Tania lived in the Hotel Madrid, which was linked to the Hotel Louvre through corridors (known as the 'catacombs' or 'Pyrenees'). In the Hotel Louvre lived the love of Tania's life, also from Kiev, the twenty-three-year-old actress Lidia lavorskaia. Their love affair began as loudly as it ended: Tania had come to deny that she had slandered I æÏà in Kiev. For 1893 anc^ J^94» Lidia's heart was Tania's, although she devoted the rest of her person to her manager, Korsh (of the Korsh theatre), to a lover in the Customs Department, to Anton Chekhov and, perhaps, to Ignati Potapenko. Like Tania, lavorskaia was a vivacious polyglot. Her background was darker. Her father, I lubbenett, of Huguenot origin, was Chief of Police in Kiev and, like her, promiscuous, self-important, vindictive, yet generous. Hubbenett helped lavorskaia literally to force herself on stage. Sensuality made up for shallowness. In Moscow she hypnotized Korsh into hiring her as La Dame aux camelias. Lidia lavorskaia stormed through Anton's life: she aroused both lust and disgust in him. The 'sirens of the Louvre', however, romped with Isaak Levitan, who called them his 'little girls', and Anton found this off-putting. Avelan's expeditions to theatres, restaurants and long sessions in
300
301
CINC IN NATUS
hotel rooms were fuelled by the passion between Tania and Lidia Iavorskaia. Iavorskaia destroyed Tania's letters; Tania kept everything. Bits of paper and card, in Russian and French, in prose and verse, show Lidia responding to the poetess's affection: let's go… I await you. I kiss you as strongly as I love you. Lidia… Cette nuit d'Athenes etait belle. Le beau est inoubliable. Cher poete, si vous saviez quel mal de tete… J'attends le vice supreme et je vous envoie votre dot. Ma petite Sappho. Venez immediatement, urgent..? Anton saw Lidia act Napoleon's mistress Katrina Hubsche in Sar-dou's Madame Sans-Gine. He raved to Suvorin on n November 1893: I spent two weeks in intoxication. Beca use my life in Moscow has been nothing but feasts and new friendships, they call me Avelan to tease me. Never before have I felt so free. Firsdy, I have no flat -I can live where I want, secondly, I still haven't got my passport and… girls, girls, girls… Recently frivolity has taken me over and I feel drawn to people as never before, and literature has become my Abishag [King David's comforter] In the same letter Anton asserted that all thinkers are impotent by forty: sexual potency, he implied, was for savages, even though he hoped, in Apuleius' phrase, to go on 'drawing his bow'.
Both Tania and Lidia did their best. After he left on 7 November Tania sent him a poem (drafted on the back of one of Lidia's love-letters to her): All, all our dreams see Avelan All that we see recalls this man, Through the rosy mist he looms And quietly sails into our rooms.37 Tania wrote her Avelan notes on Lidia's behalf as her own. One sent to room No. 54 at the end of November runs: 'Perhaps you will honour with your presence the modest room No. 8. And I shan't say how happy the hostess will be. Tatiana K.' Iavorskaia set her sights on Anton and frightened Lika. Lika enjoyed the party, and even added her phrases to joint messages to Anton, but, embarrassed, humiliated, even shocked, she now wanted out. Anton had that summer claimed
OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1893
he was too old to be a lover; now she saw him in thrall to the 'sirens of the Louvre'. On 2 November she fired across his bows: I also know your attitude - either condescending pity or complete neglect… don't invite me to your place - don't meet me! - that's not so important for you, but it may help me to forget you. I cannot leave earlier than December or January - otherwise I would go now… Two days later, when Anton was back in Melikhovo, Lika wrote: I got to bed at 8 a.m. Mme Iavorskaia was wim us, she said that Chekhov is a charmer and that she definitely intended to marry him, she asked me to help and I promised to do everytbing for your mutual happiness. You are so nice and accessible that I thought I wouldn't find it hard. I ddia met Anton at Masha's empty flat (Masha was in Melikhovo). In spring 1894 she recalled the talk they had one November night: I was fleeing a man who was harassing me and I tlirew myself on your hospitality… You kept asking me 'what was I after?' When revulsion and pity for die man battled inside me, you, an artist, as a psychologist, as a human being, told me about a person's right to dispose of their affections, to love or not to love, freely submitting to inner feeling.'8 Lidia Iavorskaia extracted a promise of a play for her, to be called Daydreams.
The sirens had made Anton forget Suvorin. He wrote on 28 November: 'For mysterious reasons I shall not stay with you but in the Hotel Russia on the Moika.' Suvorin was badly upset. A draft of his reply runs: 30 November 1893. 7 a.m. Yes, 7 a.m. Things are bad, dear boy, I don't sleep at all and I don't know how and when it will end… When can I summon you to Petersburg? Well, if you stay in die Hotel Russia in the back and beyond, might you not as well be in Moscow, from my point of view, at least? It may be more advantageous for you, though I don't think we were much bother to you, but this really is hateful to me…" Anton's next letter to Suvorin was a kick in the teeth. He had met the Moscow publisher Sytin and liked 'the only publishing firm in
302
3°3
CINCINNA I US
Russia that has a Russian smell about it and doesn't push the peasant-customer about'. He drew up a contract with Sytin, receiving 2300 roubles for the book rights to old stories. Anton's publications were now in Moscow, not Petersburg, journals. The new editor of The Northern Herald, Liubov Gurevich, gave up all hope of persuading Chekhov to give the journal a major work: in November 1893, to Chekhov's fury - he cursed her Jewishness - she insisted on immediate repayment of 400 roubles she had advanced: Anton telegraphed Suvo-rin, who paid without demurring. Anton rarely paid back an advance. Shcheglov's diary boasts: 'There are four kings of advances: me, Chekhov, Potapenko and Sergeenko.'40
On 19 December, Anton felt ill. He stood Lika up - she had expected to see him - and left for Melikhovo. The clan gathered: Vania brought Sofia down. Lika was invited for the holidays. Her acceptance of 23 December 1893 had a new name in it, Ignati Potapenko's: Dear [crossed out: Igna…] Anton, I keep travelling and travelling but I can't get to Melikhovo - the cold is so terrible that I dare to beg you (of course, if this letter reaches you) to send something warm for me and Potapenko, who at your request and out of friendship for me will accompany me. Poor man!… At the Ermitage they keep asking why you haven't been seen there so long. I answer that you are busy writing a play for Iavorskaia's benefit night. Potapenko added a postscript, asserting his right to bring Lika to Melikhovo.41 Ivanenko warned Chekhov that Christmas: Hurry to Moscow and save her from perdition, not me but her. You are awaited like a god. Lika is very fond of white and black beer and a few other things that are her secret and which she will reveal to you.42 Anton did nothing to save Lika, who now understood that she was being handed over. On 27 December cousin Georgi arrived from Taganrog. Pavel had gone to Moscow to attend as many church services as he could. Anton wrote to his editor at Russian Thought, Viktor Goltsev: 'Potapenko and Lika have just arrived. Potapenko is already singing. But so sadly, you can't imagine!' Anton ended: 'Lika has started singing too.'