On the 21st I reached Kursk. The weather continued to be fine; I was traveling in only a frock coat. My stroller broke down and I had to stop. Here I found the kind family of M. N. Chartorizhsky, whom I knew; he was out of town. His wife, dear and once beautiful Katerina Ivanovna, nee Kosheleva, was related to me; she found me and treated me. I had lunch with her. Of her two daughters, one, married, had not yet recovered from her illness; the other, charming and cheerful Dasha, sweetened our conversation with her wit and cheerfulness. Time flew by insensitively and pleasantly until the evening. There is no need to talk about the beautiful location of Kursk: who doesn’t know it? The city is quickly being rebuilt and can now be considered one of the most pleasant provincial cities in Russia. That evening the streets were illuminated: the Empress’s name day was celebrated. The effect of lighting on the picturesque unevenness of Kursk is beautiful, and I drove through its lights, continuing my path to Belgorod.
On the 23rd I arrived in Belgorod. It wasn’t that early, and I can’t understand why I found such emptiness here? No one on the streets, no one under the windows, like an enchanted city in which everyone has turned to stone. At the post office, I forcibly woke up and stirred up two Little Russians, who lazily began harnessing horses for me; Soon, however, it was ready, and we galloped off.
Here you feel a completely different nature: you have entered Little Russia! The people are not the same, the facial features are different, the soil of the earth, the location - everything takes on a different appearance; women are no better, but somehow more fun; In general, everything is more hospitable, a kind of bliss, a kind of laziness is scattered throughout; you begin to feel the influence of a temperate climate.
I wanted to get to Kharkiv early; but no matter how much I was in a hurry, I arrived at midnight. I settled down here to spend the night and the next day have dinner with the Governor, Prince P.I. Trubetskoy; but it turned out completely differently. My carriage got so stuck right next to the postal yard, in the middle of the street, that four good horses could not pull me out of this stinking pit. There was no way to leave; I covered my nose and didn’t know what to do. Following me in his carriage was an official sent by the government on business to the Donets; he didn’t get stuck, and getting out of his carriage, he came up to me: “Jump on me; “I’ll hold you back,” he said. “The horses won’t be pulled out.” It was easy to say, but I’m out of the habit of jumping! On the other hand, I was suffocating from the stench; I had to decide. I jumped, he held me back. The post office was about thirty paces away; but here's a new grief: locked. We knocked at the doors for a long time; I began to think that we had made a mistake and were knocking at the door of an empty house; but the coachmen insisted that this was definitely a postal yard, and the coachmen should know this for sure. Finally my servant, angry, knocked down the door; Some animal woke up, came out in a shirt, without a candle, and announced to us that the clerk was away, there was no one to register travel documents, and no one lived in the house, but they came to it in the morning. The stinking pit in the city itself made me angry; the disorder at the post office and the impossibility of looking for apartments in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar city, being already on the edge of it, completed my rage; I decided to leave it as quickly as possible, without resting and without seeing anyone. Fortunately, a troika of officials helped my horses pull out the carriage; They harnessed fresh horses, and I, in my stinking carriage, without registering a travel document, galloped out of Kharkiv.
The night was warm, the moon illuminated the road, nightingales sang everywhere. I have never heard so many suddenly singing nightingales in my life! Their loud peals were heard throughout all the gardens, groves, and near streams. This nocturnal, delightful harmony reconciled me with the Kharkiv adventure; I fell into thought, mentally ran through my life, pondered my current journey, and finally, by morning, I fell fast asleep, and woke up only in Constantinograd, having passed several stations without waking up. From here, in beautiful places, among pear and cherry trees in full bloom, I arrived in Yekaterinoslav through Novomoskovsk.