ALEXIN,
May 18, 1891.
... I get up at five o’clock in the morning; evidently when I am old I
shall get up at four. My forefathers all got up very early, before the
cock. And I notice people who get up very early are horribly fussy. So I
suppose I shall be a fussy, restless old man....
BOGIMOVO,
May 20.
... The carp bite capitally. I forgot all my sorrows yesterday; first I sat
by the pond and caught carp, and then by the old mill and caught perch.
... The last two proclamations--about the Siberian railway and the
exiles--pleased me very much. The Siberian railway is called a national
concern, and the tone of the proclamation guarantees its speedy completion;
and convicts who have completed such and such terms as settlers are allowed
to return to Russia without the right to live in the provinces of
Petersburg and Moscow. The newspapers have let this pass unnoticed, and yet
it is something which has never been in Russia before--it is the first step
towards abolishing the life sentence which has so long weighed on the
public conscience as unjust and cruel in the extreme....
BOGIMOVO,
May 27, 4 o’clock in the Morning.
The mongoose has run away into the woods and has not come back. It is cold.
I have no money. But nevertheless, I don’t envy you. One cannot live in
town now, it is both dreary and unwholesome. I should like you to be
sitting from morning till dinner-time in this verandah, drinking tea and
writing something artistic, a play or something; and after dinner till
evening, fishing and thinking peaceful thoughts. You have long ago earned
the right which is denied you now by all sorts of chance circumstances, and
it seems to me shameful and unjust that I should live more peacefully than
you. Is it possible that you will stay all June in town? It’s really
terrible....
... By the way, read Grigorovitch’s letter to my enemy Anna Ivanovna. Let
her soul rejoice. “Chekhov belongs to the generation which has perceptibly
begun to turn away from the West and concentrate more closely on their own
world....” “Venice and Florence are nothing else than dull towns for a man
of any intelligence....” _Merci_, but I don’t understand persons of such
intelligence. One would have to be a bull to “turn away from the West” on
arriving for the first time in Venice or Florence. There is very little
intelligence in doing so. But I should like to know who is taking the
trouble to announce to the whole universe that I did not like foreign
parts. Good Lord! I never let drop one word about it. I liked even Bologna.
Whatever ought I to have done? Howled with rapture? Broken the windows?
Embraced Frenchmen? Do they say I gained no ideas? But I fancy I did....
We must see each other--or more correctly, I must see you. I am missing you
already, although to-day I caught two hundred and fifty-two carp and one
crayfish.
BOGIMOVO,
June 4, 1891.
Why did you go away so soon? I was very dull, and could not get back into
my usual petty routine very quickly afterwards. As luck would have it,
after you went away the weather became warm and magnificent, and the fish
began to bite.
... The mongoose has been found. A sportsman with dogs found him on this
side of the Oka in a quarry; if there had not been a crevice in the quarry
the dogs would have torn the mongoose to pieces. It had been astray in the
woods for eighteen days. In spite of the climatic conditions, which are
awful for it, it had grown fat--such is the effect of freedom. Yes, my dear
sir, freedom is a grand thing.
I advise you again to go to Feodosia by the Volga. Anna Ivanovna and you
will enjoy it, and it will be new and interesting for the children. If I
were free I would come with you. It’s snug now on those Volga steamers,
they feed you well and the passengers are interesting.
Forgive me for your having been so uncomfortable with us. When I am grown
up and order furniture from Venice, as I certainly shall do, you won’t have
such a cold and rough time with me.