It is, of course, unpleasant to live in Siberia; but better to live in Siberia and feel oneself a man of moral worth, than to live in Petersburg with the reputation of a drunkard and a scoundrel. No reference to present company. * * * * * Siberia is a cold and long country. I drive on and on and see no end to it. I see little that is new or of interest, but I feel and experience a great deal. I have contended with flooded rivers, with cold, with impassable mud, hunger and sleepiness: such sensations as you could not get for a million in Moscow! You ought to come to Siberia. Ask the authorities to exile you. The best of all Siberian towns is Irkutsk. Tomskis not worth a brass farthing, and the district towns are no better than the Kryepkaya in which you were so heedlessly born. What is most provoking, there is nothing to eat in the district towns, and oh dear, how conscious one is of that on the journey! You get to a town and feel ready to eat a mountain; you arrive and--alack!--no sausage, no cheese, no meat, no herring even, but the same insipid eggs and milk as in the villages. On the whole I am satisfied with my expedition, and don’t regret having come. The travelling is hard, but the resting after it is delightful. I rest with enjoyment. From Irkutsk I shall make for Baikal, which I shall cross by steamer; it’s a thousand versts from the Baikal to the Amur, and thence I shall go by steamer to the Pacific, where the first thing I shall do is to have a bath and eat oysters. I got here yesterday and went first of all to have a bath, then to bed. Oh, how I slept! I never understood what sleep meant till now. * * * * * I bless you with both hands. Your Asiatic brother, A. CHEKHOV. TO A. N. PLESHTCHEYEV. IRKUTSK, June 5, 1890. A thousand greetings to you, dear Alexey Nikolaevitch. At last I have vanquished the most difficult three thousand versts; I am sitting in a decent hotel and can write. I have rigged myself out all in new things and, as far as possible, smart ones, for you cannot imagine how sick I was of my big muddy boots, of my sheepskin smelling of tar, of my overcoat covered with bits of hay, of dust and crumbs in my pockets, and of my extremely dirty linen. I looked such a ragamuffin on the journey that even the tramps eyed me askance; and then, as ill luck would have it, the cold winds and rain chapped my face and made it scaly like a fish. Now at last I am a European again, and I am conscious of it all over.