balcony.30 The estate was advertised for 25,000 roubles with a 5000-rouble mortgage. Brom, the dachshund dog, foamed at the mouth and was shot as a rabies suspect. Anton ordered ropes, matting, packing cases and stripped the house. He mobilized Sinani in Yalta to store his possessions in the outbuildings already nearing completion. Cousin Georgi in Taganrog counted Anton's railway wagons, as they rolled in from Melikhovo via Moscow, and oversaw the transfer of books, wardrobes, desks, divans and the 'archive' on to the boat to Yalta. Ironwork, plumbing, door fittings and wallpaper were ordered from Moscow for Shapovalov to install in Autka.
In Moscow Nemirovich-Danchenko made a start on Uncle Vania, to astound the 1899-1900 season. Anton asked his colleague Dr Kur-kin for a cartogram of Serpukhov district that Stanislavsky could use as Astrov. In a postscript to Masha's letter he began his correspon491 I II III I Mil U M I'll s dence with Olga, addressing her 'I Icllo, last page of my life' and, as he had Kleopatra Karatygina and Tama Shchepkina-Kupernik, 'Great artist of the Russian land'. Olga was off to Georgia, to stay with her brother Konstantin in the cathedral city of Mtskheta. She and Anton arranged to meet in late summer.
Anton took time away from Melikhovo to visit Petersburg. He arrived on the morning of 11 June, met Adolf Marx and asked him to print the plays with diagrams of Stanislavsky's staging.31 He had his photograph taken in two studios. He did not go to see Suvorin. The dank cold sent him back the same day to Moscow.
All summer Masha was stranded in Melikhovo, lighting cockroaches and showing buyers round. Anton lived in Moscow with Masha the servant, whose lover haunted the kitchen. He strolled the boulevards and chatted to 'fallen' women at the Aquarium. He visited Pavel's grave, which was overgrown with brambles, and found an estate agent. Now that he had built his last school, he wrote to Suvorin, he had no sentiment for the estate: it was 'mined out' as literary material. By July two potential buyers had appeared. The first, Ianov, was a burnt-cork manufacturer who strung the Chekhovs along week by week. By the time Ianov dropped out, the other buyer, the young Boris Zaitsev, eventually a fine emigre prose writer, had bought another estate. Anton descended on Melikhovo to dig up any shrub that could be replanted at Autka. On 5 July 1899 he abandoned for ever his dachshund bitch Quinine and the estate into which he had poured so much time and energy. Anton's mind was on Olga Knipper. He said he would meet her in the Caucasus, 'on condition you do not make me lose my head.' He told Masha to rely on the estate agent. She protested that there were no horses to fetch buyers from the station. She begged Anton to come to Melikhovo and 'rest' until autumn frosts drove him to the Crimea. Aghast at coping alone with the sale of an estate - 'To hell with buyers. I'm sad and lonely' - she would rather take the 21,000 roubles that Ianov seemed to be offering, than ruin her health, and Anton's, seeking better offers.
Anton had his way. On 8 July 1899 he wired Olga and arranged to meet her in the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. From there they would take the overnight boat to Yalta together. Four days later he
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took the train south to Taganrog. Misha, back from the Crimea, went to the station to intercept him before he left Moscow, but there were so many friends seeing Anton off that Misha could not get a word in. (He took his wife and child, in Anton's absence, to Melikhovo, and lived there, beset by bittersweet memories, for a week.) In Taganrog Anton stayed not with his cousins but at the Hotel Europe. He visited the brothel, which was now run by a Jew. He saw a body covered with flies in the market, and started an appeal for a mortuary. From a Tatar vendor he had his first (but not his last) taste of koumiss, fermented mares' milk. He told the town's councillors what trees to plant. He felt ill and he let an old school friend, Dr Shamkovich, examine him at the hotel. On 17 July he took a boat to Novorossiisk.
Misha and his family returned desolate to Iaroslavl. An escaped convict was prowling Melikhovo, so Masha spent the nights shaking in her bed. Meanwhile Anton led Olga Knipper off the boat at Yalta. To the dismay of the Antonovkas, their arrival together was noted in the Crimean Courier. Anton stayed in the Hotel Mariino, while Olga found lodgings with the ailing Dr Sredin. For twelve days they strolled Yalta, took a carriage up to the viewing point at Oreanda and watched Babakai build the house and Mustafa the garden at Autka. The trees that had been planted in spring were growing rapidly. Olga and Anton were not altogether happy, for travel and travails had shattered Anton's precarious summer health. Anton reported to Masha, 'she was having tea with me; she just sits and says nothing.' The next day he wrote, 'Knipper is here, very nice, but she is depressed.' He lost interest in everything else. He told Masha to sell Melikhovo for half price.
Sazonova, who had recorded Anton's moods in 1896, was in Yalta; her husband had inherited an estate nearby. Her diary from 24 to 31 July 1899 notes: Chekhov took to Massandra the Moscow actress who acted in his Seagull. We dined in the town park… We met Chekhov there, he came and sat at our table. He wears grey trousers and a desperately short blue jacket. He complains that in winter he is worn down by visitors in Yalta. He has settled out of town on purpose… Chekhov is not a conversational man… He either replies reluctantly or starts to pontificate like Suvorin, 'Ermolova is a bad actress… Gorky is a good writer…'
I saw Chekhov on the promenade. He sits all alone on a little bench.32
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I II E II I II I EI I'll S On 2 August 1899 ^-%a an«' Anton look.1 carriage across the mountain towards the ancient Tatar capital of Bakhchisarai. Through sultry heat they crossed the beautiful Kok-Koz [Blue Eye] valley, wondering who was waving frantically at them: it was a group of doctors who had recognized Chekhov. They took the train together to Moscow, and parted more than friends. For a fortnight Anton had written nothing.
The agent had found a new buyer for Melikhovo, a timber merchant called Mikhail Konshin, who would buy the estate in his wife's name, but was interested only in felling and selling Chekhov's forests. Konshin was to pay 23,000 roubles and 5000 for fittings. He had not sold his last estate, so the agreement was that he would pay 1000 roubles cash, give an IOU for 4000, and find the rest over the years. In their hurry, the Chekhovs ceded everything, but Konshin, like Marx, had fleeced Anton. The 10,000 roubles mat Anton promised Masha as her share melted away. Anton banked the 5000 that Konshin eventually put down and let her draw 25 roubles a month interest - no more than her salary from the 'Dairy' school, or the allowance that Misha secretly made her.
Konshin moved into Melikhovo on 14 August and Masha went to join Anton in Moscow. Evgenia lived with Konshin until 20 August. In Masha's absence, Quinine, the dachshund bitch, had her eye ripped out by a farm dog and ran into Varenikov's yard, where she died in agony. Masha had gone back to pack the crockery. Breaking the news of Quinine's end, she told Anton: 'Not a lot of fun, darling! God grant we get out of here quickly. It has been raining ever since we came. The road is sheer horror. We are wet to the bone… Give my regards to your Knipper woman.' When the sale was over, Masha made her feelings plain to Misha: On Monday 6 September I am taking mother and the old Mariushka to the Crimea on the mail train… We sold Melikhovo, but how!… I am so fed up with Melikhovo that I agreed to anything… Anton didn't want to accept these terms. Perhaps Konshin is a crook, what can we do!… I don't think I shall have any money for a long time, which is why I turn to you. Merci I received the cheque, Anton forbade me to stop teaching, hinting that I shall have no private life, but I don't care. I shall spend a winter in Moscow and then see what happens… Anton was very ill when he came back from the Crimea -he had bad bronchitis, a high temperature and even some bleeding.33
APRIL-AUG U ST 1899
On 25 August Anton finished the proofs of his collected Plays for Marx. He called his symptoms 'flu'. He was seen off from Moscow to Yalta by Olga Knipper, who was led away in tears and then comforted by Masha. Anton had gone to make the Yalta house habitable for his womenfolk.
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Uncle Vania Triumphant September-November 1899 ANTON SPENT THE NIGHT of 27 August 1899 at his new house. Only the servant's quarters and kitchen wing were ready: walled in by packing cases, attended by Mustafa, he camped with a paraffin stove and two candlesticks. He brewed tea with water from his own well. He dined at the girls' school. Mustafa lugged trunks and boxes from cellars all round Yalta. Anton checked linen, chose wallpaper, urged the builders to sand the floors and install the water closet. He planted out Olga's gift, a 'Queen of the Night' cactus, which he called the 'Green Reptile'. He joined a consumers' union for groceries and claimed a 20 per cent discount on baths for members of the writers' union. He ordered grass seed for Kuchuk-Koy and hundreds of flowerpots. All the Marx money was spent: no more was payable until December. Konshin had not paid up. Anton borrowed 5000 roubles from Efim Konovitser, his lawyer. Russian Thought advanced 3000. 'We Chekhovs,' Misha told Masha, 'are bad savers.'
