Christmas and then leave again. Anna Suvorina lauded Russia's powdery snow and called his illness 'treachery': she blamed it on exertions with Margot and, earlier, with Lidia Iavorskaia. She told him to come to Petersburg. The Suvorins' daughter Nastia was to star in Viktor Krylov's farce Let's Divorce on 20 December. Apart from her acting, her fiances (once the Suvorins gave up the idea of marrying her to Chekhov, Nastia went through several engagements) were the talk of Petersburg.29 Emilie Bijon, however, reminded Anton of the reality of a Russian winter: 'je n'ai pas vu le soleil depuis mon retour…'
In La Pension Russe Anton moved downstairs and saved himself the effort of climbing two flights of stairs. Kovalevsky still promised to accompany Anton to Algiers, but by December he was wavering, telling Sobolevsky:
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Chekhov was showing blood even before I left Beaulieu. I hear it still happens to him at times. I think he has no idea of the danger of his state, although to my mind he is a typical consumptive. I am frightened of the idea of taking him to Algiers. Suppose he gets even iller? Advise me.30 Anton told Kovalevsky that he 'dreamed of Algiers all day and all night'.
Anton was content in Nice. Russia excelled, he decided, only in matches, sugar, cigarettes, footwear and chemists' shops. Had he been tempted to return early, a letter that Sobolevsky wrote on 12 November would have deterred him: Crossing the Russian frontier after a quiet life abroad is the return of a patient who has been discharged from fresh air into his unventilated room smelling of sickness and medicines… Starting with our governess detained on the border for a passport irregularity and ending with the revolting stench and filth of Moscow in autumn, crowded with cursing drunks, etc., all this put me into a state you could call demoralization.31 Anton appeased Melikhovo with a stream of presents which returning Russians delivered - ties, purses, scissors, corkscrews, gloves, perfume, coin-holders, playing cards, needles. Pavel and Masha were placated; in return they sent all the newspapers. Masha ran two local schools, mediating between a radical schoolteacher and conservative priest; she taught in Moscow; she helped ewes lamb, caught runaway dogs, nursed sick servants, paid off importunate monks. She moaned loudest to Misha (who summoned Evgenia to help his pregnant wife Olga): 'Papa is rebellious… I am not going to let mother go to you soon. There is nobody to do the house work… I am utterly worn out, my head never stops aching. Come for Christmas yourself.'32
Pavel wanted full cupboards for an influx of guests: he stocked up on kvas and begged Misha for ham. Misha sent frozen river fish and fresh grouse from the Volga, so tempting that Pavel induced Evgenia to break their strict fast and eat Arctic herring on a Wednesday. Pavel ordered entertainments from Vania: Mama asks you to bring your Magic Lantern with you with pictures, gifts will be given to the Boys and Girls in the Talezh school on the 2nd day of Christmas and it is good to show, for greater solem
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nity, the village schoolchildren piciuies ihey have not yet seen, which will bring them in particular indescribable joy… Antosha will pay for everything.' Misha and Olga sent a goose, but did not come. Pavel had promised to teach his grandson Volodia to ride, but Vania came alone. The only guest, to Pavel's disgust, was Maria Drozdova. On Christmas Day the family treated the three local midwives to sausages and vodka. New Year's Eve was little merrier, Pavel wrote: 'Vania and the Schoolteacher came. We had supper at 10. Mile Drozdova got the lucky coin. Then we started playing cards.'
In Petersburg, Aleksandr reported, at the Suvorins' New Year party, Anna drank to the absent Anton, while Suvorin moodily lurked in his study, telling Aleksandr he would not go to Nice, as Anton was off with Kovalevsky to Algiers. In January 1898, however, Kovalevsky plucked up courage and told Anton that rheumatism and flu prevented him sailing for Africa. This, Anton replied dejectedly, 'depressed me very much for I have been delirious about Algiers.'
Lika Mizinova had mortgaged her land, but the bank withheld funds and she could not come to France. Instead she would open a milliner's shop; physical work would heal her dejected spirits. Masha was scornful: Lika was too disorganized to compete with professionals. On 13 January Lika told Anton she had her old looks and her former self, 'the self that loved you hopelessly for so many years.'34 Anton told Lika he approved, and would flirt with the prettier milliners, but privately agreed with Masha: 'Lika will hiss at her milliners, she has a terrible temper. And what's more she is very fond of green and yellow ribbons and enormous hats.'
In France Anton celebrated Russian New Year's Eve on 12 January 1898, watching the roulette wheel with a new companion, Aleksandra Khotiaintseva, who had moved to the pension on Russian Christmas Day. Khotiaintseva feigned a polite interest in roulette, but proved good company. They did not stay long at the tables: Anton was moni-. tored by a Russian doctor, Dr Valter (another Taganrogian staving at the pension) and had to be in his room by 4.00 p.m. Khotiaintseva and Anton liked shocking the guests: Aleksandra would stay in his room until the signal for her departure, a donkey that brayed at ten. She painted cutting watercolour caricatures of the women guests. She
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1897
and Anton called them Fish, the Doll, Red Ribbons, the Clothes Moth and the Slum. She observed Anton with loving sharpness, telling Masha, whose close friend she had become: I lere it is thought indecent to enter a man's room, and I spend all my time in Anton's. He has a wonderful room, a corner room, two big windows (here the windows always reach the floor), with white curtains. 11/23 January 1898… we have to listen to the stupid talk of the most repulsive ladies here. I tease Anton that he is not recognized here - these fools really have no idea about him… Anton and I are great friends with Marie the maid and join her cursing the other clients in French.35 Brewing tea in his room, Anton spoke with passion on one topic: Alfred Dreyfus.
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Chekhov Dreyfusard January-April 1898 I N 1894, AT a travesty of a trial the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus had been sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island for betraying French military secrets to Austro-Hungarian intelligence. In autumn 1897 a colonel of the security services and a senator forced the French government to re- open the Dreyfus case. Dreyfus's brother Matthieu named the real traitor, Major Esterhazy, in Le Figaro. French and Russian public opinion polarized: anti-Semites and nationalists faced democrats and internationalists. Major Esterhazy was, however, 'cleared'. Anton wondered if 'someone had carried out an evil joke'. Two weeks' study convinced him of Dreyfus's innocence.36 On 1/13 January Emile Zola's polemical article J'accuse came out in 300,000 copies of L'Aurore: the storm led to Zola's prosecution. Nothing that Zola had written won such vindictive fury from the French establishment, or such admiration from Chekhov, as his J'accuse. Chekhov made his first political stand. He now praised Korolenko, who had gone mad after undergoing the same ordeal as Zola when he stood up for Udmurt villagers accused of human sacrifices. Anton read the Voltaire he had bought for Taganrog library - Voltaire's defence of Calas, the judicially murdered Protestant, was a precedent for Zola's defence of Dreyfus. Chekhov's fondness for Jews was rather like his fondness for women: even though, to his mind, no Jew could ever fully enter into Russian life, and no woman ever equal a male genius, he vigorously defended their rights to equal opportunities.
Aleksandra Khotiaintseva had gone, leaving Anton a portrait of, himself. To Kovalevsky (29 January/10 February 1898), Anton denied he would marry her: Alas, I am incapable of such a complex, tangled business as marriage. And the role of husband frightens me, it has something stern, like
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a regimental commander's. With my idleness I prefer a less demanding job. A new girl had entered his life: on Russian New Year's Day a bouquet of flowers came from Cannes, followed by a letter from an Olga Vasilieva. Khotiaintseva was amused. She told Masha around 9/21 January: Two litde girls came from Cannes to see Anton, one of them asked permission to translate his works into foreign languages… Little, fat, bright pink cheeks. She lugged a camera along to photograph Anton, ran round him saying, 'No, he's not posing right.' The first time she came with daddy and noticed Anton cursing French matches, which are very bad. Today she brought two boxes of Swedish matches. Touching?37 I -ike Elena Shavrova, Olga Vasilieva was just fifteen years old when she came under Anton's spell. Unlike Shavrova, she was a sickly, self-sacrificing orphan. Now an heiress, she and her sister had been adopted by a landowner. She spoke English - which, like many Russian girls brought up by an English
