Emilie Bijon, brooded for months before sending Chekhov her New Year wishes for 1897: To my dear doctor, A. C. I have known ephemeral happiness And am plunged by you into an ocean of suffering. I am too weak to struggle - I am dying. The light of life is barely glimmering in my eyes… Liudinila «»/«-im.i '' Once Anton's guests had gone the family succumbed to (lulls, migraine and fever; the district nurse, Zinaida Chcsnokovt, wtl Of) constant call for codeine. Nursing his parents, writing 'Peasants,' plan ning his rest in the Great Moscow Hotel, Anton took another burden: the 1897 census. He agreed to supervise fifteen census-takers for tin-district and make returns for his village.41 It was a task as onerous as his survey of Sakhalin; the gain for 'Peasants' was not worth the drain on his strength. The house was besieged by officials and the piano buried in papers.
Kolomnin, Suvorin's son-in-law, sent them a new table clock to replace the clock that rain had stopped, but the post gave it such a hard ride that it arrived in fragments. Anton made another journey on 14 January to Bouret, who shook his head: the clock was beyond repair. It was a bad time for timepieces: that evening Anton invited Elena Shavrova to room No. 9 in the Great Moscow: he was there just that night, he told her, and could not leave the hotel. 'Despite Mrs Grundy, I shall come and see you,' she replied. Nevertheless, tbey went for a ride in a cab. In a journey around Moscow as eventful as Madame Bovary's with Leon around Rouen, Elena Shavrova lost
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THE FLIGHT OF THE SEAGULL
the hood of her coat, broke a brooch, and her watch, which, she promised, kept good time, went haywire. After Elena returned to stay with her mother that night, she had, she told Anton, nightmares 'of poisoned men and women, and I blame you for that.'42
Anton stayed another night at the hotel. He called on Viktor Goltsev, who held a party every 15 January, although Masha had warned him that he would find Lika there. He actually seemed to be relieved by Lika's liaison with Goltsev. He and Goltsev calmly discussed their plans jointly to edit a newspaper.
After Anton went home, he devoted his energy until mid February to the census, the school for Novosiolki, and to 'Peasants', which he was now finishing. He even joined the Moscow doctors' campaign against corporal punishment. Lika faded from his life, and Elena Shavrova's affection was deflected into useful work. The performances that she was to put on in late February in Serpukhov were to be in aid of the new school. Anton treated Shavrova as he had Lika: he teased her too about other suitors, real or imaginary, as a pretext for his neglect. It needed only a few weeks of intimacy for Anton to feel an irresistible urge to tease, deflect and even repulse a woman.
Winter at Melikhovo was dominated by food: the family gorged, the animals starved - there was abundant livestock and little fodder. Pavel's diary records: 'We ate a goose… We ate a roast piglet… Half the hay in the barn is gone, God grant it lasts to spring. There's no more wheat straw. We've burnt all the brushwood, we haven't bought wood yet.' A dog was mauled to death by Zalivai, a new hound; Roman shot a cat. This grim tally, like the tedium of the census, was magnified into the horror of 'Peasants'.
Chekhov's thirty-seventh name-day was dismal. None of his brothers came: only the priest and the cantor. The census cast a pall. Chekhov was disturbed by angry demands from a person in Rostov: someone calling himself Anton Chekhov had been borrowing money. Halfway through his expected life span, he began to think religiously. His diary affirms agnosticism as a valid faith: Between 'God exists' and 'There is no God' lies a whole enormous field which a true sage has great difficulty in crossing. But a Russian knows only one of these two extremes and the middle between them doesn't interest him, which is why he knows either nothing or very little… A good man's indifference is as good as any religion.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1897
()n 6 February, the census over, after attending a peasant wedding rind helping Quinine give birth to a single puppy, Chekhov fled to Moscow for a very wild fortnight, some of it with Liudmila Ozerova, who had written again on 31 January: 'Dear, very, very good Anton, You've probably forgotten her and she understands that she has no 11»:liis, but she begs, begs you not to fail to visit her as soon as you I ?ei- to Moscow, The very littlest Seagull.' Their first night was not huppy. Liudmila wrote on 9 February: 'Perhaps it wasn't my fault, lint you recalled some other woman whom you love and that's why V«PII found me so repellent and despicable… Your little Queen in? die. P.S. Don't fail to come tomorrow.'' When Anton left Moscow to watch Shavrova performing in Serpukhov, Liudmila took the train wit li him as far as the outskirts of Moscow. Anton's enchantment with her had faded as soon as she fell into his arms. He wrote to Suvorin two days later: (iuess who visits me? What would you think? Ozerova, the famous «V/.erova-Hannele. She comes, sits with her feet on the sofa and looks sideways; then, when she goes home, she puts on her little jacket and her worn out galoshes with the awkwardness of a little girl ashamed of being poor. She's a little queen in exile. In his diary, Chekhov now called her 'an actress who fancies she is great, an uneducated and slightly vulgar woman'. Her feelings were very different: Dear Anton, I'm back! Moscow is empty and bottomless. And I don't doubt that you despise me deeply. But, amidst the gloom that surrounds me, your kind, simple, tender words have penetrated very very deep into my soul, and for the past eighteen monms I couldn't help dreaming how I'd see you and surrender to you all my sick, hurt soul and you would understand everything, sort it out, console and calm it, and instead I met Kolomnin [Suvorin's son-in-law]… I he first night, after you left, I got a very bad chill, and I spent the last day of Shrove Tide so ill that I didn't peck at my corn, and I can't wait for my little white birdy to fly to me, I am burning with desire to caress it as soon as possible. F.Icna Shavrova saw more of Anton than did Ozerova. The author of '(laesar's Wife' had her writings and acting as a pretext. She asked her cher maitre or 'a certain intrigant' to meet her. Anton coyly
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I IE FI.ICIIT OF THE SEAGULL
answered: 'A certain young man (a civilian) will be at the Assembly of the Gentry at the Georgian evening.' Olga Kundasova also surfaced. No longer subsidized by Anton and Suvorin, she was rushing around Moscow, giving lessons, engaging distinguished minds in debate. Her relations with Anton relaxed: she agreed to come to Melikhovo. Rumours of Anton's frenetic love life spread. Masha, who had taken Maria Drozdova to Melikhovo, joked, 'Give my regards to all the ladies who are visiting you.' Aleksandr wrote on 24 February: 'I hear you spent a long time in Moscow and led a life of fornication, the buzz of which has even reached Petersburg.'
Chertkov, the grandson of the man who had owned Chekhov's grandfather, was just then being expelled from Russia for his activities on behalf of Tolstoy. (He went to England and began to preach non-resistance to evil there.) Tolstoy went to Petersburg for the first time in twenty years to see Chertkov off. The furore over Chekhov's deportation jolted Chekhov's liberalism to the left. On 19 February, a dinner at the Continental for Moscow's literati to celebrate the supposed emancipation of the peasantry thirty-five years before sickened Anton: To dine, drink champagne, roar, make speeches about the people's self-awareness, about the people's conscience and so on, when slaves, the same serfs, in frock coats scurry round the tables, and outside in the freezing cold the coachmen wait - mat's like lying to the Holy Ghost.
There were other dinners, just as alcoholic. At a gathering at Russian Thought, with the architect Schechtel on 16 February 1897, Anton and Stanislavsky met for the first time though eighteen months would pass before anything came of it. More upsetting were the consultations Levitan asked for: I've nearly kicked the bucket again. I'm thinking of arranging a council of physicians at my place, with Ostroumov in charge… Shouldn't you drop in on Levitan and just as an ordinary decent person offer some advice on how to arrange it all? Do you hear, you viper? Your Schmul. After Goltsev's Shrovetide pancake party (which Lika shunned), Anton visited Levitan's studio with an acquaintance and covertly studied the artist. In Levitan's wrecked body he saw his own future. Anton disJANUARY-FEBRUARY 1897 cussed Levitan's tuberculosis with his old teacher, Professor Ostroumov, who was one day to deliver Anton's sentence. Death, Ostroumov predicted, was imminent. Levitan, Anton noted, was 'sick and afraid'.
After some unhappy nights, Chekhov left with Ozerova to watch Shavrova and her company act in Serpukhov. The dresses came from Paris, the diamonds were real, and the actors were good, but they made only 101 roubles for the new school. After the show Anton reached Melikhovo at 2.00 a.m. on 23 February 1897 and slept all day. In his absence the family had celebrated Shrovetide with pancakes, toped with shortages of fuel, and dealt with veterinary emergencies, while Maria Drozdova painted a portrait of Pavel. On Anton's return Masha and Drozdova gladly fled to Moscow. Masha was too dutiful to protest at his long absence; Maria Drozdova too much in love with Anton, though he teased Maria as Udodova {Hoopoe), instead of Drozdova {Thrush). Pavel's dislike of Maria Drozdova, who ate more pancakes than he did, was tempered by her painting him. In Anton's absence Pavel had asserted himself as usual. He had the servants chop the ice on the pond and one poor woman load it into the cellar.
