Not to be confused with the famous Moscow Maly Theater. It was the old name of the Petersburg theater which Suvorin had taken over.
Of New Times.
В. V. Gei was head of the foreign news desk at New Times.
Chekhov was not entirely candid here. His letters indicate that on a number of occasions he complained to Suvorin about the attitude and writings of leading contributors to New Times, and especially in the case of Burenin.
There is no other evidence that Tolstoy gave Chekhov the manuscript of Resurrection to read, either before or after the revision. Suvorin may have had in mind that Chekhov heard parts of the novel read on his first visit to Tolstoy.
that figures prominently in Lidiya Avilova's memoirs. Since their last meeting and her gift of the engraved watch-chain pendant, almost a year had passed. Though he did not attempt to see her on his first visit to Petersburg, at the beginning of 1896, she knew he was in the city and sent him a copy of her book, The Happy Man and Other Tales, with the inscription: "To the proud master from an apprentice." When he was safely back at Melikhovo he wrote her: "I unexpectedly had to leave Petersburg — to my great regret. Learning from Nadezhda Alek- seevna [her sister] that you had produced a book, I wanted to call on you to receive the offspring from your own hands, but fate resolved otherwise: I'm again in the country.
"I received the book on the day of my departure. I've not yet had time to read it, and therefore I can speak only about its external appearance: it has been very charmingly printed and looks fine.
"It seems that I'll be in Peteisburg again after the 20th or the 25th, and will then see you; and in the meantime permit me to wish you everything good. Why did you call me a 'proud master'? Only turkey- cocks are proud." (January ij, 1896.)
Perhaps the appellation mystified Chekhov because he was unaware of any manifestations of pride in his rather formal relations with her, but Avilova no doubt had in mind his imperviousness to her pursuit and, more precisely, his failure to react to the pendant's direction to come and take her life if he wanted it, or even to answer her request to meet her in Moscow. And now, despite the promise in his letter, he apparently had no intention of calling on her when he returned to Petersburg that January. But she found a way around this. Avilova's brother, visiting her from Moscow, proposed that they go to a masked ball at Suvorin's theater. Her memoirs give no indication that she knew Chekhov would be there, but her brother, upon spotting him in the throng, immediately drew her attention to Chekhov and said: " 'Now, of course, I'm released,' " and vanished. She went directly up to Chekhov and exclaimed: "'How glad I am to see you!'"
In her memoirs (Chapter IX), Avilova describes the evening she and Chekhov spent together and quotes from their conversation. Though it is clear that he has recognized her in her mask and domino costume, for some undiscoverable reason she persists in her anonymity, terrified that he or anyone else will find out who she is. She even takes from her handbag two nuts, which had been left there after a game of lotto with the children, and puts them in her mouth to make sure that her voice will not reveal her identity! And she represents Chekhov as also being deeply concerned that no one in this crowd should rccognize her. Presumably all this concealment was intended to heighten the element of romance in the account.
She asks: " 'But do you know who I am? Who am I? Tell me!' I snatched my arm from him and stopped. He smiled.
" 'You know my play will soon be produced,' he remarked, not answering my question.
" 'I know. The Sea Gull.'
" 'The Sea Gull. Will you be at the opening performance?'
" 'I will. Unfailingly.'
" 'Then listen very carefully. I'll answer you from the stage. But you must listen closely. Don't forget.' "
At the time of this purported conversation, of course, Chekhov had not yet finished the revision of The Sea Gull and could not be certain that the play would be accepted for performance, to say nothing of where — actually, he first intended to submit it to the Maly Theater in Moscow. In fact, almost nine months were to pass before the opening night. However, the remainder of this ninth chapter of Avilova's memoirs describes the first performance of The Sea Gull as following hard upon the incident at the masked ball. Obviously she telescoped the two events chronologically in the interests of a more effective narrative.
In what immediately follows in her memoirs, she persists in being puzzled by Chekhov's reference to the answer which he promises to give to her in his play, and she wonders whether he has not mistaken her for someone else — possibly Yavorskaya. Then she presses her shoulder against his and utters a confession of love for him, which he evades by the simple expedient of telling her that he suspects she is Yavorskaya. Finally, her brother extricates Avilova from this situation by taking her home. In bed that night she could not refrain from thinking: "I — Yavorskaya? Will he answer Yavorskaya from the stage?"
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In the early spring at Melikhovo Chekhov experienced several days of unusually severe coughing, accompanied by a discharge of blood, which brought on a mood of deep depression. Then later a weak right eye became infected, causing excruciating headaches, and he finally had to seek treatment from a Moscow eye doctor. Only now did he begin to adopt a less secretive attitude toward his illness. With growing frequency he frankly discussed the symptoms of his tuberculous condition in his correspondence, although he still continued to make light of it to his parents. When the architect Shekhtel, another of the good friends anxious about his unmarried state, urged a bride on him, Chekhov replied: "... I cannot marry at the present time, first because bacilli dwell in me, very dubious lodgers; secondly, I haven't a kopeck; and thirdly, it still seems to me that I'm very young. Let me roam around the world for another two or three years and we shall see — it may be that then I shall really marry." (December 18, 1896.) And he added by way of dispelling any alarm that, despite the bacilli and his cough, he did not feel badly and was constantly engaged in activities.
Indeed, Chekhov's activities, in defiance of all the laws of health, seemed to increase as his physical condition worsened. It was not merely an irrational challenge to the bacilli, the dubious lodgers within him, or the sense that time was running out, though there was something of this in his attitude, but rather his natural response to the demands made upon him as the first citizen in his community. His ambition was not simply to describe life in stories, but to reconstruct and transform it within the limited sphere of one man's activity. He had developed his small estate and beautified it with a growing forest and orchard and a wonderful garden of hyacinths, zinnias, asters, and rosebushes of every variety, in the growing of which he had become an expert. Now he turned his attention to the larger community around him. In 1896 he agitated for and secured the establishment of a postal and telegraph office at the nearby station of Lopasnya, and persuaded railway officials to have express trains stop there. Neighbors brought to his attention the dilapidated state of a bridge over the Lyutorka River, and he set about having it solidly rebuilt. At the request of Melikhovo peasants he collected funds for a church belfry for their village, supervised its construction, and for the cupola ordered a cross made of glass which was visible for miles around in the sun or moonlight. And he urged upon the County Board at Serpukhov, to which city he now made frequent trips on civic business, to lay a highway from Lopasnya to Melikhovo, a project that was finally voted.