Chekhov - all the more so because it was published in Suvorin's paper.62
Olga was distraught about her bad reviews: she loved Petersburg and wanted her love reciprocated. Stanislavsky explained to the cast that every critic was the husband or lover of an actress whose nose had been put out of joint by their performance of Chekhov. Petersburg actors queued to apologize and Lidia Iavorskaia showed her support. She took a red carnation from between her breasts and threw it to Stanislavsky, then came backstage and invited the cast to stay as her guests for the fourth week of Lent. Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky, to Olga's disgust, accepted. Iavorskaia, Anton's notorious old love, repelled her: 24 February… Iavorskaia crept into my dressing room again, she pushes in, flattering and keeps inviting me to see her. The brazen woman. 3 March… Iavorskaia has invited me on 5 March, but I certainly shan't go. I can't bear the sight of that coarse woman and have given orders for her not to be allowed in my dressing rooms in the interval.63 Another old flame of Anton's approached Olga. She wrote to him on 2 March to say: 'I just had a letter from L. Avilova, you seem to know her. She wishes… to get a ticket to the Sisters. I replied politely. I cannot get a ticket.' She was angry with 'Kitten', Nemirovich-Danchenko's wife, as well.64
Anton was upset by the ordeal the company had endured, but reproached Olga for quarrelling with Iavorskaia (who had sent him a telegram of praise). Anton even renounced writing plays in a country where actresses were abused. Suvorin was punished: for the twenty-fifth anniversary of New Times students organized a 'cat's concert' under the windows of his offices; police had to drive demonstrators away. Another student demonstration was attacked by Cossacks and police; news came that the Church's Holy Synod had excommunicated Tolstoy. In a tense and excited Petersburg theatre audiences became even more emotional. Sazonova took a friend, Evgenia, to see Three Sisters on 1 March 1901: 'She left the theatre in tears. Masha's affair with an artillery colonel is her own story.' One persona found Anton's
FEBRUARY-MAY IOOI
drama and personal life amusing. Anna Suvorina wrote to Anton at Easter: 'We all went to see Uncle Vania, six times in a row… it makes me laugh since I can see and hear many of my kith and kin… I'd like to say hello to your 'wife' [Olga Knipper], but how can I?'65
In the middle of all the turmoil Misha Chekhov turned up in Petersburg to take up Suvorin's offer of employment: Suvorin 'could not think what you're fit for', and forgot to assign Misha a salary. Masha supported her youngest brother: 'it's the fate of the boys in our family to be writers, not officials'. Misha declared that he was doing what Anton had advised him to do ten years ago. Now Anton reminded him that Suvorin published New Times and was 'an awful liar, especially in his so-called frank moments'; also that Anna Suvorina was petty. The only honest employment with Suvorin would be with Tychinkin in the print shop. Despondent at Suvorin's offhandedness and Anton's disapproval, Misha went back to Iaroslavl to rehabilitate himself. Suvorin wired him. Misha returned to Petersburg, apologizing to Suvorin on 17 March: 'I was always being terrified in my childhood that God would punish me and the Devil lead me astray… [My parents] made me a weak character.'66 Misha was employed with Suvorin first as an editor, then in his advertising agency, for 350 roubles a month. Suvorin had won another Chekhov.
Alone with his mother in the Crimea, Anton was reaching a decision. To Bunin he joked: 'marrying a German is better: they are tidier'. Gorky, keeping Olga company in Petersburg, wrote to Anton: 'Why have people everywhere been saying that you are married?' Meanwhile the almonds blossomed and Anton gardened. He was reading proofs for volume IV of The Complete Works, but not writing. He had promised another story to the journal Life: that journal was now banned. His old editor, Mikhail Menshikov, left The Week to work for Suvorin, and another outlet vanished. Anton grew iller. Nikolai Sazonov reported back to his wife that Chekhov would share the fate of the poet Nadson: 'he will be wiped out by consumption and Burenin's parodies'. Masha picked up the ominous adverb in a letter from Bunin: 'Anton is relatively well', and asked for his support in Yalta, when she came for Easter.67 Anton was expecting Olga to come for four whole months. On 5 March, she made him an ultimatum:
528
529
THKI'.I. TRIUMPHS
I shan't come to Yalta; think and you'll realize why. It's impossible. You have such a sensitive soul and yet you invite me! Can you really not understand? Anton made a joke of her refusal: she had a lover in Petersburg; he did have a wife, but would divorce her; he had brought expensive perfume for her to fetch from Yalta. On 7 March, he gave in: 'Let me make you a proposal.' Olga held out: How can I come?… How long must we stay hidden? And what's the point? Because of people? People are more likely to shut up and leave us in peace once they see it's an accomplished fact. Although he loathed trains and hotels, Anton announced he would come to Moscow. To Bunin (who, himself seeking a divorce, had to repress his horror) he made his first unambiguous written declaration: 'By the way, I intend to marry.' He told Olga he was coming to Moscow, but stressed that she would 'get a grandfather, not a spouse.' He would let her act for five more years. A week after this letter Olga told members of the theatre that she had resolved: 'to unite my life to that of Anton Chekhov.' But she still did not have from Anton the firm offer on which she was insisting: We cannot live just as though we were good friends… to see your mother's suffering, ivlasha's puzzled face - it's awful! In your house I'm between two fires. Say something about this. You never say anything. I have to have a bit of peace now. I am terribly tired. She dared not drag Anton to Moscow's frozen air, but, faced with her conditions for coming down to Yalta, Anton was now backing off. He wrote to Bunin on 25 March: 'I've changed my mind about marrying, I don't want to but all the same… then if I must I shall.' Shortly after Masha had left for Yalta, it was Olga who gave in. She telegraphed: 'Leaving tomorrow Yalta' and got the reply, 'Expect arrival'. On Good Friday, 30 March 1901, she was there.
Bunin was also there for the two weeks that Masha and Olga stayed. They went to the seaside cottage at Gurzuf, where they picnicked, and Anton wrote Bunin a joke bill for his share. When Masha left for Moscow and Bunin for Odessa, Olga left with them. She cried bitterly all the way to Moscow - Masha believed it was from a tooth abscess. Olga's letter to Anton suggests otherwise:
FEBRUARY-MAY IOOI
There was no need to separate… It was for decency, was it?… You stayed silent. I decided that you did not want me to be with you once Masha had left. Que dim e monde? There is a sediment of things left unsaid. I was so looking forward to spring, and now I've just been on a visit… everyone in Moscow was amazed to see me… Come soon; let's get married and clear off, do you want to? The next day Olga wrote, 'You have already cooled towards me, you don't look at me as somebody close… you don't like all this woman's chatter.'
While Olga Knipper was in Yalta, Olga Vasilieva let Anton know that she had come to Gurzuf for two months with her foster-child Marusia: 'Will you curse me very much for my desire to have one more look at you? Your Marusia is a wonderful child, but I get very spiteful with her.' At the beginning of April she sent her photograph to Anton's mother and wrote that she was bequeathing Marusia to Anton, as thanks for all the happiness and joy you brought me with your visits in Nice - after Mama's death I was never so happy and shan't be. Marusia is a good, kind child - I am not worthy of her. I often envy her that I cannot, as she can, count on an affectionate word from you. A week later she wired: 'Voudrais venir Gourzouff etre plus pres vous, puis-je, ne vous fachez pas.' Anton replied that there was a hotel in Gurzuf and sent regards to 'our daughter Marusia', telling her to behave 'or else daddy will get angry and pick up the cane'. A week after Easter Anton arranged to see them. Vasilieva had moved to Autka, to the house next door. She sent Anton coins, ostensibly as a pledge for a loan to pay her landlady. The day that Bunin, Masha and Olga left, Anton wrote to Vasilieva. He told her that he did not mind her living next door with no chaperone.68
Anton's reply to Olga Knipper, however, was as intimate a letter as she would ever receive from him: I didn't keep you because I hate being in Yalta and I also had the idea that we would soon meet anyway in freedom… you had no reason to be angry… I had no secret thoughts. He appealed to her pity and theatrical ambitions:
530
53r
THREE IKIUMIMIS
My cough takes all my energy and 1 think languidly about the future and am reluctant to write… Occasionally I have a very strong desire to write a 4-act farce or comedy for the Arts Theatre. And if I do, if nothing gets in the way, I shan't give it to the theatre before the end of 1903 They would marry and honeymoon anywhere, the Black Sea or the Arctic Ocean. Anton undertook to bring his passport to Moscow for the ceremony: she was now 'Olia', his 'little Lutheran', his 'dog', as henceforth she signed her letters to him. He would marry her the day he arrived 'so long as you promise nobody will know in Moscow': he loathed congratulations, champagne and having to maintain a fixed smile. Waiting for health and warm weather, he chatted every day with Kuprin, a fascinating companion who,
