On 16 July Anton teased her mercilessly about growing old in a menage-a-trois with a balding Levitan and a hard-drinking Kuvshinni-kova. He invited Lika to Melikhovo: the cholera had attracted interesting young men. He promised to knock bad habits out of her. 'Above all I shall shield you from Sappho.' After refusing to travel with her, Anton now mused about going to the Crimea on his own. She spent August, furious, with Granny at the family estate, Pokrovskoe. Lika summed up Anton, the summer and cholera on 3 August: 'The cholera hasn't come yet… Anyway, I doubt if you'll move yourself for anyone, especially not for me - well, I'm not offended! Farewell.' One of Anton's replies was too abusive to send. Lika distracted herself with suitors. She wrote to Masha on 18 July: 'In Moscow I've been seeing all my lovers (excuse the expression, but it's your brother's).'13 Nevertheless, Pavel's diary records,14 she travelled 150 miles from Pokrovskoe to Melikhovo to see Anton on 14 September. Whatever transpired, they stopped writing to each other for three weeks.
As soon as Lika retreated, another woman desperately in love with Anton asserted herself. Aleksandra Pokhlebina, 'Vermicelli', was very determined. A piano teacher who tied brass weights to her pupils' wrists and elbows, she turned the screw on Anton: Half the summer has passed and nothing has been talked over… You might have forgotten about my existence, there is nothing amazing about that, but once it is an affair of the heart, I felt it can't be forgotten… I think you will not wish to embarrass me in front of my family." On 3 August, after an evasive response, she wrote again: So you're fed up with me! I can just imagine you looking at the signature and saying Oh My God, she's writing again. Unfortunately for you I care too much about you. She had no reply, and wrote on 28 August:
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CIN«:iNNA I US I rather need to see you yesterday I had a letter from my family and 1 have something to tell yon about husiness… Yesterday I saw Masha and I heard from her a great many unpleasant things about you. Anton said nothing, and Pokhlebina smouldered. Olga Kundasova lost control. Established with Dr Pavlovskaia nearby, she made two brief visits to Anton that summer. On 25 August her letter about medical matters veered towards the personaclass="underline" Come on Friday and Saturday with Masha, I can assure you by all that is dear to me in this world that you will feel better at my place man I did at yours. Really, was it worth my coming for the sessions you awarded me? Anton was not the only member of the household to fear the post. On the same day Smagin wrote to Masha with similar passionate resentment. He resigned his post as country magistrate, he complained of consumption. Smagin was equally scared of a visit and of a final breach. He wrote to Masha on 19 August 1892: I still haven't forgotten the reception I had in March in Moscow province. Your request about burning your letters I shall not carry out, and in the event of my death I shall make arrangements… You can rest at ease: nobody will dare to read a single line of yours. You are very unkind. Three women judged the right tone to take with Anton: Natalia Lintvariova, Vania's fiancee Aleksandra Liosova and Misha's love, Countess Mamuna. Liosova concealed her interest in Anton. Mamuna made a joke of hers. On 15 September she wrote: 'Why not see me in Moscow and share my isolation?… It's not bad to be carried away by both Chekhov brothers!!!"6 Misha, Masha and the Chekhov parents brought harmony into Melikhovo. Morning and evening Pavel recorded in the family diary the outside temperature. An odourless earth closet was installed; the Chekhovs acquired pigs, calves and a pair of prolific Romanov sheep. Gherkins were pickled; potatoes were buried for the winter; double glazing was fitted; the Assumption and Dormition were celebrated with a liturgy. Misha lauded Cincinnatus's realm in a letter to cousin Georgi in Taganrog:
JULY-SEPTEMBER 1892
I have six horses here, we shall go riding, I shall take you over our virgin forests where you can go for three miles and all the land is ours. My rye is magnificent, but the oats and grass have been burnt by the heat and drought, while my sister's kitchen garden is a wonder to behold; she has 800 head just of cabbage. We have made hay… and if you could see the cartloads come into the yard and it being piled into stacks!17 Misha wrote to Uncle Mitrofan on 7 October 1892: Antosha is sitting in his room and has locked himself in, he is stoking the stove, the stove is warming up and he is freezing. He'll freeze and freeze then come out and say, 'What weather! Mama, isn't it time for supper?' Misha tended to paint a rosy picture. He did not mention the servants. Two were dismissed - Pelageia had been robbing family and guests, and Daria had murdered the goslings - and others were hired - Olga and two pert Aniutas, Chufarova and Naryshkina. Vania and Aleksandr could not share Anton's life among the country gentry. Vania was now head teacher at a Moscow school, on the Basmannaia, a post he held for years to come. Pavel set off to Petersburg to stay with Aleksandr; on the way he reported Vania's privations to Anton: he has a room for visitors, but you have to sleep on the floor, his bedstead was left at Melikhovo… and he can't buy one, he has no money. Vania acts energetically at his school, putting everything in order, trying hard. The school is terribly neglected, there is dirt everywhere, the walls, the floors, the window frames are old and frail and the double glazing hasn't been put in yet. He runs round all the classrooms alone and gives the women teachers instructions, they at first looked askance.18 Using a free railway ticket from Gavrilov and posing as a Customs official, Pavel arrived in Petersburg. He saw little of Aleksandr and his children but he attended every important church service in the city. He stayed for more than two weeks. Although he tolerated his daughter-in-law, conflicts arose, Aleksandr reported, over the soup, in which Natalia boiled one onion, for which both Pavel and Natalia's mother, Gagara, fought. Aleksandr was drinking less, but poverty bothered him. He asked Suvorin to increase his 5 kopecks per line.
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Suvorin merely scribbled on the request: 'Who among my reporters [apart from you] is paid a salary?"'
Anton neglected literature, but in Moscow Pavel Svobodin ensured that his name still appeared in print. After 'Ward No. 6', Russian Thought was to print 'An Anonymous Story'. (Both stories had been written a year before.) Anton found another editor - Chertkov, grandson of the man who had sold the Chekhov family their freedom. This Chertkov, Tolstoy's closest acolyte, published reprints for the masses and, despite poor recompense and poor proof-reading, Chekhov sold him the more radical stories. Monthly journals gave Anton large advances, to shame him into writing. Despite the cost of rebuilding Melikhovo, the income from advances and Chertkov's reprints kept Chekhov solvent. Anton was grateful for Svobodin's selfless work in placing Anton's stories with Russian Thought: 'serious illness has forced him to undergo a spiritual metamorphosis,' he told Suvorin. Svobodin handled the tricky withdrawal and re-offering of 'Ward No. 6', and he offered Anton sympathy. He complained only of the theatre, saying he acted only to pay 'tailors, butchers, decorators, lamp-makers, cabs, innkeepers and loan-sharks'. On 9 October 1892, Suvorin wired Anton: 'Svobodin just died during performance phy Jokers come dear boy.'
THIRTY-EIGHT Ô
Summoned by Suvorin October 1892-Jarmary 1893 THE ILLEGITIMATE SON of a groom, Svobodin had dominated the Petersburg stage. He died from ÒÂ at the age of forty-two. Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko was there: Svobodin fell down in the doorway. Perhaps the audience took this to be an extra effect, not in the stage directions. It was the first deadly attack. Svobodin still had enough strength to come out for two curtain calls. Then he went to his dressing room, began changing for the last act and suddenly, clutching his throat, shouting 'Tear it, tear it' fell on his back. Anton was handed Suvorin's telegram as he left for his clinic. He told Suvorin of Svobodin's love for him, rather than his for the actor, and he did not go to the funeral. He had attended too many. In Petersburg he wanted to talk only to Suvorin. In any case, cholera required him to stay: new cases had occurred only eighteen miles away.