of stifling heat. From Aksionovo wickerwork carts took them over a rough hilly track six miles to the sanatorium.
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It was dark when they arrived. They were met by dozens of telegrams and letters and by the news that an Anna Chokhova was there. She was the wife of Mikhail Chokhov, a vulgar cousin whom Anton had avoided for fifteen years.' Morning showed the beauty of Aksionovo - an outcrop of hilly forest in the dreary steppes between the Volga and the Urals, it could have been a resort in lower Austria. Olga regaled Masha with her first impressions: The air was saturated, the fragrance amazing, and it was remarkably warm. Here we were met by Dr Varavka (a great name [it sounds like vorovka, thieving woman D.R.])… Anton travels like a student; I had told him that he would have to bring everything with him. He assured me we could buy everything locally. It turns out there are no sheets or pillows here. The doctor sent over his own… The sanatorium has 40 little chalets… and a house with ten rooms, a dining room, a drawing room, billiard room, a library and a piano. From a distance the chalets look like big privies. Each has two rooms connected only by a narrow verandah, the rooms are middling, all white. You get a table, mree chairs, a rather hard bed and a cupboard, the washstand is on three legs with a jug instead of a sink. Spartan, you can see. They will send over some softer beds and I have been given a mirror. Our chalet is the end one, so mat we get an excellent view of the open country; there is a birch wood right by. We get morning coffee brought to us, at 1 we go to lunch, two hot courses, at 6 a three-course dinner, and at 9 tea, milk, bread and butter. Anton was weighed and he began to drink koumiss, so far he takes it well, eats very well and sleeps a lot.2 v. Dr Varavka fawned on his new patients: a famous colleague and a distinguished actress. Anton studied the twenty house rules and named the place 'a corrective labour camp'. There was no running water, no bathhouse; the 'park' was scrub, the flowerbeds full of weeds. The Bashkirs farmed horses and sheep, but no fruit or vegetables. Anton laughed hysterically and would have fled, but for a landowner who offered him his sauna, and for the river Dioma, where, with Dr Varavka and a young patient, Anton sat trout-fishing. Olga lazed with a book, bathed in the stream, made herself a silk bra, or gathered strawberries and flowers in the woods. Olga's only ordeal was a trip to buy bed-linen, which meant travelling to Ufa, which she cursed -a 'pit: hell, suffocation and dust!' For the first time since childhood, Anton put on weight. Four
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bottles of koumiss daily made him twelve pounds heavier by mid-June. Fermented mares' milk was easily digestible. It was also thought to raise the body's defences against tuberculosis, encouraging the growth of benign flora at the expense of tubercular bacilli in the gut. Olga, although she found her own ten stone excessive, tried it herself. Koumiss made them drowsy, drunk and lascivious.
Letters were Anton's lifeline, but they soon became disagreeable. After she had been informed of her brother's marriage Masha, feeling deceived and jealous, turned on Olga: You managed to trap my brother! Suppose you're like Natasha in Three Sistersl I'll strangle you with my own hands. I shan't bite your throat, just strangle you. You know I love you and must have got strongly attached to you in the last two years. How odd mat you're a Chekhov.3 The whole family was in turmoil. Vania went to Petersburg to tell Misha of the marriage, and Misha closed ranks with Masha against the intruder. By 8 June Vania was in Yalta, trying to reconcile Masha and Evgenia to what had happened. On 6 June Masha wrote bitterly to Bunin: Dear Ivan, My mood is suicidal, I sense the pointlessness of my existence. The reason is my brother's marriage… why did Olga need all this disturbance for a sick man… I'm afraid my relations with Knipschitz will change… dear Bouquichon, find me a rich generous groom.4 It took Olga a week to seek a reconciliation: she invited Masha to join their honeymoon. Masha dithered, then declined. She doubted if she and Olga could live together even in Moscow, as they planned: she would sell her flat and live with a family. 'Anton keeps writing everything will stay the same,' Masha wrote to Bunin, 'like hell it will, I want the reality, not a pretence.' Masha feared, as did Dr Altshuller, that Olga would lure Anton to live in Moscow and wreck his health. Evgenia, Masha told Misha, 'dislikes Antosha's spouse and Olga knows that.' On 20 June Olga wrote to Evgenia: 'I thought I'd explain everything… when we met… I know how you love Anton, so we've tried to make everything good and friendly at home [the Moscow fiat], so that Anton will feel good among his womenfolk.'5 Others were disturbed by
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Anton's marriage. Maria Drozdova wrote from Yalta to tell him of her feelings at the news: I was painting at die time and all my brushes and palette flew to hell. Right to the last minute I didn't lose hope of marrying you myself. I thought the others were just jokes, while God would give me happiness for my modesty. How I hate Olga, my jealousy is frantic, I can't bear to see you, I hate her and you too, always and for ever.6 Suvorin, hurt not to have been even informed of the marriage, wrote to Misha: Anton has astounded me. Where is he now? I mean, what is his address? His getting married was the last thing I thought would happen after last November when I met him… It's fine if he knows what he needs. But suppose he doesn't! It's a lottery.7 Others' congratulations were lukewarm: Professor Korotniov talked of the Rubicon; Sobolevsky of 'the other shore so rarely attainable to people like me and you'. Bunin expressed polite amazement.
Anton could not bear to remain at Aksionovo for the two months prescribed. After one month he was determined to leave. Worry about what was happening at Yalta and irritation with his tedious fellow patients drove him away. In vain Dr Varavka promised health and offered improvements; on i July 1901 Anton signed oa towel that Dr Varavka kept for distinguished patients, to have the signatures embroidered later, and abandoned Aksionovo. He was in such a hurry that he left his passport behind. On 6 July the Chekhovs arrived back in Yalta. 'I'm now asking for a divorce,' Anton wrote to Bunin, inviting him to join them at Autka.
Masha felt depressed by the new status quo. She complained to Misha: I am a nothing. I'm neither an artist nor a teacher, but I think I am working hard to build someone else's nest… My relations with my sister-in-law are still pretty bad… Mother has turned out better, she is being handled well and has calmed down. My mood is nasty, I can't adapt to this new life at all, I pine, I cry a lot and I have to hide it all, and I don't always succeed… In Moscow there is a lot of gossip about me, everybody is sorry for me and there are rumours
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that I've run away… Anton is poorly, die koumiss didn't do him much good.' Anton coughed, bled and fretted. Dr Varavka asked him to send a portrait of himself for the chalet where he had stayed. A student doctor at Aksionovo promised good cuisine, fountains, running water, a conservatory and fresh vegetables for next year,9 but Anton had finished with koumiss. On 3 August 1901, he drew up a will and had it witnessed. Addressed to Masha, it was entrusted to Olga: I leave you for your lifespan my Yalta house, the money and the income from my plays; my wife is to have the cottage in Gurzuf and 5000 roubles. You can sell the real estate if you wish. A few thousand roubles went to his brothers, the residue to Taganrog's schools. The will ended: 'Help the poor. Look after mother. All of you live in peace.'
Anton's inspiration had run dry; now his only income came from the theatres. His plight worried Gorky and his editor Piatnitsky, who asked to see Adolf Marx's contract. By suing or shaming Marx they thought tbey might be able to break the contract that offered Anton next to nothing for a life's work, but made Marx a fortune. Anton, horrified at the thought of reneging on his agreement, demurred, but sent copies of the contract for Gorky's lawyers. Gorky boasted: How I'd love to tear Sergeenko's famous block off for dragging you into this mess. And I'd bash Marx on his bald patch too… We'll pawn our wives and children, but we'll tear Chekhov out of Marx's thrall.10 Anton read the proofs for Marx's final volumes: revising later work was easier than the earlier work in which he found so many imperfections. He busied himself with the problems of others. His cousin Aleksei Dolzhenko asked for 800 roubles to build a cottage: Anton arranged for Olga to hand the money over in Moscow, warning her twice to be polite and gentle to her poor relation. In Taganrog Gavriil Selivanov, after twenty years' silence, was again causing trouble: he threatened to pull down Uncle Mitrofan's sheds unless the Chekhovs ceded terrain. Georgi sought Anton's advice. Olga Vasilieva still wanted help to convert her wealth into a clinic. A Jewish boy needed a letter of support to get into school at Yalta.
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Olga felt unwanted. On 20 August 1901, after just six weeks, she left Autka, alone, for Moscow and the theatre. Evgenia refused to bless her as she stepped into the carriage. Anton sailed with her to the railhead.
