" 'Where did you hear that?'
" 'Where? Why, all Moscow is talking about it.'
For a discriminating analysis of the fact and fiction which grew out of Chekhov's visit to Levitan on this occasion, and which subsequently became connected with The Sea Gull, see David Magarshack, Chekhov the Dramatist, London, 1952, pp. 180-182.
Ariadne appeared in the December issue of Russian Thought, 1895.
" 'Tout Moscow, tout Moscow/'3 Chekhov laughed, and in further conversation (we went off together) he denied the courting."
In fact, Chekhov gladly recommended Yavorskaya to Suvorin as an actress for the theater which Suvorin had taken over in Petersburg, remarking that she was intelligent, dressed well, and that if she could overcome her tendency to pose, she would be a fine actress. Suvorin employed her, and in answer to his suspicious inquiry as to whether she was living with Korsh, Chekhov denied this but added that Korsh was very jealous of her. In general, Chekhov told Suvorin, she was altogether too avid a publicity seeker.
When Ariadne appeared in print, however, rumormongers peddled the notion that the story was a pasquinade on Yavorskaya because she had jilted Chekhov. Ariadne in the story is certainly one of the most cruelly dissected Becky Sharp types in all of Chekhov's fiction. Extremely beautiful and desirable, she uses the men who pursue her, even the one who adores her with an entirely selfless love, with utter callousness. Whatever shred of conscience she has left she employs, not as a guide, but as a kind of accomplice in designing schemes of self- betterment. Affectation and pretense are the dress and loose ornament of her conversation and meetings; no scruple is allowed to stand in the way of being successful and fascinating.
Some of the surface features of Yavorskaya's personality may appear in Ariadne, who, however, is not an actress but the sister of a bankrupt owner of an estate. Otherwise this finished portrait of feminine sensuality and love of power bears little resemblance to that of the successful comedienne. Lazarev-Gruzinsky conjectures, and perhaps with some basis, that journalists hostile to Chekhov had helped to spread the gossip of a love affair, and that Yavorskaya, intent on publicity of any sort, willingly claimed that a famous author, disappointed in her affections, had spitefully portrayed her in this story.
In keeping with his harsh sentiment on Ariadne, Chekhov's letters to Suvorin over this year contain remarks on women and marriage that border on the cynical and yet reveal him in a state of worried indecision in relation to them. In commenting on a woman in his life, whose name Suvorin had obviously brought up but which is carefully omitted in Chekhov's reply, he wrote: "She is a talented girl but you will hardly
3 That year Chekhov had informed Leikin that he had been studying French and had finally conquered the language to the extent that he would not make a fool of himself in Paris, could ask for help, and thank a waiter.
find her likable. I'm sorry for her because I'm vexed with myself; half the time she is with me I cannot stand her. She is as foxy as the devil, but her motives are so petty that she turns out to be a rat rather than a devil . . ." And further on he continues with the subject of women: "Phui, phuil Women deprive one of youth, only not in my case. In my lifetime I've been a clerk and not a proprietor, and fate has favored me very little. I've had few romances and am as much like Catherine[5]as a nut is like a battleship. Silk nightdresses mean to me only something comfortable, that is, soft to the touch. I'm well disposed to comfort, but debauchery does not attract me. . . ." (January 21, 1895.)
Suvorin had once again raised the question of marriage and Chekhov lightly answered: "I've probably not married up to now for the reason that wives are accustomed to give their husbands slippers. Yet I'm willing to marry, though not to a pockmarked widow. That would be dull." (February 19, 1895.) He faced the question in a more direct manner in a later letter: "Very well, I'll marry if you wish it. But here are my conditions: Everything must remain as before —that is, she must live in Moscow and I in the country, and I'll make visits to her. The kind of happiness which continues day in and day out, from one morning to the next, I cannot endure. When people tell me the same thing in the same tone of voice every day, I become furious. ... I promise to be a splendid husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear in my sky every day. Nor will I write better for being married." (March 23, 1895.) And still later that year he again reverted to the question: "I'm afraid of a wife and domestic routine, which would cramp me and in actuality would not be compatible with my untidiness; but it might be better than to drift about on the sea of life, tossing in the frail skiff of profligacy. I've already got over loving mistresses. ..." (November 10,1895.) has been seriously linked, continued to receive the same casual treatment. On January 21 Chekhov finally got around to answering the letter which Lika had sent him from abroad in the middle of December of the prececding year. It was a kind, reassuring reply: "Dear Lika, I expect you in January or February; if I should be in Petersburg, then inform me of your arrival and I'll come to Moscow, to Melikhovo, or anywhere you say. I want to talk with you, not write you about things, for all remains as of old, nothing has changed." The chastened Lika, however, did not arrive until May.
Though Chekhov appears not to have written a single letter to Lidiya Avilova in 1894, at the end of that year he requested Alexander to find out her address at the editorial office of her brother-in-law. This seems to be another example of his forgetfulness, so strangely persistent in his relations with Avilova, and at the same time he apparently also forgot the mysterious arrangement (if it ever existed) which she mentions in her memoirs — that he was to send letters to her in Petersburg poste restante. The reason now for desiring her home address is not clear, unless it be the need to return some manuscript which she had sent to him for criticism.
At the beginning of February of 1895 Chekhov went to Petersburg, and on the twelfth Avilova tells in her memoirs (Chapter V) of meeting him, and some of his literary friends, at a dinner at Leikin's. Although she professed to guard her passion for Chekhov with great secrecy, at this point Mrs. Leikin, as well as Avilova's sister, appears to have been fully aware of her interest. She represents Chekhov as being in high spirits and amusing all with his remarks. At the end of the evening he offered to escort her home. She described his awkward and uncavalier behavior in seating her in the sleigh and then crowding her. When she complained good-naturedly he accused her, in mock seriousness, of constantly grumbling and being angry. When she asked if he were staying long in Petersburg, he answered:
" 'I want to remain another week. We ought to see each other more often, every day. Do you agree?'
" 'Come tomorrow evening,' I proposed before I had time to realize what I was doing.
" 'To your place?'
"For some reason we were both silent for a time.
" 'Will you have many guests?' Chekhov asked.
" 'On the contrary. Misha [her husband] is in the Caucasus, and with him away I expect no one.' "
Chekhov promised to come if he were not dragged off somewhere by the Suvorins, with whom he was staying.
In none of Chekhov's correspondence from Petersburg at this time is there any mention of the dinner at Leikin's, although he does indicate, in a letter to his sister on February 7: "Yesterday Leikin visited and asked me to come to his place for a family evening." Nor do Potapenko or Lazarev-Gruzinsky, whom Avilova mentions as among the writers present, say anything about this gathering in their memoirs of Chekhov. More surprising is the absence of any record of the evening in Leikin's extensive diary, of which the portion dealing with Chekhov has lately been made available in print. His other contacts with Chekhov over 1895 are meticulously entered.