window on the world, in the form of the Taganrog Public Library, opened for Anton. The school authorities were reluctant for pupils to use it: the school library had a restricted range of books, cutting pupils off from radical works, or anything seditious, such as the new satirical weeklies and monthly journals - the staple diet of the Russian intellectual. (In school only Father Pokrovsky subscribed to such 'subversive' journals
1876
as Notes of the Fatherland.) Anton joined the library in January 1877, sometimes retrieving his two-rouble deposit to buy food.
The Moscow and Petersburg satirical weeklies influenced all of Taganrog's youth. Destined for the newly literate of the metropolis, for uninhibited students and new professionals, these journals showed irreverence to received ideas and prominent personalities. They encouraged their readers to submit their own pieces - comic sketches, caricatures, polemical articles - for publication and payment. Anton began to submit his own anecdotes for Aleksandr to edit and market through his university contacts. Pavel's first letters from Moscow are full of pathos. Penniless, dependent on his student sons, he was apparently blind to the irony of the situation. From the day after his arrival he continued to dictate: Dear beloved Evochka, Antosha, Vania, Masha and Misha, I arrived safely yesterday in Moscow at 2 in the afternoon. Kolia met me at the station and we got a cab and went to the Flat, where Aleksandr was waiting for us. They were very pleased mat I had come. After a talk, we went round Moscow and then to the Dining Rooms for a good dinner. Three dinners cost 60 kopecks and one bottle of kvas 7 kopecks. I saw the college where Kolia is studying, the university, the Post Office, the Telegraph, the 'Saviour in the Pine Grove'. When we went up there to pray, we were shown the most Sacred relics of St Stefan of Perm… The flat is suitable for three, the. landlady is kind, I was only astonished tliat they never lock their room when they leave, they say there's no need, but a hired servant does the cleaning and might take something, God grant tiiat it is safe… Moscow is not like our Taganrog, there's endless noise, people bustling, the people live the lives they should, mere is order in everything, everyone knows their business… I ask you children to listen to Mama, do not upset her, don't argue with each other, do your homework properly. Vania, see you make an effort. The exams are soon. Farewell, my dear ones. I am always with you. P. Chekhov.32 Pavel and his two elder sons now lodged in one room in a house belonging to a Karolina Schwarzkopf and her family, the Polevaevs. The house was on the sleazy Grachiovka ('Rookery', also known as the Drachiovka, 'Rip-off, or Brawl Alley', but now Trubnaia street);
42
43
KA'I II IK I I I III MAN
the Polevaevs were considered 'last' and Masha Chekhova later accused them of corrupting both Aleksandr and Kolia.
Pavel did not yet detect Bohemian influence. Me was obsessed with religious pilgrimage: he spent a day and a night at the St Sergei monastery thirty miles north of Moscow and wrote sermons to his wife. He did not hurry to find work: Kolia, he told Evgenia, was copying paintings in the Museum and a shop had offered 25 roubles for one painting. Pavel told Anton to hide furniture from creditors and stave off bailiffs; he was to sell furniture to pay fares to Moscow for other family members. Pavel had signed his goods over to Aunt Fenichka to deflect his creditors. Complacent Father Chekhov told his younger children on 6 May 1876: Dear Children… If you go on living a good life, I shall bring you to Moscow. Here there are many Institutions for study, Gimnazias… stay quiet, don't spread it to anybody, try to take your exams as well as you can and get matriculation, don't talk to anybody about this.
Thank you Antosha that you are running the household and collecting what is owed to us… Vania, the rains have started, I'm very glad you have put the barrel under the drainpipe. Misha is a good boy, he will try to write and tell me how he is progressing. And Masha probably hasn't forgotten what I ordered her to do, when I left for Moscow, to study well in the gimnazia and to play the piano three times a day, according to my method, not hurrying, looking at the music and not leaving a single note out. If she plays well, then I shall bring you to Moscow and buy a good piano and music then she will be a complete Artist and perform in Public. To his wife, a week later, Pavel was less sanguine about salvaging anything: he trusted neither his creditors, nor his 'well-wishers'.
Pavel still believed that, if need be, he could sell his house for more than he owed. In Taganrog that same day, appropriately the Assumption of the Cross, Evgenia tried to shake Pavel into a sense of reality: My darling Pavel Egorych, We received the letter where you write that we must sell the house. I wanted to sell it a long time ago only to get rid of the debts but there are no buyers… I said, Antosha go to Tochilovsky, he lends money against security, so Antosha went yesterday… Tochilovsky just shouted, 'That's a bog, God forbid,
1876
no question, I want nothing to do with Taganrog,' so Antosha came home and now I don't know who to turn to… yesterday, the 13th, we were sitting having tea, we hear the bell, we opened the door, there was Grokholsky with papers, the first question was, is Pavel Egorych at home. We say no… I asked Grokholsky whether he would bother Pavel in Moscow and he says, 'You just warn your husband.' This is what I advise you to do, my dear, you write an open letter to all of us saying you are leaving for Tambov, write in it 'I am leaving for Tambov now' or wherever you like, but write it… Anxiety and worry have finished me and now our old nanny came last Wednesday started crying… I pulled myself together and told her, 'Nanny I can't keep you, I haven't got even a kitchen-maid, I'm alone.'… fetch us quickly or I could soon go mad. Aleksandr is already listed for military service, I don't know why, it's posted on all the fences… I hoped we'd mortgage the house and just be in debt to Kostenko, and now I can't think what to do. Answer quickly. E Chekhova.' E tenant in Moscow had to register with the police. Fortunately, the Polevaevs were not law-observing: Pavel escaped arrest, but could offer no counsel to his stranded family. Anton, a mere boy, could not dun debtors or fight off creditors, even if some, like Grokholsky, were the fathers of school friends. Mironov and Kostenko, who held the house as security, would not waive the 1000 roubles they were owed. Pavel's illusions about the Cathedral Brotherhood that he and Mitro-fan belonged to were shattered. On 9 June 1876 he complained: I've lost any desire to even discuss our foul affairs. In my letter I asked you to give 300 roubles' worth of receipts as payment to Kostenko. Mironov has damaged everything, he called in the loan in a very unChristian way, even a wicked Tatar wouldn't do that… Evochka, about mortgaging the silver setting of the icon, how can you?..,34 For once, Pavel felt abashed by the distress he had caused and praised his wife and son for coping so well. But he also felt betrayed. Gavriil Selivanov had promised Evgenia: 'For you, Mama, I'll do anything.' I le had brought his niece Sasha, as a paying guest, back to the Chekhov house to share Masha's room. Selivanov knew everything that happened in the civil courts and chose his moment. Before the Chekhov home could be auctioned, he made a deal with Mironov, Kostenko and the court. He paid a mere 500 roubles, and promised Kostenko
II
45
! EOI A.E AI III E MAN that the furniture could be sold to meet the interest payments that Pavel had defaulted on. In July, Selivanov, Masha claimed years later, announced to Evgenia: 'I've paid off the bill of exchange and forgive me, Mama, but now this is my house.' Evgenia's letter to Anton of 12 March 1877 confirms that rather than an act of betrayal, Selivanov's purchase was a favour which Anton had asked of him, to protect the family from more predatory creditors.
For the next eighteen months Selivanov offered to sell back the house to the family at the price he had paid - thus saving them, not robbing them of, 500 roubles. His attitude hardened only after losing patience with his improvident former landlords. He repaired the property and contemplated marrying and living in it. The Chekhovs hoped against hope that he was genuinely their nominee purchaser in a stratagem to save their home. On 1 October 1876, when only Anton and Vania were left in Taganrog, Pavel still showed trust, writing to Selivanov and giving him powers of attorney to rent the house on his behalf.
Pavel and his family were not cheated: they never did offer Selivanov the price for which he had redeemed their house. Kolia and Antosha sought out Selivanov's advice and trusted him as much as they did Uncle Mitrofan. Good relations persisted between the Chekhovs and Selivanovs. The friendly correspondence between the Chekhovs and Selivanov's niece Sasha and brother-in-law and nephews, the Kravtsovs, suggests that Selivanov, though hard- nosed, was no rogue.
Mitrofan's lukewarm sympathy hurt Pavel and Evgenia more. Mitrofan wrote effusive sermons (Aleksandr called him and his wife 'the Holy Fathers'), assuring Pavel that their trials were from God.35 When Pavel asked for money, Mitrofan pleaded poverty (although he had no debts) and limited his support to feeding Anton, hiding Evgenia's treasures and sending two or three roubles to Pavel in Moscow. Pavel's fraternal love faltered: in September 1876 Aleksandr reported to Anton: He used not to let anyone say anything bad about his brother and his
