SIXTY-SIX The Broken Cog September-October 1898
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IN JULY NATALIA rejected Aleksandr. He complained to Anton: 'Veneri cupio, sed "caput dolet", penis stat, nemo venit, nemo dat.'57 In August 1898, while Natalia was away, Aleksandr bought an exercise book, bound it himself in leather and made indelible blue-black ink out of oak galls. He entitled this diary The Rubbish Dump.5i It catalogues his domestic miseries. On his wife's return, Aleksandr became impotent. On 28 September 1898, he told Anton: 'I am schwach and even by the domestic hearth cannot produce enough material for coitus, let alone onanism.' Natalia demanded that he ask Anton for treatment. On 4 October Vania's wife, Sonia, wrote from Moscow: Dear Aleksandr, Kolia [Natalia's elder stepson] refuses to work, he behaves so badly that even our patience is exhausted. He won't obey anybody, even the most gentle treatment is useless. I even resorted to Masha's help, but he just turned his back on her and wouldn't even talk to her… How do I get him to you? On 5 October Aleksandr's Rubbish Dump expresses complete turmoiclass="underline" 'I howled like a wolf… Natasha is trying to calm me, saying that Sonia wrote and sent the letter in the heat of her wrath.' Aleksandr wrote to Vania: 'Nikolai has written his own death sentence: now he won't be accepted anywhere… Put him on a train… there is no hope for his correction.' In Petersburg Suvorin was thinking about Anton. Aleksandr noted: There was a conversation between Suvorin and Tychinkin about buying all Anton's work at once, to give Anton the maximum amount of money at once, and then starting to publish 'The Complete Works'. To consider publishing his 'Complete Works' meant that Anton now feared that he would soon die. He was seeking a capital sum to see
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FLOWER I N(i i I Ml I I'.RIES him through terminal illness and (;ikc care of bis family after his death. Most Russian writers towards the end of their creative lives hoped to publish their 'Complete Works'. Tolstoy bad advised Chekhov to do his editing now, and not to entrust the work to his heirs. Suvorin's publishing, however, was sloppy: he generously corrected accounting mistakes as soon as Chekhov mentioned them, but could not offer good proof-reading, production or distribution. As the sons took over, their father's empire crumbled; Suvorin could not bring the Dauphin to heel. Tychinkin, the head printer, advised Chekhov against 'Complete Works', arguing that Anton would make more money by reprinting individual volumes. The typesetter, Neupokoev, had mislaid Anton's manuscripts - and begged him not to tell Suvorin. Anton's affection for Suvorin was not enough to stop him leaving. Sytin, the publisher in Moscow, to whom Anton had thought of selling the rights to his works, now angered him by breaking a promise to print a medical journal, Surgery.59 Anton was at a loss. Fellow writers, upset at his plight, took it upon themselves to market Chekhov's 'Complete Works'. They knew that his departure for the Crimea marked the final phase of his life. The novelist Ertel, himself tubercular, wrote to a friend on 26 September 1898: What is Chekhov? One of the prides of our literature… Now once this major young writer is seriously ill - and I believe he has consumption… money has to be sought, because the works of a writer whom all Russia reads won't cover the costs of rest, nor a journey south, nor the necessary surroundings for a sick man, especially one with a large family on his hands. Judge for yourself, isn't this disgraceful?60 Anton showed less distress than his sister. Masha had bad headaches. Anton told her on 19 September to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, fish, to take aspirin, then subcutaneous arsenic, potassium iodate and electric shocks: 'and if that doesn't help, then wait for old age, when all this will pass and new diseases will start.' Masha had endless messages to pass to Moscow and Petersburg, items to be sent on to the Crimea - ties, cuff links, a balaclava to be bought from Muir and Mirrielees, a waistcoat to be repaired. She had to send Anton all his postage stamps from Lopasnia. Anton didn't want the local postmaster, Blagoveshchensky, to lose his job now that his main customer
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was 800 miles away. She was equipping the third school, for which Anton had donated his iooo roubles from the Moscow Arts Theatre. Melikhovo had become a millstone. Pavel and Masha had to cope with the autumn work that Anton instructed them to carry out on the estate: fencing the hayrick against the horses, planting an avenue of birches, ploughing the park. Masha had the moral support of Alek-sandra Khotiaintseva who frequently came to stay, and they hired a new workman. Masha found relief only in art: she and Aleksandra Khotiaintseva began to paint Tania Shchepkina-Kupernik.
Winter came early: three inches of snow fell on 2 7 September; the horse and cows went on winter fodder. Four sheep and two calves were slaughtered. On 8 October Pavel made a diary entry: 'The windows are iced up as in winter. A bright sunrise. It is cold in all the rooms. They still haven't brought wood.'
The Crimea, at first bathed in warm sunshine, was not as dreary as Anton had feared. He was in a romantic mood. Stopping at Sevastopol, awaiting the boat to Yalta, he was befriended by a military doctor who took him to the moonlit cemetery. Here Anton overheard a woman telling a monk: 'Go away if you love me.' In Yalta his Romantic mood persisted. Olga Knipper was on his mind. He told Lika that, despite the bacilli, he might flee to Moscow for a few days: 'Or I'll hang myself. Nemirovich and Stanislavsky have a very interesting theatre. Pretty actresses. If I'd stayed a bit longer, I'd have lost my head.'
In Yalta he found women eager to befriend him. Mrs Shavrova was staying there with her third daughter, the frail Anna. So were Suvorin's granddaughters Vera and the flirtatious Nadia Kolomnina. The headmistress of the Yalta girls' school, Varvara Kharkeevich, took Anton under her wing and made him a school governor. Anton had distinguished male company in Yalta: the opera singer Fiodor Chaliapin, the poet Balmont, and a cluster of tubercular doctors around Dr Sredin, but the man who was most useful to him was Isaak Sinani, who ran Yalta's book and tobacco shop. Through Sinani newspapers, telegrams, letters and visitors all found Anton.
For the first weeks Anton migrated from one rented apartment to another in the hilly suburbs of Yalta. Soon he was so resigned to this 'flowering cemetery' that he decided both to buy a country cottage and to build a town house. On 26 September Sinani took Anton
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FLO WIH I N(. Ñ I Ml II Ê I i:s seventeen miles west along the precipitous coast road to Kiichiik-Koy, to look at an estate a Tatar farmer was selling for 2000 roubles. Anton sketched it for Masha: a stone, red-roofed Tatar house with a cottage, cattle shed, a kitchen, pomegranates, a walnut tree and five acres, hospitable Tatar neighb ours - the drawback being a terrifying access road. Soon, however, access would be easier, for the government had that year decided to build a coastal railway, and next year there would be a fast coastal boat service. Masha replied that stone was safer than the flammable rotten wood of Melikhovo, and that no road was worse than Melikhovo's tracks (Serpukhov council procrastinated over building an all-weather road from Lopasnia.) Vania, who liked the prospect of holidays in a family dacha, also approved. It was too cheap to miss. A week later Anton decided also on a house in Yalta: a site at Autka, 200 feet above and twenty minutes from the centre, was for sale at 5000 roubles. He would build on it for the whole family.
During this flurry of decisions, on 12 October 1898, Sinani had a telegram: 'Kindly communicate how Anton received news of death of his father.' Sinani did not tell Anton until next day. Bewildered, Anton wired to Masha: 'Kingdom heaven eternal peace father deeply sorry write details healthy completely don't worry look after mother Anton.' Nobody had warned him during the three days that led to Pavel's death.
On the morning of Friday 9 October, when Masha was still in Moscow, Pavel dressed without putting on the truss for his hernia. He went to the stores and lifted a twenty-pound bag of sugar. As he straightened up, a loop of gut was pinched by his abdominal muscles. In agony he crawled back to bed. Evgenia panicked; it was some time before she sent to Ugriumovo for the doctor. After 'fussing around him for four hours' he insisted Pavel be taken to Moscow. Evgenia sent a servant to Lopasnia with a telegram for Masha.61