To the Chekhovs, 7 April 1887. Taganrog.

7 April 1887. Taganrog.

The 7th of April.

Gracious readers and pious listeners!

I continue with the grouse-shoot narrative, keeping to chronological order.

The 2nd of April. From Moscow to Serpukhov the journey was dull. My fellow-travelers turned out to be solid, opinionated types, who spent the whole time discoursing on the price of flour. I arrived in Serpukhov at 7 o’clock. The Oka is clean and fine. Steamers run to Kashira and Kaluga. Wouldn’t hurt to go there sometime.

Reached Tula, refuge of all cities, at 11. Made the acquaintance in the carriage of an officer named Volzhinsky, who gave me his card and invited me to visit him in Sevastopol. He is traveling from Moscow, where his brother, a doctor who had come in from his district for the physicians’ congress, died of typhus and left a widow. In Tula: schnapps-trinken, a light intoxication, and schlafen. I slept, doubled up threefold, a la Fyodor Timofeyich: the toes of my boots up by my nose. Woke up in Oryol, whence I sent off a postcard to Moscow. The weather is good. Snow is rarely met with.

At 12 o’clock, Kursk. An hour’s wait, a glass of vodka, a washroom with running water, and cabbage soup. A change of trains. The carriage is packed to bursting. Straight after Kursk, new acquaintances: a Kharkov landowner, playful as Yasha K.; a lady who’d had an operation done in Petersburg; a police-captain from Tim; a Ukrainian officer; and a general in the uniform of the military-judicial corps. We settle the social questions. The general reasons sensibly, briefly, and liberally; the police-captain – the type of an old, soaked-through sinner of a hussar, pining for a bit of strawberry jam,– minces like a governor: before saying a word he holds his mouth open a long while, and having said it, growls doglike a long while after: eh-eh-eh-eh...; the lady gives herself an injection of morphine and sends the men off to the station for ice...

At Belgorod, cabbage soup. We arrive in Kharkov at 9 o’clock. A touching farewell with the police-captain, the general, and the rest. The carriage is almost empty. Volzhinsky and I each take a long bench and fall asleep quickly, without the aid of mother’s bottle. At 3 in the morning I wake up: my officer is gathering his things to get off. Lozovaya. We say our goodbyes, promising to call on each other (?!). I fall asleep again and travel on. Wake up at Slavyansk, whence I send a postcard. Here, new company: a landowner rather like Ilovaisky, and a railway inspector. We judge the railways. The inspector recounts how the Lozovo-Sevastopol line stole three hundred freight cars from the Azov line and painted them over in its own colors.

Khartsyzsk. Noon. Glorious weather. It smells of the steppe, and one can hear the birds singing. I see old friends – the kites, wheeling above the steppe...

Little mounds, water-towers, building-sites – all of it familiar and remembered. In the buffet, a portion of extraordinarily tasty, fatty green cabbage soup. Then a stroll along the platform. Young ladies. In the corner window of the second floor of the station sits a young lady (or a married one, the devil knows) in a white blouse, languid and lovely. I look at her, she at me... I put on my pince-nez, so does she... O wondrous vision! I contracted a catarrh of the heart and rode on. The weather is devilishly, outrageously fine. Ukrainians, oxen, kites, white huts, southern little rivers, the branches of the Donets line with their single telegraph wire, the daughters of landowners and tenant-farmers, russet dogs, greenery – all of it flickers by like a dream... It’s hot. The inspector begins to be tiresome. The cutlets and pies, half-eaten, are starting to smell of rancidness... I shove them under someone else’s bench along with the remains of the vodka.

Five o’clock. The sea is in sight. There it is, the Rostov line, curving handsomely; there’s the prison, the almshouse, the little slums, the freight cars... Belov’s hotel, the Mikhailovsky church with its clumsy architecture... I am in Taganrog. I am met by Yegorushka, a strapping great fellow got up like a dandy: a hat, gloves at 1 ruble 50 kopecks, a walking-stick, and so on. I don’t recognize him, but he recognizes me. He hires a cabman and we drive off. Impressions of Herculaneum and Pompeii: no people, and in place of mummies – sleepy loafers and melon-shaped heads. All the houses squat and low, long unplastered, the roofs unpainted, the shutters closed... From Politseiskaya Street begins a mud, drying out and therefore sticky and rutted, along which one can go only at a walking pace, and even then with caution. We drive up...

"There, there, there... Antoshichka..."

"Dear heart!"

Beside the house – a shop, like a box that once held egg-soap. The front steps are in their death-throes, and the only thing about them still ceremonial is their ideal cleanliness. Uncle is the same as he was, but noticeably gone gray. As affectionate, gentle, and sincere as ever. L. P., "glad," forgot to put the good tea on to steep and generally finds it necessary to apologize and make excuses where none are needed. She looks at me suspiciously: will I judge her? But for all that, glad to feed and make a fuss over me. Yegorushka – a good lad, and quite presentable for Taganrog. Struts about and likes to look at himself in the mirror. Bought himself a pair of ladies’ gold watches for 25 rubles and walks out with young ladies. He is acquainted with the Mamaki girl, with Goroshka, with Bakitka, and other young ladies created for no other purpose than to fill, in future, the vacancies among the melon-heads. Vladimirchik, who outwardly recalls that thin, stooped Mishchenko fellow we used to know, is meek and silent; his nature, it seems, is a good one. He is preparing to be a taper-bearer at the church. He is entering the theological school and dreams of a career as metropolitan. So it turns out Uncle has not only his own halva-shop but will even have his own metropolitan. Sasha is the same as she was, and Lelya differs little from Sasha. What strikes one forcibly is the extraordinary tenderness of the children toward their parents and toward one another. Irina has put on weight. In the rooms, the same as before: portraits, very poor ones, and prints of Coats’s and Clark’s, scattered everywhere. There’s a strong smell in the air of pretension to luxury and refinement, but less taste than in a swamp-boot of femininity. Cramped quarters, heat, a shortage of tables, and an absence of every convenience. Irina, Volodya, and Lelya sleep in one room; Uncle, L(yudmila) P(avlovna) and Sasha – in another; Yegor in the front hall on a trunk; they do not, apparently, eat supper on purpose, or else their house would long ago have blown sky-high. The heat comes both from the kitchen and from the stoves, which are still being fired despite the warm weather. The privy is out at the devil’s own backyard, under the fence; thieves are forever lurking in it, so that at night it is more dangerous for one’s life to relieve oneself than to take poison. There are no tables to speak of, apart from card-tables and round ones set out purely for the decoration of the rooms. There are no spittoons, no decent washstand... the napkins are gray, little Irina has grown coarse and lost her looks... in short, one could shoot oneself, it’s so bad! I don’t love Taganrog tastes, can’t stand them, and feel, I think, as though I’d run from them to the ends of the earth.

The Selivanov house stands empty and neglected. It’s dreary to look at, and I wouldn’t take it for any money. I marvel: how did we ever manage to live in it?! Incidentally: Selivanov himself lives on his estate, while exile/">his Sasha lives in exile...

I drink my fill of tea and go out with Yegor onto Bolshaya Street. It’s growing dusk. The street is decent, the pavements better than Moscow’s. It smells of Europe. To the left the aristocrats stroll, to the right – the democrats. A devil’s abundance of young ladies: fair-haired ones, dark little faces, Greek girls, Russian girls, Polish girls... The fashion: dresses of olive color and little jackets. Not only the aristocracy (that is, the mangy Greeks) but even the whole of Novostroyenka wears this olive color. The bustles are not large. Only the Greek girls venture to wear large bustles; the rest lack the boldness for it.

In the evening I am at home. Uncle robes himself in the uniform of a church warden. I help him put on a large medal, which he has never once worn before.

Laughter. We set off for the Mikhailovsky church. It’s dark. No cabmen to be had. Along the streets flit the silhouettes of loafers and carters, wandering about from church to church. Many carry little lanterns. The Mitrofanyevskaya church is lit very effectively, from the base right up to the tip of the cross. Loboda’s house stands out sharply in the darkness with its lit windows.

We arrive at the church. Gray, paltry, and dull. Little candles stick up in the windows – this is the illumination; Uncle’s face is bathed in the most blissful of smiles – this stands in for an electric sun. The church’s decoration is nothing much, recalling the Voskresenskaya church. We sell candles. Yegor, being a dandy and a liberal, doesn’t sell candles but stands off to one side surveying everyone with an indifferent eye. Vladimirchik, on the other hand, feels entirely in his element...

The Easter procession. Two fools walk in front, waving Bengal lights, sending up smoke and showering the public with sparks. The public is pleased. In the church porch stand the founders, benefactors, and venerators of this temple, Uncle at their head, holding icons and awaiting the return of the procession... On top of a cupboard sits Vladimirchik, sprinkling incense into the censer. The smoke is such that one cannot draw breath. But now the priests and banner-bearers come into the porch. A solemn hush falls. All eyes turn to Father Vasily...

"Papa, shall I put in some more?" – suddenly comes Vladimirchik’s voice from the top of the cupboard.

The matins begin. I take Yegor and go with him to the cathedral. No cabmen to be had, and there’s nothing for it but to go on foot. In the cathedral it is decent, orderly, and solemn. The choir is magnificent. The voices are splendid, but the discipline leaves much to be desired. Pokrovsky has gone gray; his voice has grown duller and weaker. deacon-viktor-taganrog/">Deacon Viktor is unrecognizable. Grigorevich looks like a corpse.

In the cathedral I run into I. I. Loboda, whom I recognize from afar by his fat red neck. We talk until the service ends.

From the cathedral home on foot. My legs ache and go numb. At home, the breaking of the fast in Irinushka’s room: splendid Easter cakes, vile sausage, gray napkins, stuffiness, and the smell of children’s blankets. Uncle breaks his fast at Father Vasily’s. Having eaten my fill and drunk some Santorini wine, I lie down and fall asleep to the sound of: "there... there... there..."

In the morning, an invasion of priests and choristers. I go to see the Agalins. Polina Ivanovna is glad. Lipochka doesn’t come out to see me, because her jealous husband won’t allow it. Nikolai Agali, a hale blockhead who’s always sitting some graduation exam or other, never passing it, and dreaming of the University of Zurich. A fool. From the Agalins I go on to Mrs. Savelyeva’s, who lives on Kontorskaya Street in a leaning, rusted-out little wing of a house. In two tiny rooms stand two maidens’ beds and a cradle. From under the beds, the chamber-pots peep out, naively and cozily. Evgenia Iasonovna lives without her husband. There are two children. She has grown dreadfully plain and withered. To all appearances, unhappy. Her Mitya serves somewhere in the Caucasus, in a Cossack settlement, and lives there as a bachelor. A swine altogether.

I go to Yeremeyev’s, don’t find him in, and leave a note. From there to Mrs. Zembulatova’s. Making my way to her through the New Bazaar, I could see for myself how dirty, empty, idle, illiterate, and dreary Taganrog is. There isn’t a single literate signboard, and there’s even a "Tavern Rasiya"; the streets are deserted; the mugs of the carters look contented; dandies in long overcoats and caps, Novostroyenka in olive dresses, gallants, young ladies, crumbling plaster, universal laziness, the skill of making do on kopecks and an unsettled future – all of it right there before my eyes, so repellent that Moscow with its own filth and typhus fevers seems positively lovable to me by comparison...

At Mrs. Zembulatova’s, Santorini wine and idle talk. From her home, to Uncle’s. Dinner: soup and roast chicken (on a holiday one can’t do without poultry, my dear child! Why not permit oneself the luxury?). During dinner there galloped in young Kamburenok – a fellow with a black shaved mug, in a white waistcoat, already thoroughly Santorini-fied from his round of visits. He serves in a bank, and his brother, the anglicized one, is in Warsaw, also in a bank.

"By God, do come and see me!" he burst out. "I always read your Saturday pieces. My father is a real character! Come and have a look. Ah, but you’re forgetting – I’m a married man now! I’ve even got a little daughter, by God I have... How you’ve changed, though!" and so on.

After dinner (soup with hard rice, and chicken) I drove out to pan/">Khodakovsky’s. The Pan lives tolerably, though not with the luxury we once knew of him. His fair-haired Manya is a fat, Polish, well-fried cut of meat, handsome in profile but unpleasant en face. Little pouches under the eyes and an over-active production of the sebaceous glands. Fast, by the look of her. Later I learned that this past season she very nearly ran off with an actor and even sold her rings, earrings, and so on. This in strict confidence, of course... In general, it’s the fashion in Taganrog to run off with actors. Many a family here has lost count of its missing wives and daughters.

From the Pan’s, to the Lobodas’. All the Lobodas have grown terribly old. Anosha is bald as the moon, Dashenka has grown stout, Varenka has grown old, thin, and withered; when she laughs, her nose presses against her face, and her chin, wrinkling up, climbs to meet her nose. Marfa Iv. has also grown old. Gray-haired. She was very glad to see me and agreed to travel back with me to Moscow.

At the Lobodas’ I saw the immortal Tsarenko, playful, talkative, and liberal. Pyotr Zakharych is alive; was very glad to see me, asked after everyone we know... Speaks in a hoarse, extraordinarily wild voice, so that it’s quite impossible to listen to him without laughing; he was married but has divorced his wife. Walking home from the Lobodas’ I met Mrs. Savelyeva with her daughter. The daughter takes entirely after her papa: laughs a great deal and already speaks beautifully. When I helped her put back on a galosh that had slipped off her foot, she gave me, by way of thanks, a languid glance and said:

"Come and spend the night with us!"

At home I found Father Ioann Yakimovsky, a fat, well-fed priest, who graciously inquired after my medicine and, to Uncle’s great delight, condescended to remark:

"How pleasant for the parents, to have such good children."

The deacon likewise took an interest in me and said that their Mikhailovsky choir (a rabble of hungry jackals, led by a hard-drinking precentor) is reckoned the first in the city. I agreed, though I knew perfectly well that neither Father Ioann nor the deacon understand the first thing about singing. The sacristan sat at a respectful distance, eyeing the preserves and wine with longing, with which the priest and deacon were regaling themselves.

At 8 in the evening, Uncle, his household, Irina, the dogs, the rats living in the storeroom, the rabbits – all of it was asleep and snoring. Willy-nilly I had to go to bed myself. I sleep in the drawing room on the divan. The divan hasn’t grown any, is as short as ever, so that, settling into bed, I’m obliged to either indecently hoist my legs into the air or let them hang down onto the floor. I recall Procrustes and his bed. I cover myself with a pink quilted blanket, stiff and stifling, which becomes unbearably repellent by night, once the stoves Irina has heated up make themselves felt. A chamber-pot is permissible only in dreams and fancies. This luxury is allowed oneself in Taganrog by only two people: the harbor-master and Alferaki; the rest must either suffer it out in bed or else journey off to the devil’s own backyard.

6th of April. I wake at 5 o’clock. The sky is overcast. A cold, unpleasant wind is blowing, one that recalls Moscow. Dull. I wait for the cathedral bell and go to the late liturgy. In the cathedral it is very pleasant, decent, and not at all dull. The choristers sing well, not in a petty-bourgeois manner, and the congregation consists almost entirely of young ladies in olive dresses and chocolate-colored jackets. There are a great many pretty ones, so many that I regret not being Mishka, who has such need of pretty ones... Most of the girls here are well built, have splendid profiles, and are not averse to a little flirtation. There are no gallants here at all, if one doesn’t count the Greek brokers and the sodden little Kamburenoks, so that there is free range here for officers and newcomers.

From the cathedral – to Yeremeyev’s. I find his wife at home – a very sweet lady. Yerem has settled himself very comfortably, in the Moscow manner, and looking at his enormous apartment, I no longer believe Alexander, who used to say that one couldn’t get settled in Taganrog. Callers galore, and all local aristocrats – petty, two-kopeck little people, from among whom, however, one could make a tolerable selection. Made the acquaintance of an officer named Dzheparidze – a local celebrity, having fought in a duel. Saw the doctors: Familiant, Rombro, Iordanov, and others. At 3 o’clock Yerem comes home, drunk as a lord. He is delighted at my arrival and swears eternal friendship to me; I knew him only slightly, but he swears that in all this world he has only two true friends: myself and Korobov. We sit down to dinner and knock back the Santorini wine. A decent dinner: a good soup without hard rice, and chicken. Despite the cold wind, after dinner we drive out to the Quarantine grounds. Here, at the Quarantine, there are many cheap and convenient summer cottages; one could rent one for next year, but I’m put off by the abundance of cottages; where there’s abundance, there’s crowding and noise. There are cottages in the yard of the Kompaneiskaya mill, but I don’t care for the location. Many advise a trip seven versts out of Taganrog to the Mius, where there are also cottages. When I’ve been, I’ll write. On the Mius, cottages are sold very cheap. One can buy a decent cottage with a little garden and a riverbank for 500 to 1000 rubles. Cheaper than mushrooms.