Works of A.P. Chekhov, Vol. 10: Sakhalin Island

...clouds of mosquitoes, literally clouds, it was dark from them, my face and hands were burning, and there was no way to defend myself. I think that if one were to stay here overnight under the open sky, without surrounding oneself with fires, one could perish or, at the very least, go insane.

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The hut is divided by an entryway into two halves: the sailors live on the left, the officer with his family on the right. The master of the house was not there. I found an elegantly dressed, intelligent lady, his wife, and two daughters, little girls, bitten by mosquitoes. In the rooms, all the walls are covered with fresh greenery, the windows are covered with gauze, and it smells of smoke, but despite everything, there are still mosquitoes, and they are stinging the poor girls. The room’s decor is not wealthy, but affectionate, and in the furnishings, one feels something dear and tasteful. On the wall hang sketches and, among other things, a woman's head sketched in pencil. It turns out that Mr. B. is an artist.

—Do you live well here?—I ask the lady.
—Well, yes, except for the mosquitoes.

She was not glad about the fresh meat; according to her, she and the children had long since become accustomed to salt meat and did not like fresh meat.

—However, we cooked trout yesterday,—she added.

I was escorted to the rowboat by a sullen sailor who, as if guessing what I wanted to ask him, sighed and said:

—One wouldn't end up here of one's own free will!

Early the next morning, we moved on in completely calm and warm weather. The Tatar coast is mountainous and abounds in peaks—that is, sharp, conical summits. It is slightly veiled by a bluish haze: this is smoke from distant forest fires, which, as they say, sometimes becomes so thick here that it is no less dangerous for sailors than fog. If one were to go straight from the sea across the mountains, one would surely not encounter a single dwelling, not a single living soul for a distance of five hundred versts or more... The shore is cheerfully green in the sun and, apparently, gets along perfectly well without man. By six o'clock, we were in the narrowest part of the strait, between Capes Pogobi and Lazarev, and saw both shores very closely; at eight o'clock, we passed Nevelskoy’s Cap—this is the name of a mountain with a bump on the summit, resembling a cap. The morning was bright and brilliant, and the pleasure I experienced was intensified by the proud realization that I was seeing these shores.

Rectangular library stamp with text and a handwritten annotation over it. "MUK TsBS, GO Pervouralsk, Book storage, Found"
Circular library stamp with text around the perimeter and a number in the center. "LIBRARY, OF THE LOCAL COMMITTEE, 2, At Vostoko..."