Letters of Anton Chekhov to his Family and Friends | Page 8

the field work for the spring had been
completed in good time and in accordance with the rules of agricultural
science. They had no experience at all, but bought masses of books on
the management of the land, and every question, however small, was
debated in common.
Their first successes delighted Chekhov. He had thirty acres under rye,
thirty under oats, and fully thirty under hay. Marvels were being done
in the kitchen garden: tomatoes and artichokes did well in the open air.
A dry spring and summer ruined the oats and the rye; the peasants cut
the hay in return for half the crop, and Chekhov's half seemed a small

stack; only in the kitchen garden things went well.
The position of Melihovo on the highroad and the news that Chekhov
the author had settled there inevitably led to new acquaintances.
Doctors and members of the local Zemstvos began visiting Chekhov;
acquaintance was made with the officials of the district, and Chekhov
was elected a member of the Serpuhov Sanitary Council.
At that time cholera was raging in the South of Russia. Every day it
came nearer and nearer to the province of Moscow, and everywhere it
found favourable conditions among the population weakened by the
famine of autumn and winter. It was essential to take immediate
measures for meeting the cholera, and the Zemstvo of Serpuhov
worked its hardest. Chekhov as a doctor and a member of the Sanitary
Council was asked to take charge of a section. He immediately gave his
services for nothing. He had to drive about among the manufacturers of
the district persuading them to take adequate measures to combat the
cholera. Owing to his efforts the whole section containing twenty-five
villages and hamlets was covered with a network of the necessary
institutions. For several months Chekhov scarcely got out of his chaise.
During that time he had to drive all over his section, receive patients at
home, and do his literary work. He returned home shattered and
exhausted, but always behaved as though he were doing something
trivial; he cracked little jokes and made everyone laugh as before, and
carried on conversations with his dachshund, Quinine, about her
supposed sufferings.
By early autumn the place had become unrecognizable. The outhouses
had been rebuilt, unnecessary fences had been removed, rose-trees had
been planted, a flower-bed had been laid out; in the fields before the
gates Chekhov was planning to dig a big new pond. With what interest
he watched each day the progress of the work upon it! He planted trees
round it and dropped into it tiny carp and perch which he brought with
him in a jar from Moscow. The pond became later on more like an
ichthyological station than a pond, as there was no kind of fish in
Russia, except the pike, of which Chekhov had not representatives in
this pond. He liked sitting on the dam on its bank and watching with

ecstasy shoals of little fish coming suddenly to the surface and then
hiding in its depths. An excellent well had been dug in Melihovo before
this. Chekhov had been very anxious that it should be in Little Russian
style with a crane. But the position did not allow of this, and it was
made with a big wheel painted yellow like the wells at Russian railway
stations. The question where to dig this well and whether the water in it
would be good greatly interested Chekhov. He wanted exact
information and a theory based on good grounds, seeing that
nine-tenths of Russia uses water out of wells, and has done so since
time immemorial; but whenever he questioned the well-sinkers who
came to him, he received the same vague answer: "Who can tell? It's in
God's hands. Can you find out beforehand what the water will be like?"
But the well, like the pond, was a great success, and the water turned
out to be excellent.
He began seriously planning to build a new house and farm buildings.
Creative activity was his passion. He was never satisfied with what he
had ready-made; he longed to make something new. He planted little
trees, raised pines and fir-trees from seed, looked after them as though
they were his children, and, like Colonel Vershinin in his "Three
Sisters," dreamed as he looked at them of what they would be like in
three or four hundred years.
The winter of 1893 was a severe one with a great deal of snow. The
snow was so high under the windows that the hares who ran into the
garden stood on their hind-legs and looked into the window of
Chekhov's study. The swept paths in the garden were like deep trenches.
By then Chekhov had finished his work in connection with the cholera
and he