War broke out between the two camps, Suvorin's and Lavrov's, in which Chekhov had pitched his tents. Russian Thought accused the Suvorins of profiting from the Panama Canal scandal.29 On i March Anton went to Moscow, with Lika, and calmly drank five glasses of vodka with Lavrov at Russian Thought. On the 5th, two days later, the Dauphin came to Russian Thought, struck Lavrov, and took the night train back to Petersburg. Suvorin was as upset by the distress that 'Liolia', his darling Dauphin, had undergone as by public hostility to all Suvorins. Two weeks later Suvorin, Grigorovich and their wives set off for Vienna. Suvorin spent most of 1893 abroad.
Anton was not only deprived of a friend, but his most important relationship was damaged. Few of his letters reached Suvorin that spring and summer: the Dauphin and his brother were intercepting their father's mail. New Times turned vicious as the Dauphin took over. Aleksandr trembled for his job: the Dauphin would not speak to him or print him. The office of New Times felt that Anton's involvement in Russian Thought was black ingratitude to Suvorin, his maker. The Dauphin claimed that Anton had written abuse to his father. Hearing of the assault on Lavrov, Chekhov told Masha on 11 March: So between me and Suvorin [junior] everything is now finished, even mough he is writing me snivelling letters. A son of a bitch who swears at people every day and is famous for it, struck a man for swearing at him. Anton told Aleksandr that the breach was only partially mended: The old building has cracked and must collapse. I'm sorry for the old man, he wrote me a penitent letter; probably, I shan't have to break with him permanently; but as for the office and the Dauphin's clique, there seems little chance of any sort of relations with them. New Times had lost Chekhov as a writer. It was to lose all its respectable contributors, and its verve degenerated into chauvinism. Even its editors resigned, went mad, or wrote anonymous denunciations. As Suvo290
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1 m senior failed to hold back the anti-Semitic barbarities of New I Hues, the breach affected the two men personally. Anton dropped lhe idea of going to the Chicago Exhibition because the Dauphin intended to come.30
«)lga Kundasova, crossing Russia from Novocherkassk, where she researched into mathematics, to Moscow and Petersburg, where she disseminated her findings, felt more for Suvorin. On 10 March she appealed to Anton: Anton, Suvorin was about to go to Feodosia today, but has put it off. I have, by the way, given him a[nother] letter addressed to you and written that he must not be left alone in his present nervous state. I even suggested that you should accompany Aleksei to Feodosia. Be a good friend, do that and distract him if only a little bit… He wants to call you out to Lopasnia station. So be ready. I ask just one thing: not a word to him about the letter which you will have from his hands. Tear it up. Anton replied to Kundasova so strongly about his own shattered nerves that she did not dare show the letter to Suvorin. Soon, however, Suvorin was in Vienna listening to Grigorovich's tales of sexual exploits. In late March he was ill in Venice, nursed by the Grigoro viches. In mid April the Grigoroviches and Anna Suvorina tinned back. Suvorin bought himself 1650 francs worth of furniture and began I lonely peregrination to Biarritz and Paris.
Unlike Anton, his younger brothers had decided to marry. Alter November 1892 Vania's fiancee, Aleksandra Liosova, had stopped coming to Melikhovo, but by Easter 1893 Vania was betrothed to Sofia Andreeva, a teacher at the Basmannaia school - 'a long-nosed gentlewoman from Kostroma', Anton sneered. (Liosova later told Anton 'Ivan asked me not to meet him again, for his hatred for me is too great.') Countess Mamuna continued to visit Melikhovo, where Misha, to Anton's irritation, lived throughout 1893, employed at a tax office in nearby Serpukhov. Less was said of Misha's engagement to Mamuna, although he visited Moscow to see what the family jokingly called 'the government offices - brunette in a red jacket'. On 26 April Anton, however, told Suvorin: At Easter the countess writes she is off to see her aunt in Kostroma. There have been no more letters until recently. Misha yearns, hears
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she is in Moscow, goes to see her and, I wonders, sees people hanging about the windows and die gates. What is it? It turns out diere is a marriage in the house, die countess is marrying some goldminer. How's that? Misha comes back in despair and thrusts under my nose the countess's tender letters, full of love, asking me to solve this psychological problem. Anton had discovered Kipling's substitute for women, and told his architect friend Franz Schechtel in March 1893: Dear Franz, can you imagine, I smoke cigars… I find they taste far better, they're healthier and cleaner, although, more expensive. You're an expert in cigars, I'm still an ignoramus and dilettante. Please instruct me: what cigars should I smoke and where in Moscow can I buy diem? I now smoke Petersburg Ten-Kate, called El Armado, Londres, made there from imported Havana tobacco, strong; you can judge their length by… [Schechtel blacked out a phallus] Schechtel, who was now a rich and fashionable man, sent back a hundred Havana cigars from Riga. In gratitude Anton called on Schechtel on 1 May 1893 and left him a banded cigar with instructions: 'It must be smoked not just standing and with hat doffed, but also 'God Save the Tsar' must be played and gendarmes must prance around you.' The best cigar in the world, however, provides only an hour of bliss. Leikin had promised Anton his heart's desire. The arrangements kept on falling through, but finally, on 5 April, as Lei-kin's diary shows, Anton's desires were met: Khudekov's servants are taking the Khudekov birds from the Bird Show to the country, to Riazan province, and will at the same dme deliver, it's not out of their way, two dachshunds to Chekhov in Moscow.
FORTY
+ Dachshund Summer April-August 1893 ON THURSDAY 15 APRIL Masha brought to Mehkhovo 5 lb of lard, lolb of pork breast, 10 lb of candles, and two dachshunds. She named the blackish dog Brom {bromine) and the tan bitch Quinine (Anton christened them Brom Isaevich and Khina Markovna.) They were frozen on the cart journey, after a week in Vania's house, where they had been banished to the privy. Anton thanked Leikin: The dachshunds have been running through all the rooms, being affectionate, barking at the servants. They were fed and then they began to feel utterly at home. At night they dug the earth and newly-sown seed from the window boxes and distributed the galoshes from the lobby round all the rooms and in the morning, when I took them for a walk round the garden they horrified the farm dogs who have never seen such monstrosities. The bitch is nicer than the dog… But both have kind, grateful eyes. The dachshunds spent the day chasing hens and geese out of the garden. Anton told Leikin 4 August 1893: Brom is nimble and supple, polite and sensitive, Quinine is awkward, fat, idle and cunning. Brom likes birds, Quinine digs her nose into the ground. They both love to cry from excess of emotion. They know why they are punished. Brom often vomits. He is in love with a farm bitch. Quinine, however, is still an innocent maiden. They love going for walks across the fields and in the woods, but only with us. I have to smack diem almost every day: they grab patients by me trousers, diey quarrel when mey eat, and so on. They sleep in my room. Misha was amazed by Anton's affection: Every evening Quinine would come up to Anton, put her front paws on his knees and look into his eyes pathetically and devotedly. I Ie '93
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would change his expression and say in a broken old man's voice: 'Quinine! You poor old thing! You ought to go to hospital, you'd feel better there.' He spent a whole thirty minutes talking to the dog and made everyone in the house helpless with laughter. Then came Brom's turn. He too would put his front paws on Anton's knee and the fun would start again. In late April the starving cows and sheep left the sheds to graze with the communal flocks. Ploughing and sowing started. The Chekhov family was up from dawn to dusk. Warm weather brought patients with sores, wounds and mental illness. Epidemics of scarlet fever and measles raged; it was also a critical time for tuberculosis victims. Anton barely mentioned his own cough, but wrote about his patients. The Tolokonnikovs, peasants turned mill-owners, disgusted him: after a vigorously celebrated marriage Chekhov was summoned urgently for the couple's inflamed genitals; another old man demanded treatment for his aching balls after marrying a young bride.
Once again the authorities feared cholera, and Anton was asked not to leave the district for more than a few days. This time the council paid for an assistant, a feldsheritsa (paramedic) called Maria Arkadak-skaia. Her notes alarmed Anton. On n July she wrote 'send me cocaine, my teeth are killing me'. By August, when cholera was only twelve miles away, Maria was so addicted to morphine that Chekhov could not leave her in charge for a day. In early August he put her in Iakovenko's asylum at Meshcherskoe - Iakovenko took only Anton's more interesting cases - and coped alone. Anton needed morphine too, he told Franz Schechtel on 19 April 1893: 'I have haemorrhoids, awful, like grapes, growing in bunches from my behind… from the part of me which my father used to thrash.' He steeled himself for an operation in Moscow but became too ill to travel: I have two dozen or so diseases, with haemorrhoids the main one. Haemorrhoids make the whole body very irritated. These ailments affect one's psyche in the most undesirable way: I am irritated, I turn nasty etc. I am treating it by celibacy and
