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Life at Melikhovo over the summer of 1896 was busier than ever, with more than the usual number of visitors, which included all three of Chekhov's brothers and their wives, the children of Alexander, the son of Ivan, and his aunt and her daughter from Taganrog. Because of guests, civic duties, care of the sick, and his writing, Chekhov regretfully had to put off a second visit to see Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana — two mysterious American visitors had brought him copies of certain works of Tolstoy printed abroad but banned in Russia, with the request to deliver them to the great man. But it occurred to Chekhov that in the summer Tolstoy had many more guests than he did, and that he would only be in the way there. He also had to abandon an idea
7 The nickname of the younger sister Zhenya in the story, applied to her as a child because of her mispronounciation of "Mrs." in talking with her English governess.
of arranging for a hundred school children to visit the national Exhibition at Nizhny Novgorod.
However, Chekhov did manage to steal off to Moscow several times during the summer, and there, as he noted in his diary on June 1, he visited the graves of those who had been killed at Khodynka field. It is curious that this is Chekhov's only reference to the terrible catastrophe that summer at the coronation of Nicholas II, when over a thousand people were crushed to death, because of police incompetence, in a panic that occurred at the distribution of gifts in honor of the coronation.
Before the end of the summer neither his various activities, nor, as he said, the blooming beauty of his roses and masses of columbinc could hold him any longer at Melikhovo. After a quick trip in July to a dacha not far from Rybinsk, which Suvorin had rented, and a brief visit, on the way back, to Misha and his wife at Yaroslavl, Chekhov set out again, on August 20, for the Caucasus. This lengthy journey was aided by a free railroad pass which Suvorin had obtained for him, and by a large advance from the magazine Niva for a long story, My Life.
Chekhov stopped briefly at Taganrog to visit the library and sec his cousin Ycgorushka,, and at Rostov he dined with his old schoolmate Volkenstein, who had become a lawyer. Then he pushed on to Kislovodsk, and there met acquaintances who, like himself, were vacationing at this resort. He listened to band concerts twice a day, ate his fill of Caucasian shashlyk, participtated in a hunting expedition, and bathed in the famous mineral springs. When the weather turned bad, he set out for Novorossiisk and there boarded a steamer for Feodosiya, to which he had been cordially invited by Suvorin. After a stay of ten days, during which they talked much about the theater and future plans for the production of The Sea Gull, Chekhov returned to Melikhovo on September 17.
Before and after his return Chekhov had considerable correspondence with Niva on censorship objections to My Life.8 He was exasperated by the censor's demands that he changc or delete a number of outspoken details of social existence in this searing expose of provincial intelligentsia. There are various autobiographical echocs of Chekhov's youth in My Life, and his recent experience in building the Talezh school contributes to the account of the construction of the school- house in the village of Kurilovka in the story. In esscnce, however,
8 My Life first appeared in the "Monthly Literary Supplements" of Niva, 1896.
My Life tells of the revolt of a rigidly reared son and daughter against their unforgiving and hopelessly limited father, the local architect. More than this, their revolt is one against the whole social pattern of this provincial town, of which nearly all the characters are victims — against its vulgarity, meanness, social inequality, insincerity, filth, and cruelty. Up and down the social ladder the whole complex of daily existence is rooted in bribery, which has been virtually institutionalized in the town. And Chekhov's picture was no doubt intended as a representation of provincial town life in general in Russia.
The interesting fact, however, is that the revolt of Poleznev, the hero, is inspired by Tolstoyan principles. He rejects his position in the privileged class in order to become a common workman, a house painter. For, he argues, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, should share equally in the struggle for existence. And when Dr. Blagovo points out that such a doctrine would represent a menace to progress, Poleznev provides the stock Tolstoyan answer: "Progress consists in deeds of love, in fulfillment of the moral law."
Although My Life is commonly regarded as still another powerful indictment of Tolstoyan theory and practice, the evidence is not as clear-cut as that. Poleznev fails in his marriage, his father disowns him, and his sister dies, but he does not reject his Tolstoyan practices. He remains a common worker in the end, and his life seems to have more dignity and serenity than can be found among his old friends in the privileged class from which he came. If Tolstoyism, however, was not the answer to the gloomy provincial world that Chekhov described, he did not pretend that there was any other panacea. With his practical physician's mind, he knew there were no easy remedies or universal solvents. And with his artist's sense, he also knew that the activities and theories of human beings are not nearly so important as their sorrows. Steeled by their sorrows, the main characters of My Life move toward the Chekhovian conviction that progress and happiness are to be found, not in love, but in truth.
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Throughout the earlier part of the year Chekhov had been revising the first draft of The Sea Gull. He must have finished the second version by the end of March, for at the beginning of April he sent a copy to Potapenko, no doubt to assure himself that the reworked characterization of Trigorin was no longer a close likeness of his friend. In fact, when the manuscript of The Sea Gull encountered difficulties with the censor — mostly over frank expressions of intimate relations between Arkadina and Trigorin — Chekhov entrusted Potapenko with the task of dealing with this official in Petersburg. And in order to meet last-minute objections by the censor, Potapenko, on his own authority, introduced a few slight changes and managed to obtain clearance for the play before the end of August.
An invitation from the Alexandrinsky Theater in Petersburg to stage The Sea Gull on October 17 as a benefit performance for the noted comic actress E. I. Levkeeva settled the matter of the opening with Chekhov. It was a fateful decision.