I have undertaken to be the section doctor till the fifteenth of
October--my section will be officially closed on that day. I shall dismiss
my feldsher, close the barracks, and if the cholera comes, I shall cut
rather a comic figure. Add to that the doctor of the next section is ill
with pleurisy and so, if the cholera appears in his section, I shall be
bound, from a feeling of comradeship, to undertake his section.

So far I have not had a single case of cholera, but I have had epidemics of
typhus, diphtheria, scarlatina, and so on. At the beginning of summer I had
a great deal of work, then towards the autumn less and less.

* * * * *

The sum of my literary achievement this summer, thanks to the cholera, has
been almost nil. I have written little, and have thought about literature
even less. However, I have written two small stories--one tolerable, one
bad.

Life has been hard work this summer, but it seems, to me now that I have
never spent a summer so well as this one. In spite of the turmoil of the
cholera, and the poverty which has kept tight hold of me all the summer, I
have liked the life and wanted to live. How many trees I have planted!
Thanks to our system of cultivation, Melihovo has become unrecognizable,
and seems now extraordinarily snug and beautiful, though very likely it is
good for nothing. Great is the power of habit and the sense of property.
And it's marvellous how pleasant it is not to have to pay rent. We have
made new acquaintances and formed new relations. Our old terrors in facing
the peasants now seem ludicrous. I have served in the Zemstvo, have
presided at the Sanitary Council and visited the factories, and I liked all