A person – most likely a night watchman – came up to them, peered at them and then went away. Even that detail seemed mysterious and beautiful too. You could see the steamer from Feodosia arriving, lit up by the dawn and already without lights.
'There is dew on the grass,' said Anna Sergeyevna, breaking the silence.
'Yes. Time to go back.'
They returned to town.17
Chekhov must have sat on that bench at daybreak too, and when he wrote these lines he may have been thinking about a letter his friend Levitan had sent him back in 1886 from Yalta. Levitan had written to Chekhov to tell him about the day he had climbed a cliff to look down at the sea, describing the eternal beauty of the scene, and how insignificant the majestic Crimean landscape made him feel.18 Levitan was by that time even more gravely ill than Chekhov, and in July 1900, at the age of forty, he died, having paid a final visit to the Crimea to see his friend in December the previous year, the month in which 'The Lady with the Little Dog' was published. The watchman mentioned in Chekhov's story was most likely modelled on the ex-Crimean War serviceman who had been first employed by Grand Duke Konstantin to guard the church.19
The view from the bench by the church at Oreanda
Of the two other imperial properties situated in the environs of Yalta, it was Livadia which provided the stimulus for the town's
development as a first-class resort, and thus directly impinged on Chekhov's decision to take up residence in 1898. Because it was actively used as an imperial residence at that time, it was not as accessible to the public as the other palaces and Chekhov visited only on rare occasions. The beautiful estate of Livadia (from the Greek word for 'meadow') stood next door to Oreanda, but without its precipitous cliffs. It was just a few miles up the coast from Yalta and conveniently came up for sale in 1860. The Empress Maria Alexandrovna suffered from tuberculosis, and Alexander II had been hoping to find a suitable dacha in the southern Crimea where his wife could recuperate from the ravages of dank St Petersburg winters and the strain of giving birth to eight children in quick succession. The spacious grounds of Livadia had already been extensively landscaped by Joachim Tascher (a relative of Napoleon's wife Josephine, who had turned his back on his aristocratic background to pursue a career in gardening), and Maria Alexandrovna immediately fell in love with the place when the imperial retinue made their first visit in 1861. The author of Murray's Handbook to Russia also went into raptures when visiting the estate a few years later:
The natural beauty of this retreat and the taste with which it is fitted up cannot be surpassed. On the terrace in front of the palace is a fountain, surrounded by the most exquisite flowers. From the pavilion which stands on a rock at the edge of the garden a most splendid view of Oreanda and Yalta is obtained, and nothing can be more beautiful or impressive than a sunset over the blue waters of the Euxine seen from this fairy spot.20
It became immediately clear, however, that the existing house and its adjoining buildings needed extensive remodelling and expansion, and while this work was being carried out by the court architect, the imperial family took their holidays in Nice. It was in Nice in 1865 that Nicholas, the heir to the throne, died from tuberculosis, and it would be tuberculosis which would later kill his mother. It was just at this time that the imperial physician Sergei Botkin became aware of the excellent climatic conditions in the southern Crimea and strongly advised Maria Alexandrovna to spend the autumn in Livadia. Botkin's advice was soon followed by hundreds of other consumptives, many of them (like Chekhov) doctors themselves, who started coming to Yalta in ever
greater numbers in the hope of making a recovery. The connection of Sevastopol to central Russia by rail in 1873 also played a role in attracting invalids from the north, and by the time Chekhov first passed through Yalta in 1888, there were already so many tuberculosis sufferers living in the town that they were as distinctive a feature as the holidaymakers.
There was a brief hiatus in Yalta's expansion during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78; not only were there no visitors, but more than half the population left.21 The gravely ill Maria Alexandrovna came back to her beloved Livadia for one last visit in 1879, and a little over a month after she died the following year, Alexander II married his mistress Princess Dolgorukaya; they already had three children. Their marriage was brief: Alexander was assassinated the following March, and his son, the new Tsar Alexander III, did not return with his family to Livadia until the autumn of 1884. Either his distaste in discovering his stepmother and her children living in his mother's rooms in the palace or a desire to make his own mark led to his search for another property in the Yalta area. In 1888 he settled on Massandra, which lay on the other side of the bay, about three miles from the town. This was another Vorontsov estate that incorporated extensive vineyards and beautiful gardens full of statues. Alexander never managed to move into the turreted Louis XIV-style chateau that was built for him, although he did spend a million roubles installing a fine wine-cellar;22 he died unexpectedly while holidaying in Livadia in October 1894 at the age of forty-nine. Chekhov was taken to Massandra by new acquaintances when he made his second visit to Yalta in March 1894. The master of wines was so pleased to meet the famous writer when they visited the cellars, that he opened up some old bottles for them to taste which had been laid down in Vorontsov's time.23
Chekhov stayed at Yalta's largest and smartest hotel when he came for his second visit. Renowned for being 'replete with every comfort', the Rossiya had 150 rooms (many with a sea view), an elevator, a first-class restaurant staffed by waiters who spoke all the foreign languages, and a terrace where an orchestra played daily concerts throughout the peak season.24 Chekhov, however, had come in the quieter (and cheaper) winter season, which was most popular with people convalescing from illness, particularly tuberculosis. Yalta had four distinct seasons – each with its own particular character and clientele -
and the winter season, lasting from the middle of October to Easter, was now beginning to vie with the fashionable 'velvet' season just before it, when people came to take the celebrated grape cure that had been developed by a local doctor. Chekhov had certainly come to Yalta this time for health reasons: he had been suffering from terrible headaches and an arrhythmic heartbeat (which on one alarming occasion made him think he was about to die), not to mention the haemorrhoids which perennially plagued him. But perhaps the most disquieting symptom was the persistent cough which continued throughout the month of his visit.
He spent two days travelling by train from Moscow, then completed the final leg of his journey to the Yalta harbour one foggy Friday evening in early March, with the ship's whistle on the steamer Tsarevna blowing almost continually in the poor visibility. Once installed in his room at the Rossiya, he resolved to stick to his abstention from smoking, and spent a fairly miserable month in continuing poor health, trying to rest but unable to avoid thinking about the need to keep writing, upon which his family's livelihood depended. Next door to him was a well- known Petersburg actress who made solicitous enquiries about his heart, and tried to lure him out on excursions, such as to the spectacular waterfall at Uchan-Su (Tatar for 'flying water'), a thousand feet above sea-level.
When he was not working or catching up with his sleep, Chekhov whiled away the time going for walks along the seafront with his new acquaintances, taking trips out of town, and dining out in the houses of the Yalta intelligentsia. He sold his fox-fur coat which had been moulting, and went along desultorily to rehearsals of Gounod's Faust. The worthy citizens of Yalta were organizing an amateur performance at the town's theatre in aid of the recently founded girls' gymnasium, and Chekhov enjoyed contemplating the different coloured heads of hair of the young ladies bobbing about. Everyone wanted to meet him, and he soon found the constant attention very
