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woman. They became godfather and godmother of Prince Shakhovskoi's daughter Natalia: forever Anton was kum (fellow godparent, a significant relationship in Russia) to Tania and she was êèòà to him.
As Anton finished his brooding 'Three Years', Tania's presence cheered him. He wrote notes on the violet or pink paper that Lidia Iavorskaia had brought from Paris. On 18 December, two days after ' I ania left for Moscow, Anton followed her. Until Christmas Eve, his mother's name day, he settled into room No. 1 (handy for the W.C.) in the Great Moscow hotel, where he was the favourite of the staff, and worked.
'Three Years', the 'novel', for which Potapenko had negotiated terms with Adolf Marx, the proprietor of The Cornfield, came out in Russian Thought in January and February 1895. The story was, as Anton said to Shavrova and Suvorin, made not of 'silk', but of 'rough cambric'. 'Three Years' - after Sakhalin, his longest work since 'The Duel' - was disturbingly naturalist and autobiographical in its evocation of the haberdashery firm Laptev and Sons from which the hero breaks free. Laptev, rich and gauche, is not Anton, but his introversion and revulsion against his merchant heritage, his hovering between the 'blue stocking' Rassudina and the idle beauty Iulia, and his reaction to a Rubinstein concert and a Levitan painting make Laptev very Chekhovian. The feckless brother-in-law Panaurov reminds one of Potapenko. Olga Kundasova and Lika also infuse the story. 'Three Years' is a languid work: Laptev breaks his emotional and class ties slowly. The story seems the prelude to a long Bildungsroman. Critics ignored its poetry, while friends were shocked at the exploitation of Olga Kundasova's love for Chekhov. Worse autobiographical frankness was to come.
In The Russian Gazette Chekhov published uplifting Christmas reading, 'The Senior Gardener's Story'. Anton had discussed the death penalty in Sakhalin and talked about it when he stayed in the Crimea. In this story the gardener tells of a judge who cannot sentence the murderer of the town's doctor, for his faith in humanity makes such a murder unbelievable. The censor cut Chekhov's moraclass="underline" Believing in God is easy. Inquisitors, Biron and Arakcheev [the Russian empire's cruellest ministers} believed in Him. No, you believe in man! That faith is possible only for the few who understand and feel Christ.
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1.1ÊË D1IPARUE Christmas was too crowded for comfort at Melikhovo: Dr Kurkin slept in Anton's bedroom, Vania in his study. Anton skulked in Masha's room. After Christmas Anton went to a Yuletide party in the 'violent' ward of the Meshcherskoe hospital and brought Olga Kundasova back with him to Melikhovo. The following night Pavel groaned all night and in the morning announced that he had just seen Beelzebub. New Year's eve was muted. Pavel's diary reads: 'Masha returned from Sumy. There were no visitors. We didn't see in the New Year, we went to bed at 10 after supper. Masha got the lucky penny.'
On the first day of 1895, as the peasants wished the family a happy New Year and received the traditional gallon of vodka, Anton considered his health. He told his cousin Georgi that his cough was so bad he might spend twelve months in Taganrog: could he buy the seaside mansion belonging to Ippolit Tchaikovsky? The next day Anton received a summons: By their majesties' command, issued in Moscow 1 January 1895, Literary General and Knight of the Orders of the Sacred Names of Tatiana and Lidia the First and Private of our Personal Escorts Anton Chekhov son of Pavel is allowed until 3 February to rest in all cities of the Empire and Abroad, as long as he sends two deputies and appears at the set time indicated to carry out double duties.32 On 2 January, while the Chekhovs slept, one of their majesties came. Tania recalled: On my way to Melikhovo I dropped in on Levitan who had promised to show me some sketches… The Levitan that met me in his velvet blouse looked like a Velasquez portrait; I was laden with shopping as always when I travelled to Melikhovo. When Levitan realized where I was going he began, as was his habit, uttering lengthy sighs, saying how unhappy he was about their stupid quarrel and how much he wanted to go mere as he had used to. 'What's stopping you?' I said. After a slight pause, when they arrived, Anton shook Levitan's hand. They talked as if three years' silence had never intervened. The next morning, while Anton slept, Roman drove Levitan to the station. Anton found only a note at breakfast: Tm sorry I shan't see you today. Will you drop in to see me? I am ineffably happy to be here at the
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Chekhovs' again. I have come back to what was precious and really has never stopped being precious.' Tania and lavorskaia could now see two ardent courtiers together. On 4 January Anton went to the Great Moscow hotel for over two weeks. Evgenia came too: she was off to Petersburg, to see Natalia for the first time since Kolia's death. The longing to see her first legitimate grandchild had overcome her distaste for her daughter-in-law.
Anton told Suvorin that he was in Moscow: he would not say why he had neither written nor come. He asked on Tania's and Iavorskaia's behalf if Renan's UAbbesse de Jouarre or Ibsen's Little Eyolf could pass the censor. In another letter to Suvorin he asserted that lavorskaia was 'a very nice woman'. He celebrated Tatiana's day and his name day. He watched Lidia act Madame Sans-Gene at Korsh's theatre. Vasantasena gave Charudatta a rug and more: Come immediately, Antosha! We thirst to see you and adore you. That is me writing for lavorskaia, I just love you. Yours Tania. I am awfully sad parting with you, as if the best part of my heart is being torn out… wrap yourself up in this Tartan rug, it will warm you like my hot kisses… Don't forget the woman who loves only you. Your Vasantasena… I'm lonely without you… I'm in despair. Come, darling. And there's no salad. Order some. I kiss you hard, Lidia. Anton loved the luxury around lavorskaia. He wrote to Suvorin that he needed to earn 20,000 roubles a year 'since I now can't sleep with a woman unless she wears a silk petticoat.' In December 1894 Lika offered a more austere affection from Paris: I think I'd give half my life to find myself in Melikhovo, to sit on your divan, talk to you for 10 minutes, have supper and just pretend that this whole year had not happened… I am singing, learning English, getting old and thin! From January I shall study massage too, so as to have some chance of a future… Soon I shall have consumption, so say all who have seen me. Before the end, if you like, I shall bequeath you my diary, from which you can borrow a lot for a humorous story. After three months' silence Lika and Anton were briefly in touch, but never did either mention Lika's child. It was as if Christina had never been born. On 22 December Lika invited Masha to Paris: 'You vile
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IIKA DI.Si'ARUK girl, you lie when you say you wnnl to sec me! You are now involved with all sorts of trash, so how can you remember me?' Whom she was calling trash was clear from Lika's letter to Anton on 2 January: Well, has Tania settled in Melikhovo and occupied my place on the divan? Is your wedding to Iavorskaia soon? Invite me so that I can stop it by creating a scene in the church… may all heaven's munders fall on you if you don't answer. Your Lika.33 Olga Kundasova became hyperactive. She no longer held any post. Her friends - Drs Kurkin, Iakovenko and Pavlovskaia, Anton, and Suvorin - financed her; they were worried by her 'conspiratorial' journeys around Serpukhov and Moscow, where she engaged biologists and philosophers in debate. She longed to break free of the psychiatric hospital at Meshcherskoe; she blamed Anton for her headaches, fever and 'unimaginable melancholy', and showered him with notes. He tried to placate her, but her retort on 12 January 1895 had all the virulence of the fictional Rassudina in 'Three Years': 'I'd like to congratulate in person a fully-qualified little Don Juan like you. I attach a stamp for the reply. Yours. O. Kundasova.'34 Anton endured her reproaches: more were to come. Kundasova recognized that she was ill - 'dementia primaria to use our terminology. I'm frightened but not desperately so' - but she believed in the prophylactic effects of travel, sleep, food and talk in Melikhovo. Chekhov contacted Dr Kurkin, who wrote to Dr Iakovenko. They agreed not to give Kundasova enough money to go far from Meshcherskoe (where she believed she was a pioneering psychiatrist, not a patient). Dr Kurkin advised Anton 13 January 1895: 'You shouldn't let your "lady friend" out of your sight, for she tends to get entangled in situations from which she cannot disentangle herself.'35