down like a hare' for her 'parody of a countess' in Giacosa's La dame de Challant. Anton no longer wished to share Iavorskaia with Korsh and Tania, while she could not understand why he was so unresponsive. Feverish with flu and desire, she pleaded in bad free verse: I Charudatta, worthy of envy!… You don't know how the lively Vasantasena Your southern flower, 'little sun', Suffers here in the theatre galleries Which take 4 roubles a day off her And a hotel room so unlike Alas mat room in me Great Moscow hotel In which you and she Tasted true bliss. My darling… I am in no state at all to write to you in prose about our feelings, so send Tania to me… At Easter Iavorskaia would make her Petersburg debut. She reverted to the formal vy and pleaded the state of the roads as her reason for not coming to Melikhovo. She still begged Anton to come and join her in her Petersburg hotel. By 5 April 1895 Anton had not responded; Iavorskaia cajoled him from Petersburg: Put in a word to defend the unhappy one, Your beautiful Vasantasena, Or Suvorin and the reviewers In savage fury will destroy thy lotus And tear to pieces thy Vasantasena And hurl her wondrous body for the hungry Muscovite
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FEBRUARY-MAY 1895 Reviewers to devour. I save me, Charudatta!! My darling, Happy Easter, I wish you every bliss, bodily and spiritual! I met Burenin, a venomous man in a mask of amiability. We spoke about you. He asked me if I was in love with Anton Chekhov (you see, darling, it's obvious to everyone? Yes… yes… yes…)… I want to meet Suvorin only through you. Put in a word for me with him. Your word works on him just like the word of a much-loved woman (!) Anton did not respond or put in a word, but gossiped instead, telling Suvorin that Korsh was Iavorskaia's chief lover, but did not forbid her to have affairs. Suvorin saw Madame Sans-Gene and damned Iavorskaia with faint praise. (Both Suvorin's theatre and Chekhov's drama would take up arms against her histrionics.) Offering Iavorskaia up to Suvorin, Anton was angling for a protegee of Suvorin's, the Jewish Liudmila Ozerova, who had had a sensational debut in Hauptmann's mystical and sentimental Hannele's Ascension. In early May Chekhov asked Suvorin where Ozerova would spend the summer: 'Why not invite me to be her doctor?' Only two years later would Ozerova respond to Anton's hints.
None of the Chekhovs had put Lika out of their thoughts. Misha complained to Masha in January that he missed 'educated' girls: 'At least there used to be Lika, but now she is no more.'41 Anton wrote to her for the first time in three months and, apparently, the last for fifteen. He expected her soon and would come to talk; although he was aware of her baby, there was 'nothing to write about, since everything is as it was and there is nothing new'. He asked her to bring gloves and perfume for Masha. Lika now wrote not to Anton, but to Masha, to Granny and to her mother. For Granny she kept up the fiction that she was busy studying singing; she assured her mother 'you are my only and my best friend.' To Masha, in letters of 23 January and 2 February, Lika admitted she was thin - her waist was nineteen inches - she had a French admirer, but could neither sleep nor drink: her one consolation was that she would die soon. She was proud only of her baby, who, the wet nurse said, was the spitting image of Potapenko. She asked if Masha would marry Levitan, now that Kuvshinnikova had left him. She defended her lover: I have had one friend and I hope he will remain a friend for both of us - that is Ignati… I had the idiotic illusion mat I also had a
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friend in Anton, but this turned out to be a stupid fantasy… I regret nothing, I am glad that I have a little creature who is beginning to give me joy… I believe Ignati loves me more than anything in the world, but he is the most wretched man! He has no will power, no character and what's more he has the bad luck to possess a spouse who will stop at nothing. Masha was moved by Lika's sufferings, but she envied her the experience of love and childbirth.
In spring 1895 Lika made a flying visit to Russia, leaving Christina with the wet nurse in France. Granny Ioganson yearned for Lika: her diary for 8 and 14 May exults: Today is my dear dove Lidiushka's birthday. The Lord send her health, happiness and wellbeing for the 26th year of her life… I'm expecting Lidiusha! She has come, I'm godlessly glad to see her - now I shall die easier.42 On 12 May Lika went straight from Moscow to Melikhovo. Only after twenty-four hours, did she go to see Granny in Tver province. On 25 May Anton went to Moscow and stayed with Vania, who reported to his wife: 'Anton spends the night with me but vanishes the whole day on business.' Anton came back to Melikhovo on Sunday 28 May, bringing Lika. She stayed another twenty-four hours, then vanished until September, to the relief of Vania's wife who was jealous of the young bohemian women who frequented Melikhovo.43
That spring only males flocked to Melikhovo. Dunia Efros, Anton's fiancee nine years before, married to a lawyer, Efim Konovitser, was again one of Masha's intimates. They met in Moscow. A year passed before Dunia and her family were invited to Melikhovo. At Easter Tania, beloved by Pavel and Evgenia for attending communion, all- night vigils, and christenings of workmen's children, was the only female guest at Melikhovo. As family, she was sent lists of produce -cheese, salami and halva, wine and olive oil - to bring from Moscow.
The only man banned from Melikhovo was Potapenko. He was hurt that Anton, 'the object of my undying envy', now communicated with him only on scraps of yellow paper. Potapenko was, however, busy: he was writing 'an uncountable number of stories and novels' to pay for his two wives, and Lika, Christina and the wet nurse, quite apart from paying off his debts to Anton and Suvorin. On 10 March
FEBRUARY-MAY 1895
Leikin, Gruzinsky and Ezhov arrived. Leikin approved Anton's attempts to be, like him, farmer, gardener and dog-breeder. He and Chekhov grew to like each other better. Leikin recorded: From Lopasnia station to Melikhovo, where Chekhov's estate is, we drove through a terrible blizzard. You could hardly make out the road markers… We drove in two sledges. Me in front, Ezhov and Gruzinsky behind. A pair of horses was harnessed in single file to my sledge. The road was literally swept away… when we got to Chekhov's we were buried in snow, icicles in the beard and on our temples… Chekhov gave us a full welcome, even came out onto the porch with the servants. Two very young chamber maids, round as dumplings, girls with full-moon faces, grabbed our bags and rugs… Chekhov's house is fine, bright rooms, all repainted and re-papered, spacious, with a nook for every member of the family and comfort you won't find even in some Moscow apartments. It is pleasant to see that a fellow writer (I mean a gifted one) has finally escaped penury and become well off. Inside we were greeted by his mother and his brother Misha, the tax inspector, come from Uglich, where he works, to stay a few days. Two dachshunds got under our feet, and I nearly shouted 'Pip! Dinka!', they were so like my own. After dinner Chekhov took me around the farmyard and outbuildings. The latter are decrepit but he has new hewn-wood stables, cow-shed and stores. A bath house is being built. A two-room cottage for visitors has been built and furnished and there were three beds and bedding. A really charming cottage. This is where Ezhov and Gruzinsky spent the night, while I slept on the divan in Chekhov's study. Ezhov left the next morning, unimpressed. On 31 March he wrote to Leikin: I don't like Chekhov's estate: first of all it's in the middle of the peasant village; if there's a fire there the manor won't escape. Secondly, there's no water. The pond Anton showed us is fit only for piglets to bathe in.44 Chekhov did not think much of Gruzinsky and Ezhov. He told Suvorin that they were 'two young wet blankets who said not a word and spread raging boredom over the whole estate', although Leikin 'has coarsened, become kinder, more jovial - he must be going to die soon.' Leikin was so touched by his reception that he sent Chekhov's dachshunds a picture of their parents and Masha seeds of Siberian
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buckwheat, which became yet another weed at Melikhovo. The cycle of presents ended with Chekhov commissioning an artist to paint Leikin in oils for only 200 roubles. Overjoyed, Leikin sent seed of his prize beet and cucumbers.
When Gruzinsky and Ezhov were invited back to a green, warm Melikhovo in early June, Ezhov changed his mind: 'I liked it. The bathhouse we saw is finished and, thanks to Anton's kindness, is a resort for all the Melikhovo peasants.' Perhaps Ezhov felt more gracious because he was about to marry again, this time 'a girl of no means'.45 It took all summer, however, to lure Suvorin, used to greater comforts, to Melikhovo. When he came at the end of August he stayed just one night.
At Easter Ivanenko came. He annoyed Pavel by oversleeping and not kissing the priest. Giliarovsky, the superman-reporter of Anton's student days, visited, Anton received for three days Doctor Korobov, who had boarded with the Chekhovs when he and Anton were first-year students. Nikolai Korobov was now besotted with Nietzsche. Chekhov had once commented: 'I should like to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche in a railway carriage or on a boat and talk the whole night.' Korobov's visit was the next best thing. Nietzschean views and phrases seep
