Your loving
A. CHEKHOV.

Everyone who meets us recognises that we are Russians, and stares not at my
face, but at my grizzled cap. Looking at my cap they probably think I am a
very rich Russian Count.




TO HIS BROTHER IVAN.

VENICE,
March 24, 1891.


I am now in Venice. I arrived here two days ago from Vienna. One thing I
can say: I have never in my life seen a town more marvellous than Venice.
It is perfectly enchanting, brilliance, joy, life. Instead of streets and
roads there are canals; instead of cabs, gondolas. The architecture is
amazing, and there is not a single spot that does not excite some
historical or artistic interest. You float in a gondola and see the palace
of the Doges, the house where Desdemona lived, homes of various painters,
churches. And in the churches there are sculptures and paintings such as we
have never dreamed of. In fact it is enchantment.

All day from morning till night I sit in a gondola and glide along the
streets, or I saunter about the famous St. Mark's Square. The square is as
level and clean as a parquet floor. Here there is St. Mark's--something
impossible to describe--the Palace of the Doges, and other buildings which