Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

On the Amur steamer going to Sahalin, there was a convict with fetters on his legs who had murdered his wife. His daughter, a little girl of six, was with him. I noticed wherever the convict moved the little girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. At night the child slept with the convicts and soldiers all in a heap together. I remember I was at a funeral in Sahalin. Beside the newly dug grave stood four convict bearers ex officio; the treasury clerk and I, in the capacity of Hamlet and Horatio, wandering about the cemetery; the dead woman’s lodger, a Circassian, who had come because he had nothing better to do; and a convict woman who had come out of pity and had brought the dead woman’s two children, one a baby, and the other, Alyoshka, a boy of four, wearing a woman’s jacket and blue breeches with bright-coloured patches on the knees. It was cold and damp, there was water in the grave, the convicts were laughing. The sea was in sight. Alyoshka looked into the grave with curiosity; he tried to wipe his chilly nose, but the long sleeve of his jacket got into his way. When they began to fill in the grave I asked him: “Alyoshka, where is your mother?” He waved his hand with the air of a gentleman who has lost at cards, laughed, and said: “They have buried her!”

The convicts laughed, the Circassian turned and asked what he was to do with the children, saying it was not his duty to feed them.

Infectious diseases I did not meet with in Sahalin. There is very little congenital syphilis, but I saw blind children, filthy, covered with eruptions — all diseases that are evidence of neglect. Of course I am not going to settle the problem of the children. I don’t know what ought to be done. But it seems to me that one will do nothing by means of philanthropy and what little is left of prison and other funds. To my thinking, to make something of great importance dependent upon charity, which in Russia always has a casual character, and on funds which do not exist, is pernicious. I should prefer it to be financed out of the government treasury.

TO A. S. SUVORIN.

MOSCOW,

January 31, 1891.

At home I found depression. My nicest and most intelligent mongoose had fallen ill and was lying very quietly under a quilt. The little beast eats and drinks nothing. The climate has already laid its cold claw on it and means to kill it. What for?

We have received a dismal letter. In Taganrog we were on friendly terms with a well-to-do Polish family. The cakes and jam I ate in their house when I was a boy at school arouse in me now the most touching reminiscences; there used to be music, young ladies, home-made liqueurs, and catching goldfinches in the immense courtyard. The father had a post in the Taganrog customs and got into trouble. The investigation and trial ruined the family. There were two daughters and a son. When the elder daughter married a rascal of a Greek, the family took an orphan girl into the house to bring up. This little girl was attacked by disease of the knee and they amputated the leg. Then the son died of consumption, a medical student in his fourth year, an excellent fellow, a perfect Hercules, the hope of the family…. Then came terrible poverty…. The father took to wandering about the cemetery, longed to take to drink but could not: vodka simply made his head ache cruelly while his thoughts remained the same, just as sober and revolting. Now they write that the younger daughter, a beautiful, plump young girl, is consumptive…. The father writes to me of that and writes to me for a loan of ten roubles…. Ach!

I felt awfully unwilling to leave you, but still I am glad I did not remain another day — I went away and showed that I had strength of will. I am writing already. By the time you come to Moscow my novel [Footnote: “The Duel.”] will be finished, and I will go back with you to Petersburg.

Tell Borya, Mitya, and Andrushka that I vituperate them. In the pocket of my greatcoat I found some notes on which was scrawled: “Anton Pavlovitch, for shame, for shame, for shame!” O pessimi discipuli! Utinam vos lupus devoret!

Last night I did not sleep, and I read through my “Motley Tales” for the second edition. I threw out about twenty stories.

MOSCOW,

February 5, 1891.

My mongoose has recovered and breaks crockery again with unfailing regularity.

I am writing and writing! I must own I was afraid that my Sahalin expedition would have put me out of the way of writing, but now I see that it is all right. I have written a great deal. I am writing diffusely a la Yasinsky. I want to get hold of a thousand roubles.

I shall soon begin to expect you. Are we going to Italy or not? We ought to.

In Petersburg I don’t sleep at night, I drink and loaf about, but I feel immeasurably better than in Moscow. The devil only knows why it is so.