Letters of Anton Chekhov to his Family and Friends | Page 5

administration, Galkin-Vrasskoy. When this proved fruitless he
set off in April, 1890, with no credentials but his card as a newspaper
correspondent.
The Siberian railway did not then exist, and only after great hardships,
being held up by floods and by the impassable state of the roads,
Chekhov succeeded in reaching Sahalin on the 11th of July, having
driven nearly 3,000 miles. He stayed three months on the island,
traversed it from north to south, made a census of the population, talked

to every one of the ten thousand convicts, and made a careful study of
the convict system. Apparently the chief reason for all this was the
consciousness that "We have destroyed millions of men in prisons.... It
is not the superintendents of the prisons who are to blame, but all of
us." In Russia it was not possible to be a "free artist and nothing more."
Chekhov left Sahalin in October and returned to Europe by way of
India and the Suez Canal. He wanted to visit Japan, but the steamer was
not allowed to put in at the port on account of cholera.
In the Indian Ocean he used to bathe by diving off the forecastle deck
when the steamer was going at full speed, and catching a rope which
was let down from the stern. Once while he was doing this he saw a
shark and a shoal of pilot fish close to him in the water, as he describes
in his story "Gusev."
The fruits of this journey were a series of articles in Russkaya Myssl on
the island of Sahalin, and two short stories, "Gusev" and "In Exile." His
articles on Sahalin were looked on with a favourable eye in Petersburg,
and, who knows, it is possible that the reforms which followed in
regard to penal servitude and exile would not have taken place but for
their influence.
After about a month in Moscow, Chekhov went to Petersburg to see
Suvorin. The majority of his Petersburg friends and admirers met him
with feelings of envy and ill-will. People gave dinners in his honour
and praised him to the skies, but at the same time they were ready to
"tear him to pieces." Even in Moscow such people did not give him a
moment for work or rest. He was so prostrated by the feeling of
hostility surrounding him that he accepted an invitation from Suvorin to
go abroad with him. When Chekhov had completed arrangements for
equipping the Sahalin schools with the necessary books, they set off for
the South of Europe. Vienna delighted him, and Venice surpassed all
his expectations and threw him into a state of childlike ecstasy.
Everything fascinated him--and then there was a change in the weather
and a steady downpour of rain. Chekhov's spirits drooped. Venice was
damp and seemed horrible, and he longed to escape from it.

He had had just such a change of mood in Singapore, which interested
him immensely and suddenly filled him with such misery that he
wanted to cry.
After Venice Chekhov did not get the pleasure he expected from any
Italian town. Florence did not attract him; the sun was not shining.
Rome gave him the impression of a provincial town. He was feeling
exhausted, and to add to his depression he had got into debt, and had
the prospect of spending the summer without any money at all.
Travelling with Suvorin, who did not stint himself, drew him into
spending more than he intended, and he owed Suvorin a sum which
was further increased at Monte Carlo by Chekhov's losing nine hundred
roubles at roulette. But this loss was a blessing to him in so far as, for
some reason, it made him feel satisfied with himself. At the end of
April, 1891, after a stay in Paris, Chekhov returned to Moscow. Except
at Vienna and for the first days in Venice and at Nice, it had rained the
whole time. On his return he had to work extremely hard to pay for his
two tours. His brother Mihail was at this time inspector of taxes at
Alexino, and Chekhov and his household spent the summer not far
from that town in the province of Kaluga, so as to be near him. They
took a house dating from the days of Catherine. Chekhov's mother had
to sit down and rest halfway when she crossed the hall, the rooms were
so large. He liked the place with its endless avenues of lime-trees and
poetical river, while fishing and gathering mushrooms soothed him and
put him in the mood for work. Here he went on with his story "The
Duel," which he had begun before going abroad. From the windows
there was the view of an old house which Chekhov described in "An
Artist's Story,"