
succeeded? There are none here at all.
Keep well, don’t worry about money--there will be plenty; don’t try to
spend less and spoil the summer for yourselves.