Nice prompted Anton to take his first political stand: Rozanov, a Jew who rented apartments, sold Russian journals and published he Messager franco-russe, fervently stood up for Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer convicted of treason. Anton knew Rozanov not through buying newspapers, but by treating Rozanov's wife. Rozanov's 'enchanting smile' and 'very delicate and sensitive soul' began to turn Anton into a Dreyfusard. Despite this radical transformation, Anton still hoped to see Suvorin. Suvorin recorded that his doctor advised him to go to Nice: 'Chekhov is also calling me. I want to go but I fear the theatre will be even worse in my absence.' Then Aleksandr told Anton that he had seen Suvorin and his servant Vasili on a tram, off to buy a ticket abroad. On 15 October, with his son Mikhail, Suvorin set off for Paris again.
One hundred roubles a month went a long way. Anton bought all the newspapers,25 had his shirts laundered and drank all the wine and coffee he wanted. He enjoyed piquet with Kovalevsky and going to concerts, when not confined indoors. The Maecenas Morozov tactfully offered 2000 roubles; Barskov, the children's magazine editor, at Kun-dasova's prompting, proffered 500 roubles a month. Anton spurned the money and berated Levitan and Kundasova for embarrassing him. Levitan cursed the touchy Anton as 'a striped hyena, pagan crocodile, spineless wood-demon'. Anton had published nothing for six months: his money came from Suvorin's editions and from stagings of Ivanov in Petersburg, and from The Seagull and Uncle Vania which were being staged only in the provinces.
Only news of Melikhovo distressed Anton. Masha's letters showed that she detested the irksome responsibility. She forgot how to collect
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the monthly payments from Petersburg that Anton had arranged for her. Anton belittled her worries: 'If it's hard, put up with it - what can you do? I shall be sending you rewards for your labours,' he wrote on 6 October. An estate made no sense if the owner was away eight months of the year. Pavel became unbridled, as he told Misha: 'Mama and I will sit alone like recluses in the house, worried, and then arguing to exhaustion about trifles, and we each stick to our opinion.'26 In the same letter Evgenia complained: 'The authorities [Pavel] are pretty unkind to me… Masha is pestered for money, she hasn't got any, she is vexed, I have nothing but woe.'
The servants suffered. Aniuta Naryshkina, married off by her relatives in exchange for vodka, and Masha Tsyplakova, pregnant by Aleksandr Kretov, were in hospital. Infected by the midwives, Aniuta died of puerperal fever. When Masha Tsyplakova gave birth, Pavel made her leave the baby in an orphanage. Anton insisted that the baby be taken into the household, ordered the mother to receive seven roubles I month, and paid for her foundling foster-brother, who had no fingers on one hand, to go to school. Until Tsyplakova was back at work, Pavel, Evgenia and Masha were left with the elderly Mariushka and the indefatigable Aniuta Chufarova. Worse nearly happened: Mariushka and Tsyplakova, overcome by fumes in the bathhouse, had to be revived by Masha. Roman still ran the stables, but his wife Olimpiada, in Pavel's view, infected the estate with genteel idleness. The village elder retired. The peasants and authorities could not find I new elder, to settle disputes and govern the village. One had his linger bitten off by a horse, and was barred by the authorities. Another had, like many Melikhovo peasants, typhoid.
The family tried to refurbish the guest cottage so that Anton could live in it all year: again, stove-makers were called to Melikhovo, but, Evgenia reported, 'The stove in the cottage is still unfinished. The stove-maker fell and smashed himself in the stable.' Masha complained: 'All the Melikhovo inhabitants complain of your absence… build up your health, if not for yourself, then for others, for very many of these others need you. Forgive me for moralizing, but it's true.' After the stove was finished, the Talezh schoolteacher Mikhailov papered the cottage (as well as the drawing room); Semenkovich, who was an engineer, supervised the insulation of the walls with Swedish board and of the doors with double felt and heavy curtains. Now
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FLOW I Ff INI, i I i I | | It ll'S the temperature was much higher inside the cottage than out, which presented a predicament, as Pavel explained to Misha on 5 December 1897: God alone knows how much his health has improved,… to come here when it is cold is to endanger himself. The cottage is his favourite summer residence, he likes solitude and quiet, but things are not suited for winter, firstly to leave +18 for minus2 5 degrees and reach our house, you have to wrap up against the cold, breathe and swallow whatever God sends. Secondly: he has to come in the morning for coffee, at 11 for lunch, at 3 for tea, at 7 for supper and above all to go and sit on the throne. Constant war raged between the farm dogs, the laikas and the dachshunds: the human inhabitants of Melikhovo were kept awake, robbed of food, even bitten, and the flower beds were ravaged. As Pavel put it, the dogs behaved like mongooses. Anna Petrovna, the old mare the Chekhovs had bought with the estate, died ten weeks after she had her last foal. Pavel was pitiless - 'the highest authority was strict today', Evgenia lamented to Misha.27 He searched high and low for someone to flay the horse and buy the skin for 3 roubles.
Anton's brothers were content. Misha told Masha that Olga had 'arranged his life so that every desire was anticipated'. In September, for 50 roubles a month, Aleksandr persuaded Vania and Sonia to take his son Kolia. Kolia spent a few days' holiday in Melikhovo and then took to Moscow a note from his father: The bearer of this letter is the swine that you, Vania and kind Sofia, are so generously taking under your wing… If annoyed or angered he begins to whisper something unintelligible (probably threats)… He detests books… he likes hammering nails, washing up… he loves money and getting sweets… He can't tell the time… he gets into fights. Anton did not ask after his dachshunds or his nephews. He had settled into La Pension Russe so well that, on the dank evenings which kept him to his room, he began to write again.
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Dreaming of Algiers November-December 1897 THE PROSPECT of losing his self-respect and his Reinheit by living on Morozov's charity, made Anton write. His works that autumn are small scale: they recall boyhood landscapes: stories like 'The I'ccheneg' and 'Home' evoke the horror of a visitor stumbling onto e barbarous estate on the Don steppes. Chekhov's block was broken: that autumn 'On the Cart', a picture of a village schoolteacher's despair, owes much to the complaints relayed from Melikhovo. He began 'A Visit to Friends', a story for Cosmopolis: the plot anticipates bis final play The Cherry Orchard. He asked Masha to send the draft of an early story to work on: Masha worked with scissors to make the papers look like a letter rather than a contraband manuscript.
Chekhov's fame was now international. At the end of September, in the Wiener Rundschau, Rudolf Strauss proclaimed:
… we have before us a mighty, mysterious miracle of Strindberg content in Maupassant form; we see exalted union which seemed almost impossible, which nobody has managed before: we love Strindberg, we love Maupassant, therefore we must love Chekhov and love him twice as much. His fame will soon fill the whole world. Masha and Potapenko sent Anton cuttings. Translators (some inept, all enthusiastic) pestered Anton to let them put his works into French, (Izech, Swedish, German and English. One, Denis Roche, stood out: he paid Chekhov 111 francs, half the fee he received for the French version of 'Peasants.'28 Anton was learning a daily quota of French phrases, sending hundreds of French classics for Taganrog library, and even confidently correcting Masha's French. He asked for a journalist's card from Sobolevsky to get the best seats to listen to Patti and Sarah Bernhardt and to attend the Algiers festival. He now frequented Monte Carlo, and won, cautiously betting on low numbers and on
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FLOW in INC. i i MI i i ie s red and black. Anton was now able to focus on the roulette wheel: the pioneer of Russian ophthalmology, I)r Leonard-Leopold Girsh-man, lived in Nice with his tubercular son. Anton treated the son; the father prescribed a new pince-nez for Anton. In November Chekhov weighed himself (with his hat, autumn coat and stick) and found 72 kilos adequate for a man of his height, six foot one.
On 18/30 October La Pension Russe said goodbye to Maxim Kovalevsky, who went to lecture at the Sorbonne. Kovalevsky had promised to take Anton to Algiers, and Anton waited anxiously for his return. Meanwhile he expected Suvorin, but although caviar and smoked sturgeon arrived, Suvorin did not. On 7/19 November Suvorin turned back to Russia, to his wife's surprise, for she thought that Anton would dispel his gloom. Professor Iakobi, although even iller than Anton, was wintering in Russia. Anton confessed to Dr Korobov that he was bleeding again: he took potassium bromate and chloral hydrate every two hours. He told Anna Suvorina on 10/22 November:
… the last haemorrhage which is still going on today, began three weeks ago… I walk slowly, I go nowhere except the street, I don't live, I vegetate. And this irritates me, I am out of spirits… Only for the Lord's sake, don't tell anyone about the bleeding, that is between us… if they find out at home that I am still losing blood, they will shriek. The women in Anton's circle wanted him back in Russia: Evgenia suggested that he come back for
