take? Would he (like Gorky) have bowed to the dictatorship or would he have resisted and been crushed? One can never predict how anyone will behave-but everything in Chekhov's life and work expresses an exceptionally strong hatred of force and violence. In all probability, the libertarian Chekhov would have fared badly under the Soviets. Almost surely he would not have died in a posh German hotel room after drinking a glass of champagne.
Chekhov's death is one of the great set pieces of literary history. According to an account written by Olga in 1908 (and translated by Benedetti), on the night of July 2, 1904, Chekhov went to sleep and woke up around one. 'He was in pain, which made it difficult to lie down,' Olga wrote, and continued: He felt sick with pain, he was 'in torment' and for the first time in his life he asked for a doctor… It was eerie. But the feeling that something positive had to be done, and quickly, made me gather all my strength. I woke up Lev Rabenek, a Russian student living in the hotel, and asked him to go for the doctor.
Dr. Schworer came and gently, caringly started to say something, cradling Anton in his arms. Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): Ich sterbe. The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: 'It's a long time since I drank champagne.' He drained it, lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed, and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child.'
In another memoir, written in 1922, Olga refined and expanded the death scene thus: The doctor arrived and ordered champagne. Anton Pavlovich sat up and loudly informed the doctor in German (he spoke very little German), 'Ich sterbe.'
He then took a glass, turned his face towards me, smiled his amazing smile and said, 'It's a long time since I drank champagne,' calmly drained his glass, lay down quietly on his left side, and shortly afterwards fell silent forever. The dreadful silence of the night was disturbed only by a large moth which burst into the room like a whirlwind, beat tormentedly against the burning electric lamps, and flew confusedly around the room.
The doctor left, and in the silence and heat of the night the cork suddenly jumped out of the unfinished bottle of champagne with a terrifying bang. It began to grow light, and as nature awoke, the gentle, melodious song of the birds came like the first song of mourning, and the sound of an organ came from a nearby church. There was no human voice, no bustle of human life, only the beauty, calm, and majesty of death.
Awareness of grief, of the loss of such a man as Anton Pavlovich, came only with the first sounds of awakening life, with the arrival of people; and what I experienced and felt, standing on the balcony and looking now at the rising sun, now at nature melodiously awakening, now at the fine, peaceful face of Anton Pavlovich, which seemed to be smiling as if he had just understood something-that, I repeat, still remains for me an unresolved mystery. There had never been such moments as those before in my life, and there never will be again.
Leo Rabeneck set down his own account of the night of July 2,1904, though he waited fifty-four years to do so. Predictably, it differed in some details from Olga's. In an article called 'The Last Minutes of Chekhov,' published in Paris in a Russian emigre journal, he recalled that the doctor had asked him to buy oxygen at a pharmacy and had briefly administered it to the dying man. After quoting Chekhov's (or Olga's, as the case may be) 'It's a long time since I've drunk champagne,' and reporting on the draining of the glass, Rabeneck writes: At that moment I heard a strange sound coming from his throat. I saw him lie back on the cushions and thought he did so to breathe more easily. Everything was silent in the room and the lamp grew dimmer. The doctor took Anton Pavlovich's hand and said nothing. After several minutes of silence I thought things were improving and that Anton Pavlovich was out of danger. Then the doctor dropped Anton Pavlovich's hand, and took me to a corner of the room. 'It's finished,' he said. 'Herr Chekhov has died. Will you tell Frau Chekhov?'… I went to her… 'Olga Leonardovna, the doctor said that Anton Pavlovich has died.' She stood like a stone. Then she started to shout in German at the doctor: 'It is not true, Doctor, tell me it is not true.'
The third eyewitness, Dr. Schwohrer, left no account, but is quoted in an article dated July 5, 1904, which appeared the following day in the Moscow newspaper Novostia Dnia. Its author, an unidentified correspondent (he wrote under the initials S.S.), reported from Badenweiler: 'I talked to the doctor who treated A. P. Chekhov here… He was, the doctor said, until the last minute, stoically calm, like a hero… 'When I approached him, he told me peacefully: 'Soon, doctor, I am going to die.' I wanted to bring him a new supply of oxygen. Chekhov stopped me, saying 'There is no need for more. Before they brought the oxygen, I would be dead.' ' ' Another on-the-scene Russian journalist, Grigori Borisovich lollos (the Berlin correspondent for the Moscow newspaper Russkie Vedemosti, who had become friendly with Chekhov and Olga in Badenweiler and interviewed Olga the day after Chekhov's death), wrote on July 3, 1904: 'At one o'clock at night, Anton Pavlovich began to rave, talked of some sailor, then asked something about the Japanese, and after that came back to his senses and with a sad smile told his wife, who was putting an ice-pack on his chest, 'You don't put ice on an empty heart.' ' lollos went on: 'His last words were, 'I am dying,' and then, quietly, in German to his doctor, 'Ich sterbe.' His pulse became very weak… dying, he sat in bed, bending, supported by pillows; then suddenly he turned on his side and without a sign, without any apparent external sign, his life stopped. An unusually peaceful, almost happy expression appeared on his suddenly youthful-looking face. Through the wide-open window came a fresh breeze, smelling of hay; a light appeared above the forest. No sound anywhere-the small spa town was asleep, the doctor left, a deadly silence filled the house; only the singing of birds could be heard in the room, where, lying on his side, freed from difficulties, a remarkable man and a hard worker, rested on the shoulder of a woman who covered him with tears and kisses.'
How Chekhov's biographers have handled the eyewitness testimony (both primary and secondary) in their various renderings of the death scene offers an instructive glimpse into the workings of biographical method.
In Anton Chekhov: A Life (1952), David Magarshack writes: When the doctor arrived, Chekhov said to him in German: 'Tod?'
'Oh, no,' the doctor replied. 'Please calm yourself.'
Chekhov was still finding it difficult to breathe and ice was placed on his heart. The doctor sent one of the students for oxygen.
'Don't bother,' Chekhov said. 'I shall be dead before they bring it.'
The doctor then ordered some champagne. Chekhov took the glass, turned to Olga Knipper and said with a smile, 'It's a long time since I drank champagne.' He had a few sips and fell back on the pillow. Soon he began to ramble. 'Has the sailor gone? Which sailor?' He was apparently thinking of the RussoJapanese war. That went on for several minutes. His last words were 'I'm dying'; then in a very low voice to the doctor in German: 'Ich sterbe.' His pulse was getting weaker. He sat doubled up on his bed, propped up by pillows. Suddenly, without uttering a sound, he fell sideways. He was dead. His face looked very young, contented and almost happy. The doctor went away.
A fresh breeze blew into the room, bringing with it the smell of newly mown hay. The sun was rising slowly from behind the woods. Outside, the birds began to stir and twitter, and in the room the silence was broken by the loud buzzing of a huge black moth, which was whirling round the electric light, and by the soft sobbing of Olga Knipper as she leaned with her head against Chekhov's body.
Princess Nina Andronikova Toumanova in Anton Chekhov: The Voice of Twilight Russia (1937) writes: Soon Dr. Schwohrer arrived accompanied by his assistant. They sent for oxygen. Chekhov smiled: It will come too late. A few moments later he became delirious. He spoke about the war and Russian sailors in Japan. This great humanitarian remained true to himself to the end. It was not his family or his friends on whom his last thoughts were centered: it was on Russia and her people… The physicians gave him some champagne. Chekhov smiled again, and then in a distant whisper said: 'Ich sterbe.' (I am dying.) He sank on his left side. All was ended. Two silent men bent over the motionless form, and, in the stillness of the July night, one could hear only the sobs of a lonely woman.
Daniel Gilles in Chekhov: Observer Without Illusion (1967): Chekhov's fever was so high that he was half delirious: he was raving about some unknown sailor and expressing fear of the Japanese. But when Olga came to put an ice bag on his chest, he abruptly came to himself and gently pushed it away. With a sad smile, he explained: 'One doesn't put ice on an empty heart.' Henri Troyat, in Chekhov (1984): Fever had made Chekhov delirious. He went on about a sailor or asked about the Japanese, his eyes shining. But when Olga tried to place an ice bag on his chest, he suddenly regained consciousness and said, 'Don't put ice on an empty stomach.' Irene Nemirovsky, in A Life of Chekhov (1950): A huge black moth entered the room. It flew from wall to wall, hurling itself against the lighted lamps, thudded painfully down, with scorched wings, then fluttered up again in its blind, impulsive flight. Then it found the open window, and disappeared into the soft, dark night. Chekhov, meanwhile, had ceased
