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ary characters (an idle landowner and his domineering, weeping mistress) stem from 1891, the summer of the mongoose at Bogimovo. The narrator (an artist, never seen to paint a picture) stumbles on a decaying estate where a mother and her two daughters live, argues with the elder daughter and falls in love with the younger, only to have her snatched away when she responds. The sense of loss lies in the decaying pine needles and lime trees, the half-abandoned house and the narrator's passivity. The secondary theme of the story was to run through Chekhov's later plays and stories: the narrator argues the pointlessness of social activism in the face of the misery of the peasantry's condition. The elder sister is an activist and denounces art and idleness. The puzzle for the critics is that neither the active sister nor the artist is approved. In Chekhov's work the conflict is often between two sides of himself, the active landowner and contemplative artist, or the egalitarian and the misogynist.
As an activist, Chekhov now proposed a new school for the villagers, pooling his resources with the peasants' and whatever Serpukhov council granted towards the 3000 roubles needed. His neighbours were unhelpful. The Chekhovs and Semenkoviches, the new owners of Vaskino, visited each other, but Anton barely spoke to the seedy Varenikovs who lived to the east of Melikhovo. Varenikov offered to exchange a large amount of forest for a small amount of hayfield, but Masha would not agree. Varenikov had behaved badly in August: when the Chekhov cows strayed, he demanded a rouble per head to release them. Anton told him to keep the cattle. Varenikov surrendered: 'Have your cows collected; please forbid your servants to let them into your hayfields.'50
Anton in Moscow drank with Sasha Selivanova and chased up Miss Gobiato the typist. Masha taught from Monday to Friday. Pavel managed the estate tyrannically and the servants got drunk, quarrelsome and disobedient. After opening the kitchen windows to freeze the cockroaches to death, Pavel complained to Masha: Roman has quarrelled with his wife, and she has turned nasty, she wouldn't milk the cows, I had to ask and beg Aniuta to go and do the milking, and Mashutka to feed the hens and ducks, the old woman [Mariushka] with tears in her eyes put the bread in the oven… What is happening, can we allow the servants and workmen such freedom that they don't obey those that live in the house? Whom
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do they serve?… Roman used to be considerate when he wasn't allowed so much freedom and rope, now he has got above himself, he has become hypocritical, he has found out Antosha's weak point… All week two strapping lads have failed to get the manure out of the stables, we've had to hire a daily woman. We are sitting with no firewood, it's cold in the rooms.'1 Pavel's despotism irritated Anton. He complained to Aleksandr of Pavel 'nagging at mother over dinner and lecturing us at length about medals and awards.'
When Anton was in Melikhovo, harmony reigned, but he restricted his commands to the garden. He would prune raspberries, manure asparagus, minister to sick dachshunds, but would not reprimand the men-of-all-work, Ivan, Roman and his brother Egor. Anton would wander off to the woods: Pavel's diary, in Anton's hand, for 8 November reads: 'Clear morning: went hunting with the dachshunds, but didn't find the badger in his den.'
Levitan, still prey to depression, came on a few of these walks -this time without a gun. He was touchingly grateful for Anton's visit after his attempted suicide. Anton gave him The Island of Sakhalin, inscribed 'in case he should commit murder in a fit of jealousy' and end up a prisoner there. At the end of July Levitan wrote: I constantly observe myself and see clearly that I am completely going to pieces. And I am fed up with myself, and how fed up.
I don't know why, but the few days you spent with me were the most peaceful days this summer. In October Levitan came back to Melikhovo for two days.
Others needed Anton's support. Misha, downcast at being denied a tax inspectorate at Iaroslavl, asked Suvorin for help. Suvorin thought his letter muddled and tactless; Anton had to explain what Misha wanted. Suvorin went to the Finance Ministry and fixed Misha's posting, sending Chekhov a telegram: 'Say merri, my angel.' Misha would not be leaving Uglich alone. After Mamuna's betrayal, he fell in love with Olga Vladykina, a governess to Uglich's richest manufacturer. He drove her home from a party across the dangerous ice of the Volga. She agreed to marry Misha, but was hurt that Misha would not announce the engagement until he had received Anton's approval. Masha had a measure of independence in the form of a monthly
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allowance of 30 roubles from Misha and 'granddad' Sablin. Misha gave her the 1600 roubles due from the publication of his smallholder's encyclopaedia. Only Aleksandr still grumbled: he could not get his elder sons into school; little Kolia threw a cat from a third-floor window and expressed no remorse. Aleksandr turned to Vania and Sonia, as pedagogues: Would you take over the training of my piglets?… As soon as I leave the house they dash off God knows where, grab their hats and clear off… better that you should have the money than a stranger. Kolia… is useful, he can fetch vodka from the pub.52 Vania was willing, but it took two years to weaken Sonia's opposition. By autumn 1895 Chekhov had regained his hold over old acolytes, although Bilibin objected to being exploited for his Post Office connections. When Shcheglov asked after eighteen months' silence why Chekhov could not drop him a few friendly lines, he was won over by the response and opened to Chekhov 'both my heart and my hotel room'. He recorded in his diary (10 October 1895): 'There remain three persons, meeting whom makes my heart race: A. P. Chekhov, A. S. Suvorin and V. P. Gorlenko [a Kiev critic].' A planned reunion never happened, however, and Shcheglov left, disappointed, for the provinces.
For years Anton had put off meeting Tolstoy, but in August 1895 he stayed with Tolstoy at Iasnaia Poliana for thirty-six hours, even though a private talk with Tolstoy was now no more feasible than with the Pope. Anton had avoided being brought in, like a trophy, by Sergeenko and other Tolstoyans. Access to Tolstoy, even for intimates, was controlled by his disciple, Chertkov. Anton's visit was arranged by the journalist Mikhail Menshikov.53 Anton had an audience, not a conversation, with Tolstoy. The following morning, Chertkov and Gorbunov-Posadov, in the master's presence, read extracts from his unpublished novel Resurrection. Anton let Tolstoy's vegetarianism and anarchism pass, merely pointing out the heroine's implausibly light sentence for conspiracy to murder.
Tolstoy, compiling readers for the masses, had read Chekhov's prose and praised many of his stories, though not for what Anton liked in them. He deplored Chekhov's lack of a guiding idea: his most perceptive remark was that Chekhov merged with Garshin would
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make a great writer. Anton's person, however, charmed Tolstoy, in particular his 'young lady's gait'. (.'lukliov did not return like a Muslim from the haj, but he did feel admiration for the man, largely because he saw how much Tolstoy's daughters loved their father, and believed, as he later told Suvorin, that a mistress, wife or mother could be deceived, but a daughter could not.
Anton did not become a Tolstoyan: on i December he told Suvorin that he would enter any monastery that took unbelievers. He was, however, inspired to Tolstoyan activity. He pestered Aleksandr, who briefly edited a journal for the blind, until a blind old soldier who was begging at Iasnaia Poliana was housed. That autumn and winter Anton sent hay for the schoolteacher's cow, built a new school for the peasants, found cousins Volodia and Aleksandra places in a seminary and a dressmaking school, nagged Sytin, the Moscow publisher, to honour his agreement to publish The Surgical Chronicle run by Professor Diakonov. Innumerable writers - such as a Jew, Gutmakher, from Taganrog, and a derelict bookseller, Sveshnikov - owed publication of their work to Anton.