and for only ten days. (He loathed the Jeremiah-like expression which Braz had captured so well, but for the time being managed to keep his dislike of the portrait to himself.)
In mid April Anton began his return home. Escorted by Maxim Kovalevsky, with a large bag of sweets, he took the train to Paris to linger there until warm weather set in at Melikhovo, where even now it was freezing. The rooks and starlings had flown back. The frogs croaked. On 24 April a cuckoo called. Pavel pronounced it time for Anton to return.
Anton had reasons to stay in Paris. Suvorin's diary reads: 'I meant to go to Paris, where Chekhov has arrived from Nice, but I fell ill and am staying at home.' A week later, however, Suvorin raced to France on the Nord Express. Anton was giving Bernard Lazare, author
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F LO W E E I N (i CI M I II E I E S of L'affaire Dreyfus, a two-hour interview in French.44 Anton met Matthieu Dreyfus (who was studying Russian), and Jacques Merpert, friend of Dreyfus, employee of Louis Dreyfus, the corn trader. (Merpert taught Russian: Anton was to send him one-act Russian plays for his pupils.)
Anton moved from the dingy Hotel Dijon to the splendid Vendome, to live a floor beneath Suvorin. Dreyfus tainted the air. Suvorin's diary for 27 April/9 May 1898 brands all radicals as a mob: Chekhov is here. All the time with me. He told me that Korolenko had persuaded him to stand for election to die Union of Writers… these swine become judges of a remarkable writer! There it is, the mob from which contemptible mediocrities jump out and run things. 'I was almost blackballed,' Chekhov said… I asked [de Roberti, a philosopher] if he'd seen Zola? 'Well, did he say anything about Dreyfus?' 'He said mat he's convinced of his innocence.' 'Well, the proof?' 'He hasn't any.'45 Nevertheless, Anton recalled the three weeks in Paris as his happiest abroad. Suvorin, a month ago too melancholy to speak, was animated. He and Anton bargained for exhibits for Taganrog museum. Anton and Pavlovsky spoke up for Dreyfus, and believed they had won Suvorin round. 'What a guilty back he has,' thought Anton as Suvorin turned away from them.
Taganrog, relatives reminded Anton, needed his help. Anton was anxious to support the museum, hotels and sanatoria, to counteract the new foundries which choked the city and crippled its workmen. Scouring Paris for trophies for his native city, Anton enlisted sculptors, Antokolsky and Bernshtam, to carve a twenty-foot statue of Peter the Great for Taganrog's 200th anniversary. Anton bought a boater for Pavel, an umbrella for Evgenia, nightshirts for himself, and strolled the streets in a top hat. He thought of seeing Zola, but did not trust his French: Russia's and France's Dreyfusards exchanged just salutations.
May promised to be hot and dry at Melikhovo. The trees were in leaf; Pavel opened all the windows and doors. Laden with gifts, Anton boarded the Nord Express for Petersburg. Suvorin, believing Anton's health had recovered in Paris, saw him off. He had given Anton 1000 francs, a cushion and a pair of gold cuff links. (Anton left the money
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with Pavlovsky to give back.) Anton wanted to return unnoticed. He wired Aleksandr in Petersburg: 'Meet me no fuss'. Masha was to come to the station in Moscow the next day. Only she and Potapenko were to know of his arrival.
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The Birth of a Theatre May-September 1898 SUVORIN HAD warned his wife to send out the carriage for Anton.46 Anna brought Anton to the Suvorin house. Nastia reported to her father that she found Anton 'awfully unimproved, and his voice struck me as somehow weakened.'47 Anton's desk was piled with letters when he reached Melikhovo on the evening of 5 May 1898. Nobody congratulated him on his recovery: Evgenia wrote to Misha that he had lost even more weight.48
The important letter was from Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, whose elder brother, the novelist Vasili, Anton had kept company at the roulette tables. Since 1890 Anton had trusted Vladimir and respected him for having abandoned a career as a playwright in order to teach and direct actors properly. Nemirovich-Danchenko now dominated the Moscow Philharmonic School, a respected music and drama college. In 1898 Nemirovich had merged his best six actors -one being Olga Knipper49 - with Konstantin Stanislavsky and his best four actors from the Society for Art and Literature into the Moscow Arts Theatre. This was to be the first private theatre able to rival Russia's officially subsidized state theatres in its repertoire and its acting; it had the advantage of rich patrons and of freedom from the restrictions that the Imperial Theatre Committee placed on the repertoire of the state theatres. Nemirovich-Danchenko's enthusiasm and Stanislavsky's genius - two bears in one den, they admitted - was a heady brew. With the wealth of Stanislavsky (director of a cotton mill) and of Levitan's patron, Sawa Morozov, a militant theatre was formed, needing only a new repertoire. The stimulus to relaunch The Seagull had come from Vasili Nemirovich-Danchenko. In November 1896 he had written to his brother Vladimir, disparaging The Seagull. The brothers' rivalry was such that Vladimir was bound to defend
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whatever Vasili attacked. Moscow's theatre was born of Petersburg's spite: Dear Volodia! You ask about Chekhov's play. I love Anton with all my heart and value him. I don't consider him in the least great or even of major importance… This is a boring, drawn-out thing that embitters the listener. Where have you seen a 40-year- old woman renouncing a lover of her own free will. This isn't a play. There is nothing theatrical in it. I think Chekhov is dead for the stage. The first performance was so horrible that when Suvorin told me about it tears welled in my eyes. The audience was right, too. The auditorium expected something great and got a bad, boring piece… You have to be infatuated with yourself to stage such a thing. I'll say more, Chekhov is no playwright. The sooner he forgets the stage, the better… I nearly left before the end.30 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko's letter to Chekhov on 25 April 1898 changed Anton's life: Of contemporary Russian authors I have decided to cultivate only the most talented and still poorly understood… The Seagull… enthrals me and I will stake anything you like that these hidden dramas and tragedies in every character of the play, given a skilful, extremely conscientious production without banalities, can enthral the auditorium too. Perhaps the play won't arouse explosions of applause, but a real production with fresh talents, free of routine, will be a triumph of art, I vouch for that. All we need is your decision… I guarantee you will never find greater reverence in a director or worshippers in the cast.
I am too poor to pay you a lot. But believe me, I'll do everything to see you are satisfied in this respect. Our theatre is beginning to arouse the strong indignation of the Imperial theatres. They understand we are making war on routine, cliches, recognized geniuses and so on.51 Anton had sworn he was finished with the theatre. He merely sent word through Masha that he had read this letter. Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote again on 12 May: I need to know right now whether you are letting us have The Seagull… If you don't, you cut my throat, since The Seagull is the only contemporary play that enthrals me as a director, and you are the only modern writer of great interest to a theatre with a model reper
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II.OWI HINC. (I Ml I I HII S toire… 1 shall come down lo sec you.mil discuss The Seagull and my stage plan. After Nemirovich-Danchenko posted this letter, he received Anton's refusal. He wrote again: But The Seagull is on everywhere. Why not put it on in Moscow?… There were unprecedented reviews in the Kharkov and Odessa papers. What's worrying you? Stay away from first performances, that's all. Can you forbid the play ever to be put on in Moscow, when it can be acted anywhere without your permission? Even in Petersburg… Send me a note to say you have no objection to my staging The Seagull… unless you are hiding the simplest one, that you don't believe I can stage the play well. Anton answered evasively, and warned Nemirovich-Danchenko he would have to hire his own horses from the station. Vladimir did not go to Melikhovo that summer, but assumed, rightly, that Anton had given in to his logic. On 18 June Anton went to see him in Moscow: the new Moscow Arts Theatre had the play for its first season in autumn 1898.
Anton did not foresee how close he would become to the Moscow Arts Theatre. He enjoyed the warm summer and the rich blossom and fruits it brought, but his spirits were low. Tychinkin, Suvorin's typesetter, reported to his master that Chekhov was 'as sad' as ever.52 Now that Anton was back, Masha could rest after eight months' slavery. She went first to the Crimea and then with Maria Drozdova to Zvenigorod to paint. Anton lay low, going to Moscow only once. Old guests, 'the Siamese twins of mediocrity', Gruzinsky and Ezhov, visited. Ivanenko again settled into Melikhovo. Anton was more resolute in staving off women guests. Elena Shavrova, denied even a
