Anton spent the first two weeks of December in Moscow in the Great Moscow Hotel, working on 'The House with the Mezzanine'. Ivan Bunin, then an unknown writer, later to be a kindred spirit, and his companion, Balmont, the drunken decadent poet, were in the hotel. Balmont reached for an overcoat and was stopped by a porter: 'That is Anton Chekhov's overcoat.' Balmont and Bunin were overjoyed at a pretext for meeting Chekhov, and entered his room in the morning. Anton was out, but Bunin sat down and furtively read the manuscript of 'A Woman's Kingdom'. Years passed before he met Anton and confessed.
After an all-night party at Russian Thought, Anton arrived in Meli-khovo at 6.00 a.m. on 17 December to what he feared would be 'hellish boredom'. The family gathered. Masha arrived, followed by Vania, accompanied not by his wife, but by Sasha Selivanova. Misha came on Christmas Eve for a parental blessing on his marriage to Olga. Pavel was happy because the samovar had been repaired and he had bought a new washstand: Matins at 7 a.m. Mass at 10. We dined without the priest [but with] the schoolteacher, visitors and family. We spent the day well, the
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1895
Boys came then Peasants with Felicitations. The servants received good presents. Dr Saveliev, fellow Taganrogian and medical student, also came. Anton wanted to write, not to celebrate, but he revealed his resentment only to Suvorin on 29 December: 'All day eating and talking, eating and talking'.
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The Flight of the Seagull To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. Shakespeare, Hamlet II, ii
FIFTY Ô
Two Diversions in Petersburg January-February 1896 WHEN NEW YEAR'S DAY 1896 DAWNED, it was nearly minus çî°Ñ at Melikhovo. Guests dispersed to Moscow while Anton packed his bags for Petersburg. The peasant women and children gathered for New Year gifts from Pavel. The Chekhovs' reactionary neighbour Semenkovich rode over from Vaskino: one of his anecdotes struck a chord in Anton's heart - his uncle, the poet Fet, so loathed the University of Moscow that whenever his carriage passed the building, he stopped his driver, opened the window and spat.
Peasant beggary and sociable gentry were soon out of mind. Anton took the morning train to Moscow with Vania. From Moscow he took the overnight express to Petersburg and the Hotel Angleterre. Ignati Potapenko was less in evidence: his second wife had reined him in. On one quiet evening in a frantic fortnight, with Aleksandr's encouragement Chekhov took the insortable Natalia to the theatre. Every other evening Anton moved like a comet through a galaxy of actresses. He took Kleopatra Karatygina to see Ostrovsky's Poverty is no Vice at Suvorin's Literary-Artistic Circle. She recalled: Chekhov grabbed me behind the wings and dragged me off… Suvorin in his overcoat and hat, holding a stick, was sitting in the front box. He was banging the stick and growling, I felt a savage outburst coming and pleaded with Chekhov to let me out, but he assured me it would be fun and persuaded me to sit down… We could hear Suvorin [cursing one of the actresses]: 'You bitch, you bitch!…' Chekhov managed to seize him by his coat sleeve… I took fright, rushed out of the box and then Chekhov and I laughed so loud that he said his spleen would burst.1 Kleopatra, like Natalia, was abandoned for more fashionable company. Schadenfreude and curiosity drove Chekhov to Lidia Iavorskaia's benefit night on 4 January. She starred in Rostand's La Princesse
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lointaine, in Tania Shchepkina-Kupernik's version. This magnificent translation was the last service that Tania performed for Lidia. Now that Iavorskaia was betrothed to Prince Bariatinsky, she was turning her back on her lesbian past. After an all-male dinner with the cadaverous Grigorovich, Anton went to the theatre with Suvorin. The next evening Anton scandalized Sazonova by calling Iavorskaia, as the 'distant princess', a washerwoman covering herself in garlands. On the subject of Tania's verse he was milder - she had a vocabulary of only twenty-five words, ecstasy, prayer, aquiver, murmur, tears, dreams, but could write entrancing verse. After this sally, Chekhov went off to dine with Potapenko, the critic Amfiteatrov and the novelist Mamin-Sibiriak. Suvorin could not come. 'A pity,' said Anton cruelly, 'You're an excellent companion. You pay for everyone.' Suvorin felt an outsider: some blamed Anton's liberalism for Suvorin's disagreements with his rabid colleagues. The journalist Gei yelled at Chekhov on the steps of the Maly Theatre, accusing him of alienating the magnate from his acolytes. On 8 January, to escape these tensions, Chekhov went to Tsarskoe Selo to drink and dine with a fellow-provincial, the Zola of the Urals, Mamin-Sibiriak.
Mamin was one new friend who put Anton at his ease. Anton's impromptu quips in foyers and restaurants, however, sowed seeds of hostility towards him in the Petersburg theatrical world. Lidia Iavorskaia showed no resentment - she sent affectionate notes to Anton that January and met him for tea at Suvorin's, and in private. She had left Korsh's theatre and his bed. She now needed to please the Petersburg public, but was at loggerheads with Suvorin, who loathed her mendacity - she constantly demanded more money - although her notoriety was a crowd-puller no entrepreneur could dispense with. Matters came to a head on the night of 11 January. Iavorskaia missed the dress rehearsal of Sazonova's play. Suvorin was dragged from his bed. Trembling with rage, he sat down to write to her but was lost for words. Anton then started to dictate a mild note: 'You will hurt the author's and your colleagues' feelings if you don't come.' Sazonova took over: 'The play must run tomorrow. Kindly learn the part and be at the rehearsal at n.' The next evening the play was performed. Sazonova forgave Anton for his lily-livered tone with Iavorskaia: 'I went to the director's room for a smoke. Chekhov praises my play. I am so touched I could throw my arms round his neck.'2
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Anton had to leave for Melikhovo: on 22 January 1896 Misha was to marry Olga Vladykina, and Anton's absence would have been an insult. Natalia, said Aleksandr, 'thinks you were running away from women or chasing after women.' Certainly, Anton had taken pains to elude Lidia Avilova, in whom he had suddenly lost interest, but there was no woman waiting for him in Moscow.
Back in Melikhovo the only relative waiting for Anton was cousin Georgi from Taganrog, who had brought Santurini wine and pickled mussels to celebrate Anton's thirty-sixth birthday. The surly Roman had shot a hare for dinner. Pavel reported the usual rows in his son's absence. On 4 January Roman had 'caused a scandal' and on 6 January Ivan the workman had been dismissed for drunkenness. Pavel had hired an Aleksandr Kretov, who proceeded to seduce the maid. The good news was that the red cow had calved and that the post office at Lopasnia had been opened and consecrated: with God's blessing, guests would now herald their arrival. Aunt Marfa's good news was, however, her idea of a joke: 'Darling Antosha, Congratulations on your new happiness and new bride. I've found you a bride, ninety thousand dowry…'3
Anton spent his birthday - it was minus2 5°C - helping the piebald cow to calve. The next day he used cousin Georgi's departure to make a day trip to Moscow, and sent apologies to Lidia Avilova, promising to see her shortly in Petersburg. Petersburg missed Anton. Suvorin, wrote Aleksandr, was so moody after Anton's departure that nobody dared come near: he had even rowed with his intimates, the venomous Burenin and the devious Syromiatnikov. Anton had hurt Natalia by eating too little, not taking her out and not giving her the puppy he had promised. Aleksandr was sending Natalia to Moscow to sell books, but, he reassured Anton, his pariah of a wife would not spoil her brother-in-law's marriage to an officer's sister. 'She's a coward and unlikely to dare to undertake the journey from Lopasnia solo.' Potapenko would not attend the wedding either, writing from Moscow: Dear Antonio, I had intended to come to Melikhovo, but the forthcoming marriage there sticks in my path. I'm sure that the solemn event will bring Misha the maximum happiness… As I do not personally have this maximum I try to avoid such spectacles. Come here, Antonio, because I want to see you. Suvorin sent a note to me