Patients died. A rainy summer washed away the harvest. With Sergeenko, Potapenko arrived on 1 August and, as the god of amusement, lightened Anton's gloom. He plunged into everything, even the muddy pond Anton had dug. Anton recanted to Suvorin (who warned that Potapenko might be a crook): 'My Odessa impression misled me… Potapenko sings very nicely and plays the violin, he and I had a very interesting time, quite apart from the violin and drawing room songs.' In Anton's phrase, the 'crow' of Odessa had become the 'eagle' of Moscow. Anton talked as intimately to him as to Suvorin. Potapenko became an alter ego in a few days. He fell under Anton's spell and respected his secrets. Potapenko recalled: The head of me house was Anton. His tastes dominated everything, everything was done to please him. He treated his mother with tenderness, but showed his father only filial respect… And he said that his father had been a cruel man… He had cast a pall on his childhood and aroused in his soul a protest against the despotic imposition of belief." Anton, for all his memories of enforced church services, sang with Potapenko: 'not love songs but church music… He had a fairly resonant bass. He knew the liturgy extremely well and loved improvising a family choir.' Again, as she had used Levitan, Lika used Potapenko to arouse Anton. Lika joined the men, singing to the
296
297
«: IN c IN NAT US accompaniment of Potapenko's violin. The music was Braga's 'Wal-lachian Legend'. The main motif of'The Black Monk' was born, and the form too, for as Shostakovich noted, 'The Black Monk' has a perfect sonata form. Potapenko and Lika were thrown together; other harmonies, as ominous as those of Braga's 'Legend', were born.
That summer Potapenko was a deus ex macbina in many of Anton's plots. In Petersburg he made Suvorin's accountants recalculate Anton's debt: instead of owing Suvorin 3482 roubles, Anton found he was owed 2000 and could abandon a plan to sell Suvorin ten years' rights to his books.33 Potapenko prided himself on extracting money from publishers. He was paying for a sick second wife in Paris and an embittered first wife in the Crimea. Potapenko's unsinkable temperament made all problems, even Anton's, a pretext for merriment. He made things work. Anton's haemorrhoids, coughing, and the depression, which Aleksandr's letter had tried to pinpoint, vanished.
On 30 July/i 1 August, in Stuttgart, coming home, Suvorin wrote a poem that showed in what deep gulfs he was drowning. It ends: I feel the flies are crawling Over the membrane of my brain… 'It's not flies sitting in your head,' The surgeon answers with a laugh. 'Old age has come, and your brain Is being eaten all the time While water is filling up the holes.' Suvorin reached Petersburg in August; he described his symptoms to Anton. Anton told him-not to worry and Suvorin took the train, alone, back to western Europe.
FORTY-ONE
Ô
Happy Avelan October-December 1893 NOT UNTIL LATE OCTOBER could Chekhov visit Moscow. He made only day trips to Serpukhov, to council meetings, or to meet Olga Kundasova. After Potapenko's arrival, his mood remained buoyant, despite the washed-out harvest. A new well was dug; fish swam in the new pond; there were watermelons from the kitchen garden. Russian Thought began serial publication of The Island of Sakhalin. (Its publication as a book was to come afterwards.) Despite its understated quality, it earned Chekhov esteem: he was now a conscience for the nation, like Tolstoy.
The desire to revisit Petersburg receded - Anton was not to go there for nearly two years. Suvorin was abroad, talking to novelists lie published in Russia: Zola and Daudet. Aleksandr, after being so outspoken, was ignored. After Potapenko, Anton was seeking new confidants and setting aside old friends. He was apparently unmoved when the poet Pleshcheev died of a stroke in Paris. Some of the women who loved Anton recognized a change, and stood back: in autumn 1893 Olga Kundasova wrote: (2 5 September) I don't think it's bad for you to be in solitude. (17 November) I want, and I don't want, to visit you. One lives mostly on illusions and feels even worse when they scatter. Devoted to you with all my soul, Kund. Both Olga Kundasova and Suvorin recognized that they had in common not only a love for Anton, but symptoms of mental illness, manic depression. Kundasova sought treatment, while Suvorin sought distraction. Despite their diametrically opposed political views, Kundasova and Suvorin had respect, even affection, for each other and, for the next decade, gave each other support. Suvorin's support was
298
299
CI NCIN NATUS
monetary, which Olga ne;irly choked on. 'Don't think that I am charmed by the prospects of free provision at others' expense.'™
Another woman also withdrew from Anton on 16 October 1893: 'I feel I shall write a lot of various stupid things today, so - farewell! With far more than respect, Aleksandra Pokhlebina.'
Once autumn came, Lika visited less often. A more varied social life, as well as teaching in the Rzhevskaia School, kept her in Moscow. Acolytes also retreated. Bilibin, Shcheglov and Gruzinsky all felt neglected. Ezhov was becoming demented: 'Critics have started leaping from behind gates, biting my trousers… I've become a complete swine and write to you like a drunken peasant.'35 All editors slammed their doors in Ezhov's face after he offered Amusement a sketch called 'The Sad Boy'. Two women ask a street urchin where he lives: ' "In a cunt," replied the rude boy and went his way.'
Grim news came from Petersburg. On 25 October Tchaikovsky died, apparently of cholera. Suvorin, who recorded every scrap of gossip, had noted Tchaikovsky living as man and 'wife' with the poet Apukhtin, but heard not a whisper about suicide or homosexual scandal. All Russia felt bereaved and blamed, if anyone, Dr Bertenson who failed to save the composer. Anton took Tchaikovsky's death as calmly as Pleshcheev's. On the same day he heard from Aleksandr of his own demise: You, my friend, are dangerously ill witfr consumption and will soon die. Rest in peace! Today Leikin came to our office with tbis sad newsith tbiȺ he shed bitter tears while he spoke, claiming that you had confided to him alone in the world the tale of your so early extinction from an incurable ailment. Aleksandr warned Anton that if he didn't die soon, he would be accused of publicity-seeking.
Anton leapt into action as if to scotch the rumours and to live to the full. On 27 October 1893 he broke free to Moscow and stayed until 7 November. On 25 November he was back in Moscow for four weeks, ostensibly to read the proofs of Sakhalin. In Moscow Anton had a new nickname, 'Happy Avelan'. In France the Russian Admiral Avelan was received with Bacchic hospitality, to celebrate the new Franco-Russian alliance. Anton, like Admiral Avelan, began to relish wine, acclaim and beautiful women. Lika's happiness was soon underOCTOBER-DECEMBER 1893 mined by the knowledge that she was now one of several women in Anton's life.
Anton-Avelan's 'squadron' included Potapenko, Sergeenko, the Miperman-reporter Uncle Giliai (Giliarovsky) and the wheezing editor of The Performing Artist, Kumanin (whose life the squadron's expeditions shortened). They haunted the Loskutnaia, Louvre and Madrid hotels. They were entertained by Lika and her friend, the budding opera singer, Varia Eberle. Two women from Kiev also joined them.
()ne was Tania Shchepkina-Kupernik. Nineteen years old, less than live foot tall, the daughter of a rake, the lawyer Kupernik, she had the blood of Russia's great actor Shchepkin in her veins. She was.ilready famed as a verse translator from French and English: she singled out plays with a strong female role - Sappho, The Taming of the Shrew, The Distant Princess. She was a Sapphic love poet. Misha (ihekhov already knew her; now she moved into Anton's life. Tania charmed men, too, and Anton would value her above any other woman writer. She was called 'topsy-turvy' (kuvyrkom sounded like Kupernik) for her impetuosity.