whom Masha brought into Anton's life. Masha was hostess, secretary, e'prouveuse and protector of Anton's private life, and began to share with him the power in the family.
Anton's older brothers were marginalized. Kolia's dissipation, and his tuberculosis, were undermining his reputation as an artist. He now took morphine, initially for the pains in his chest, as well as consuming copious amounts of alcohol. For some time the family tried to ignore him. In Taganrog Aleksandr was half-forgotten, despite regular letters which showed that he too was unhappy. Aleksandr and Anna were hopelessly inept housekeepers and Aleksandr did not present the Customs Office with the graduation certificate necessary to receive a full salary. The salary he did receive did not pay for even food and fuel. At first, the couple were lulled by Uncle Mitrofan and Aunt Liudmila's friendliness. Anna joined a confederacy of women and Aunt Liudmila confided her intimate secrets. Aleksandr tantalized Anton: Auntie even told my better half a few things about the general bliss that uncle provides her with. Naturally, I too know these details but I shall conceal them from you, for in fact they are quite unlike the slow motion which you, Antosha, make when you fold your fingers in a certain way. Anna was clearly pregnant; the couple equivocated about christening the child. Mitrofan and Liudmila were embarrassed. In October 1882 Aleksandr, living on Kontorskaia, the street where he lived when he was a boy, begged Vania to come and stay: 'Write to me, don't let our links die. Anna is pregnant and invites you to the christening… I shall hand my offspring over to your school for you to teach, with the right to beat no more than five times a day.'19 Aleksandr attempted to lure Kolia to Taganrog in the most effective way he knew: 'Liubov Kamburova was there. She is still in love with you. For God's sake
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come and copulate with her, for she is desperately seeking what in Latin is called inter pedes…figura longa et obscura. You are besought, come.'20
To Anton, as a budding gynaecologist, Aleksandr turned for sexual advice: Anna's pregnancy left him frustrated. Anton replied to Aleksandr (with a gift of money) and told him that 'medicine, while forbidding coitus, does not forbid massage.' The quality of Anton's mercy was a little strained: he was more preoccupied with medical studies by day and writing, to Pavel's fury at the paraffin consumed, by night. He asked Aleksandr and Anna to send material for stories - descriptions of spiritualist seances in Tula, schoolboy rhymes from Taganrog, photographs. Only Pavel, horrified by Anna's pregnancy, was utterly unbending. At first Aleksandr just remonstrated: 'Dear Papa… I am saddened only that you won't send your regards to Anna, knowing full well that if we are not married, it is not my fault.' On the eve of New Year 1883 Aleksandr tried emotional blackmail on his parent: you have mercilessly poisoned the rest of the holidays for me - there is no doubt about that. All December I've been poorly, I'd begun to recover in the holidays. Your reproach upset, offended, insulted and alarmed me… Today I am confirmed in Petersburg as Head of the Imports Desk and Customs Translator. My sufferings are over… What a pity your reproach came just when for the first time I breathed freely. In mid February 1883 Anna gave birth to a daughter. Pavel would not acknowledge his first grandchild or speak to her mother. None of her uncles, even Anton, expressed any joy at the birth of Mosia, as her parents called her. Aleksandr complained that Mitrofan and Liud-mila would not be godparents to the baby. Mitrofan could not face neighbours' questions if a priest came to the house. Liudmila told Father Pokrovsky that Aleksandr and Anna had married in St Petersburg. Aleksandr accepted Mitrofan's conditions: the child must go to church daily and observe all fasts. Liudmila then declared that Pavel would not let them condone sin. Aleksandr wept.
Anton sent his brother at the end of February 1883 a harsh ten-page tirade: What do you expect of father? He is against tobacco smoking and illicit cohabitation - and you want to be friends with him? You
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might manage it with mother or aunt [Fenkhka], but not with father. He's the same flint as the dissenters, no worse, and you won't budge him… You carry your cohabitation like a stolen watermelon… You want to know what I think, what Kolia, or our father thinks?! What business is it of yours? Anton detected and disliked in both Aleksandr and in Kolia a disparity between high-minded pretensions and sordid actions. Kolia was taking on prestigious commissions - to paint the sets at Lentovsky's theatre in the Ermitage, to illustrate Dostoevsky - and doing nothing except to complain that he was misunderstood. Within a year, Anton predicted, Kolia would be finished. Both brothers, in his view, were destroyed by self-pity. He alone felt in the ascendant and triumphantly told Aleksandr on 3 February 1883: I'm becoming popular and have now read a critique of myself. My medicine is going crescendo. I know how to treat and I can't believe it. You won't find, old boy, a single disease I wouldn't undertake to treat. Exams are soon. If I get into the 5th class, then finita la commedia. The family appeared to be dissolving. Aleksandr was stuck in Taganrog. Kolia moved out to live in a sordid tenement, Eastern Furnished Rooms. Vania stayed all year in Voskresensk. Masha spent all the time she could at her courses or at girlfriends' houses. Only Misha stayed home, studying for matriculation. Anton felt untrammelled, apart from the times when Pavel spent the night on Golovin lane. Then Anton sheltered at night with the artists, Levitan and Kolia, or with Natasha Golden, to study or write, where Pavel did not moan about the cost of candles. The insolvent bankrupt lectured his sons on finance. A pencilled folio runs: Kolia and Antosha, You have left things to the last day and I told you several times that 10 roubles had to be ready to pay the rent, you know that it can't be put off and I like Punctuality. You have put me in an awkward position. To blush when the landlord comes is not right for a man of my age, I am a Person with a positive Character.21
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The Death ofMosia
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ALEKSANDR AND KOLIA sank into maudlin drunkenness while Anton worked frenetically. In March 1883 he was writing a weekly story for Fragments and for The Spectator. At the same time Anton had a series of examinations to sit: he had a '4' (good) from Sklifosovsky for operative surgery; his gynecology was outstanding O5').22 As Tsar Alexander III was to be crowned in Moscow, a few examinations were postponed until September.
Anton could relax and turn his attention to the arts and to his family. His impatience with the feckless had not abated: he saw in actors the same weakness and lack of professionalism that he deplored in his brothers. The contemporary theatre seemed just Aleksandr and Kolia writ large, and had to be fought with, he told the dramatist Kanaev: 'our actors have everything except good breeding, culture or, if I may say so, gentility… I expressed my fears for the future of the modern theatre. The theatre is not a beer garden and not a Tatar restaurant.'
Anton forced a little gentility on his father, and, not altogether disinterestedly, Pavel acknowledged Aleksandr's family: Dear son Aleksandr! You must give Masha a briefcase for Easter, she cannot do without. I have no means to order one. Kindly send in good time what you promised. We are well, Mama has toothache. We have no letters from you. Regards to Anna, a kiss for Mosia, a blessing for you. Your loving father, P. Chekhov.23 Masha never got her briefcase, but Aleksandr received a little paternal affection. Pavel, after a few drinks, even boasted of Aleksandr's uniform in the Customs Service. Home life prospered on 60 roubles a month from Fragments: the Chekhovs kept a piano and a servant. Kolia was paid by Utkina, owner of The Alarm Clock, in kind: of Kolia's
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earnings the Chekhovs kept a desk, a candelabra and a wall clock all their lives.
Anton also helped Aleksandr at Easter 1883. He persuaded Leikin to print Aleksandr's stories; at first Leikin did not know that the author whom Anton was recommending was Aleksandr: 'Who is Agathopod Edinitsyn ('Unit')?' 1300 miles from St Petersburg, Aleksandr needed his brother's help to be a writer again. It was rumoured that civil servants were to be banned from the popular press and, as some of Aleksandr's stories were set in the Customs Service, he needed cover. Anton pointed out the miseries of journalism, mixing with rogues, earning a pittance to be devoured by dependants. Aleksandr ignored the warnings, and felt happier. He had his wife and daughter; he sent for his dog and for Nadia, Anna's daughter by her first husband, Sokolnikov; he even contemplated bringing out Aunt Fenichka to run his household. He wrote to Vania (23 April 1883): 'My little daughter is growing… and giving me much joy… I strongly resemble my Vater, Anna is becoming so attached to me that she has become inseparable and I am quite content with my fate.'
Now Anton became friendlier and broached his preoccupations with women and with sex in a long letter to Aleksandr in April 1883: Anton invited his brother to participate in a doctoral thesis he would write after qualifying - a History of Sexual Authority, modelled on Darwin's Origin of Species. Surveying the world from insects to human
