Anton and Vishnevsky upstairs, all 'sleeping like bishops'. Dr Strauch checked on his patient. The neighbours, the Smirnovs, were considerate. Their two teenage daughters courted Anton. So did their eccentric English governess, Lily Glassby, who spoke pigeon Russian. Olga was too taken aback to interfere as Lily fed Anton ice cream, addressed him in the intimate form, and wrote him affectionate notes: 'Christ be with you, brother Antony, I love you.'42
Anton wrote almost no letters, and did no work on the play which the theatre was waiting for: he was absorbing material. Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky invested their hope for the following season in Gorky's Lower Depths. Anton read the proofs and told Gorky he had 'almost hopped with pleasure' at the play. Confident that Gorky would fill the Moscow Arts Theatre for the autumn, he could take his time germinating his new comedy. Liubimovka's household and suburban trains imbue the setting for The Cherry Orchard. Anton encouraged Egor's ambition to be literate and independent, offering him Vania's services as a teacher. Egor's clumsiness and precious language were absorbed into the character of Epikhodov, while Lily Glassby's pathos infuses Charlotta. Duniasha gave her name to the fictional servant.
The river fish, mushrooms and fresh milk of Liubimovka delighted Anton. He told Masha that it was paradise after Yalta: he longed to own a dacha near Moscow. By August Olga was out of danger. Strauch said she could start rehearsals in two weeks. Even in paradise, however, Anton was restless. He had hidden two haemorrhages from Olga,
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wanted to escape scrutiny and decided to visit Yalta alone. The theatre and Dr Strauch, he knew, would forbid Olga to risk a rough railway ride. She felt deserted, though the Stanislavskys returned home just as Anton left, and Anton implied that he would soon be back. Although she put a brave face on Anton's departure from Liubimovka, Olga was very angry.
Left in Yalta to cope alone with a drought-stricken garden, Masha had not had a happy summer. Her letters to Olga also hint at an unhappy love affair with Bunin. Bunin, between leaving his first wife and finding his second, had a succession of affairs, abroad and in Russia. Masha wrote to him: 'Dear Bouquichon, I was very sad when you left… Of course it'd be nice to be one woman in ten, but nicer still to be the only one, to combine the Yakut girl, the Temir girl, the Sinhalese girl, etc…'43 Anton's arrival would have raised Masha's spirits, had it not coincided with a letter from Olga so hurtful that Masha destroyed it - too late, for Anton had casually read it. Olga sensed a plot: she accused Masha and Evgenia of luring Anton from her when they knew she was confined to bed. Masha replied in distress: For the first time in our lives mother and I have been called cruel for, as you put it, expecting Anton all the time. Even though we took such loving care of you when you were ill in Yalta and in Moscow!! What are we to do - I can't rub myself off the face of the earth. I'll tell you frankly that it is quite enough for me just to hear about my brother that he is happy and healthy and occasionally to see him.44 Olga could not bear brother and sister to be in concert. She told Masha: Why entangle Anton in our relationship?… I was hurt because your stubborn waiting seemed to imply that you didn't want Anton to be in the Moscow dust fussing around me, his sick wife… If you'd trusted me as you used to and tried to understand me just a bit, you'd never have shown that letter to Anton… You're chasing me out of your heart as hard as you can… This letter at least you won't show him, I beg you.4' To Anton she wrote on 28 August 1902: Why didn't you tell me straight out that you were going for good?… How it hurts me that you treat me like a stranger or a doll that
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mustn't be disturbed. You air going to bate my letters. But I cannot be silent. You and I have to face a long separation. I'd have understood if you'd spent September in Liubimovka. Our life just doesn't make sense any more. If only I knew you needed me, and not just as an enjoyable woman… How horrible, Anton, if everything I write should arouse no more than a smile, or perhaps you show this letter to Masha as she did [mine to you].*6 Olga attacked Anton for misleading her into expecting him back at Liubimovka. Anton's replies are a disconcerting mix of resentment, fair-mindedness and manipulation. I can't think why you're angry with me, I wouldn't have left but for business and haemhorrhages… I won't write a play this year, I don't feel like it… Masha did not show me your letter, I found it on mother's desk and realized why Masha was upset. It was a horrible rude letter, and above all, unfair… naturally I understood your mood. But you must not, must not do that, darling, you must fear unfairness… Don't tell Masha I have read your letter to her. Or, anyway, do as you like. Your letters chill me… Don't let's separate so early before we've had a proper life, before you give birth to a boy or girl for me. And when you do, then you can act as you wish. Only in September 1902 did Olga, Anton and Masha declare a truce. Anton forced himself to make extravagant protestations of affection to Olga: I take my litde dog by the tail, swing her round several times and then stroke and caress her… I do a salto mortale on your bed, stand on my head, grab you, turn over several times and throw you to the ceiling before catching you and kissing you. The Stanislavskys had returned, cursing Europe. Liubimovka came to life. They took Olga on expeditions to buy honey, to fish and to explore Moscow's dosshouses before starting work on Gorky's Lower Depths.
Moscow injected Olga with new spirit. Franz Schechtel's Art Nou-veau conversion gave the Moscow Arts Theatre a permanent home: a large theatre with fine dressing rooms and electricity. Olga could go to the baths. She enjoyed an uninhibited evening with her mother and uncles - 'Boheme in full swing… I love the spirit of our house… we all sincerely love each other.' After a vigil by his sister's deathbed,
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Nemirovich-Danchenko was back: Olga talked to him at length. She was, on Dr Strauch's advice, looking for a new apartment. She felt secure by September and wrote, in her sole response to Anton's chilling offer of her freedom: 'I shall present you with a good son for next year. You write that if we have a child I can do as I like.' Olga tried to put her conflicts with Masha in a good light: 'I am not a beast, and Masha is not an underdog. She is stronger than me. I just seem stronger because I talk loudly and boil over.' A long chat with Masha, Anton thought, got rid of festering 'little splinters', but relations between Anton and Olga were cool. Anton forgot her thirty-fourth birthday on 9 September, though he had asked for the date months before. She nagged him to answer his translators' queries. Olga's and Anton's letters exchange medical details: her enemas and his creosote.
In Yalta Anton's health was so bad that he forbade Altshuller to examine him. On 4 September Masha left Yalta to join her sister-in-law and resume teaching in Moscow. Coughing uncontrollably and unable to eat what the new cook, Polia, prepared, Anton was buoyed up only when the actor-manager Orlenev, a likeable rogue, engineered a visit from Suvorin. The day Masha left, Suvorin and Orlenev came to lunch and stayed. Suvorin's diary is terse: 'I spent two days there, almost all the time with Chekhov, in his house.' Of this encounter Anton revealed only that Suvorin 'talked about all sorts of things, and much that was new and interesting.'
Anton's interest in the outside world revived. He belatedly resigned from the Academy over Gorky's disqualification.47 He took up his share in the theatre. He lamented Zola's mysterious death from carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly murder. He wanted to travel. Inspired by Suvorin, cautioned by Altshuller, he decided to visit Moscow when the first frosts dried the air, then winter in Italy. Anton warned Olga that Altshuller had allowed him only a few days in Moscow on his way abroad - which augured badly for begetting a child. Masha assured him that Olga was 'quite healthy and very cheerful, she can climb to the third floor.' Dr Strauch came to the Crimea and called, formally dressed, on Anton. He pronounced Olga cured. Anton asked her: Has Strauch said you can have children? Now, or later? Oh my darling, time is passing! When our baby is 18 months old I shall probably be bald, grey and toothless.
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Anton wrote more intimately: 'The longer I lived with you, the deeper and broader my love would be.' He asked her where Nemirovich-Danchenko's wife was, and Olga dismayed him by telling him that she, Olga, not 'Kitten', was nursing Nemirovich-Danchenko, who was prostrate with an ear abscess.
Anton totally rewrote his farcical monologue On the Harm of Tobacco and sent it to Adolf Marx. Anton told Stanislavsky that this was all he had the energy for. Evgenia and Polia, the kitchen maid, set off for Moscow ahead of him. From Sevastopol Evgenia took the fourth-class freight and passenger train; she felt trapped in an express, and preferred trains that lingered at every town on the route. Evgenia stayed in Moscow for four days, then set off for Petersburg, travelling third-class in order to sit with Polia (servants were banned from first-class compartments). At long last she would see her four Petersburg grandchildren.
