here is hard to explain, and better left entirely unexplained. But I can neither leave nor pay certain bills… throw off your rural laziness and go to Moscow, take these resources, go to the Credit Lyonnais (or better Junker's) and make a telegraphic transfer in my name to 60 rue des Mathurins, Paris, Potapenko… save me, or else I shall be thinking about suicide. The next day Potapenko took his leave of Lika. They never met again. On receiving Potapenko's letter Anton broke his month's retreat. Over frozen ruts he made his way to Lopasnia and Moscow with Aleksandr and Masha. (Aleksandr was being repatriated to Petersburg and Natalia.) Anton sent no money until he returned to Melikhovo four days later and asked Goltsev at Russian Thought 'in absolute secrecy' to borrow 200 roubles and either send them 'to the prodigal son', or - which would break the secrecy - ask Suvorin to do so. Potapenko would ask Anton for another 200 roubles in March, but their friendship was suspended. He and Lika were both frozen out of Anton's charmed circle. Lidia Iavorskaia now tried to fire Anton's senses.
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0 Charudatta! December 1894-Februaiy 1895 'I FIND OBLIVION in the theatre,' Lidia Iavorskaia wrote to Tania in December 1894.31 The two had brought bold ventures back from Paris and Antwerp and drew Anton into the whirlpool of their notoriety. Iavorskaia created two 'courtesan' roles. She was the laundress whose son becomes Napoleon's marshal in Sardou's 'relentlessly vulgar' Madame Sans-Gene, an apt title for Iavorskaia, and she was the courtesan Vasantasena in the Russian premiere of Poor Charudatta, a Sanskrit drama attributed to King Sudraka. A poor Brahman, Charudatta, helps Vasantasena escape a prince's wiles: Vasantasena is nearly strangled, Charudatta nearly beheaded, but all ends happily. In winter 1894-5, at tne sight of Anton, Iavorskaia, posing as the adoring Vasantasena, would sink to her knees, crying, 'O worthy Charudatta'. Anton acquiesced in the game.
The two women had other projects: Chekhov recommended a perfect vehicle for Iavorskaia, Zola's adulterous and lethal Therese Raquin. For Lidia, Tania had translated Edmond Rostand's parody of Romeo and Juliet, Les Romanesques. She showed the text to Anton at Meli-khovo; he made fun of Rostand's precious style in Tania's rendering. Anton was at ease in her company, though Tania quarrelled with Anton as often as with Iavorskaia. She accused Anton of prejudice against lesbians, then abjectly apologized. (Anton warned Suvorin that she was underhand.)
On 2 December snow fell; visitors raced from the station on sledges. Tania came for a fortnight and charmed all Melikhovo. Anton drove the dachshunds to a frenzy with Tania's sable. When Pavel left for Moscow, he let Tania write up the diary: she parodied it perfectly. Tania went to pray at the monastery with Evgenia; lost in the snow, she was led back by Prince Shakhovskoi's workman. Laughter rang out all day. On 6 December she was bonded with Anton, as no other
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woman. They became godfather and godmother of Prince Shakhovskoi's daughter Natalia: forever Anton was kum (fellow godparent, a significant relationship in Russia) to Tania and she was eeoa to him.
As Anton finished his brooding 'Three Years', Tania's presence cheered him. He wrote notes on the violet or pink paper that Lidia Iavorskaia had brought from Paris. On 18 December, two days after ' I ania left for Moscow, Anton followed her. Until Christmas Eve, his mother's name day, he settled into room No. 1 (handy for the W.C.) in the Great Moscow hotel, where he was the favourite of the staff, and worked.
'Three Years', the 'novel', for which Potapenko had negotiated terms with Adolf Marx, the proprietor of The Cornfield, came out in Russian Thought in January and February 1895. The story was, as Anton said to Shavrova and Suvorin, made not of 'silk', but of 'rough cambric'. 'Three Years' - after Sakhalin, his longest work since 'The Duel' - was disturbingly naturalist and autobiographical in its evocation of the haberdashery firm Laptev and Sons from which the hero breaks free. Laptev, rich and gauche, is not Anton, but his introversion and revulsion against his merchant heritage, his hovering between the 'blue stocking' Rassudina and the idle beauty Iulia, and his reaction to a Rubinstein concert and a Levitan painting make Laptev very Chekhovian. The feckless brother-in-law Panaurov reminds one of Potapenko. Olga Kundasova and Lika also infuse the story. 'Three Years' is a languid work: Laptev breaks his emotional and class ties slowly. The story seems the prelude to a long Bildungsroman. Critics ignored its poetry, while friends were shocked at the exploitation of Olga Kundasova's love for Chekhov. Worse autobiographical frankness was to come.
In The Russian Gazette Chekhov published uplifting Christmas reading, 'The Senior Gardener's Story'. Anton had discussed the death penalty in Sakhalin and talked about it when he stayed in the Crimea. In this story the gardener tells of a judge who cannot sentence the murderer of the town's doctor, for his faith in humanity makes such a murder unbelievable. The censor cut Chekhov's moral: Believing in God is easy. Inquisitors, Biron and Arakcheev [the Russian empire's cruellest ministers} believed in Him. No, you believe in man! That faith is possible only for the few who understand and feel Christ.
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1.1EE D1IPARUE Christmas was too crowded for comfort at Melikhovo: Dr Kurkin slept in Anton's bedroom, Vania in his study. Anton skulked in Masha's room. After Christmas Anton went to a Yuletide party in the 'violent' ward of the Meshcherskoe hospital and brought Olga Kundasova back with him to Melikhovo. The following night Pavel groaned all night and in the morning announced that he had just seen Beelzebub. New Year's eve was muted. Pavel's diary reads: 'Masha returned from Sumy. There were no visitors. We didn't see in the New Year, we went to bed at 10 after supper. Masha got the lucky penny.'
On the first day of 1895, as the peasants wished the family a happy New Year and received the traditional gallon of vodka, Anton considered his health. He told his cousin Georgi that his cough was so bad he might spend twelve months in Taganrog: could he buy the seaside mansion belonging to Ippolit Tchaikovsky? The next day Anton received a summons: By their majesties' command, issued in Moscow 1 January 1895, Literary General and Knight of the Orders of the Sacred Names of Tatiana and Lidia the First and Private of our Personal Escorts Anton Chekhov son of Pavel is allowed until 3 February to rest in all cities of the Empire and Abroad, as long as he sends two deputies and appears at the set time indicated to carry out double duties.32 On 2 January, while the Chekhovs slept, one of their majesties came. Tania recalled: On my way to Melikhovo I dropped in on Levitan who had promised to show me some sketches… The Levitan that met me in his velvet blouse looked like a Velasquez portrait; I was laden with shopping as always when I travelled to Melikhovo. When Levitan realized where I was going he began, as was his habit, uttering lengthy sighs, saying how unhappy he was about their stupid quarrel and how much he wanted to go mere as he had used to. 'What's stopping you?' I said. After a slight pause, when they arrived, Anton shook Levitan's hand. They talked as if three years' silence had never intervened. The next morning, while Anton slept, Roman drove Levitan to the station. Anton found only a note at breakfast: Tm sorry I shan't see you today. Will you drop in to see me? I am ineffably happy to be here at the
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Chekhovs' again. I have come back to what was precious and really has never stopped being precious.' Tania and lavorskaia could now see two ardent courtiers together. On 4 January Anton went to the Great Moscow hotel for over two weeks. Evgenia came too: she was off to Petersburg, to see Natalia for the first time since Kolia's death. The longing to see her first legitimate grandchild had overcome her distaste for her daughter-in-law.
Anton told Suvorin that he was in Moscow: he would not say why he had neither written nor come. He asked on Tania's and Iavorskaia's behalf if Renan's UAbbesse de Jouarre or Ibsen's Little Eyolf could pass the censor. In another letter to Suvorin he asserted that lavorskaia was 'a very nice woman'. He celebrated Tatiana's day and his name day. He watched Lidia act Madame Sans-Gene at Korsh's theatre. Vasantasena gave Charudatta a rug and more: Come immediately, Antosha! We thirst to see you and adore you. That is me writing for lavorskaia, I just love you. Yours Tania. I am awfully sad parting with you, as if the best part of my heart is being torn out… wrap yourself up in this Tartan rug, it will warm you like my hot kisses… Don't forget the woman who loves only you. Your Vasantasena… I'm lonely without you… I'm in despair. Come, darling. And there's no salad. Order some. I kiss you hard, Lidia. Anton loved the luxury around lavorskaia. He wrote to Suvorin that he needed to earn 20,000 roubles a year 'since I now can't sleep with a woman unless she wears a silk petticoat.' In December 1894 Lika offered a more austere affection from Paris: I think I'd give half my life to find myself in Melikhovo, to sit on your divan, talk to you for 10 minutes, have supper and just pretend that this whole year had not happened… I am singing, learning English, getting old and thin! From January I shall study massage too, so as to have some chance of a future… Soon
