Complete Works of A.P. Chekhov, Vol. 1

live hand to mouth, on whatever God sends. They get by on fish supplies for Sakhalin, gold poaching, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and the sale of ponty velvet deer antlers, from which the Chinese prepare stimulating pills. On the way from Khabarovka to Nikolayevsk, I had to encounter quite a few smugglers; here, they do not hide their profession. One of them, who showed me gold dust and a pair of ponty, said to me with pride: "My father was a smuggler too!" The exploitation of indigenous peoples, besides the usual debauchery with alcohol, bamboozlement, and so forth, sometimes manifests in an original form. For instance, the Nikolayevsk merchant Ivanov, now deceased, would travel to Sakhalin every summer and collect tribute from the Gilyaks Nivkh people, and he would torture and hang those who failed to pay.

There is no hotel in the city. In the public assembly hall, they allowed me to rest after dinner in a room with a low ceiling—they say balls are held here in the winter; but to my question of where I could spend the night, they only shrugged. There was nothing to be done, so I had to spend two nights on the steamer. When it left for Khabarovka, I found myself like a crayfish on a sandbar: where should I go? My luggage was at the pier; I walked along the shore and did not know what to do with myself. Directly opposite the city, two or three versts from the shore, lies the steamer Baikal, on which I will go to the Tatar Strait. They say it will depart in four or five days, no sooner, although a departure flag is already flying on its mast. Should I take and go to the Baikal? But it is awkward: they might not let me on, they might say it is too early. The wind began to blow, the Amur frowned and became agitated like the sea. It is becoming depressing. I went to the assembly, had a long dinner there, and listened to talk at the next table about gold, about ponty, about a magician who came to Nikolayevsk, about some Japanese man who pulls teeth not with pliers, but simply with his fingers. If you listen attentively for a long time, then, my God, how far this life is from Russia! Starting with the balyk dried/salted fish fillet made of keta chum salmon, which they use here to snack on with vodka, and ending with the conversations, everything feels like something of its own, not Russian. While I was sailing along the Amur, I had the feeling that I was not in Russia, but somewhere in Patagonia or Texas; not to mention the original, non-Russian nature, to me