By the end of the second act Chekhov could stand no more. He left his box and took refuge backstage in Levkeeva's dressing room. What went through the mind of one of Russia's most popular and be-
9 Levkeeva did have a role in a three-act comedy which immediately followed The Sea Gull. The staging of two plays in an evening was a familiar practice in the Russian theater of those days.
loved writers at this time is unknown. In his diary, after a bare entry that The Sea Gull had failed, he later added that while he sat in this dressing room, theater officials came and went, one of them a handsome young man from the police department. The actresses treated these officials with respect, he observed, and flattered them as old housekeepers flattered their masters when they visited. And he conjectured that just as men who attached themselves to something they knew nothing about — art, the theater, painting — and had no alternative other than to become officials, so did men become officials who knew nothing of life and were incapable of dealing with it. He must have wondered whether he, who thought he knew much about life and art, ought now to try and become an official.
When the performance ended — he later told Potapenko — he stole out of the theater with his coat collar up, like a thief in the night. He overheard one of the audience say: "That is the writer." And his friend added: "And a very poor one." A third asked: "Who is this Chekhov? Where did he spring from?" And he heard a short gentleman exclaim indignantly: "I don't understand what the theater directors are about. It's insulting to put such a play on the stage." He wended his lonely way to Romanov's restaurant, had supper, and then walked the streets of Petersburg for hours.
Meanwhile, Masha and Lika, crushed by their experience at the theater, waited for Chekhov in their hotel room where he had promised to call after the performance and take them out to dine. Alexander arrived looking for him, and said that he had not turned up at the dinner in honor of Levkeeva, nor was he at Potapenko's. The ever loyal Alexander had scribbled his brother a note: "I learned about your Sea Gull only today at the theater — it is a wonderful, excellent play, full of profound psychology, thoughtful, and it grips the heart."
Finally, worried over Chekhov's failure to appear, Masha went to Suvorin's at one in the morning. His wife, with disheveled hair, over-: whelmed her with trivialities, and Suvorin insisted upon telling her what needed to be done to The Sea Gull to improve it. He finally responded to her plea to help find her brother by sending messengers to the theater, Potapenko, and Levkeeva. At two in the morning Chekhov entered his separate apartment at the Suvorins'. In his diary Suvorin recorded their brief conversation when he went in to say that Anton's sister wished to see him:
" 'Where have you been?'
" 'I walked the streets; sat. I couldn't just forget about the performance, could I? If I live to be seven hundred, I'll not give another play to the theater. In this field I'm a failure.' He then said he would leave on the morrow. 'And, please, don't try to stop me. I cannot stand listening to all their conversation.' "
Suvorin returned to tell Masha that her brother would see no one.
Callers began to arrive at nine on the morning of the eighteenth. Any moment Chekhov expected Davydov, who had played the part of Sorin, with advice and expressions of sympathy. The thought was unbearable. Potapenko, who had not been present at the performance, came at ten and found Chekhov writing letters, his open suitcase packed.
"It's good you've come. At least, I'll have company to the station. I can give you that pleasure since you were not among the witnesses of my triumph last night. Today I don't want to see the witnesses."
"Not even your sister?"
"We'll see each other at Melikhovo. Let's have a good time first. Here are the letters."
He wrote a brief, comforting note to Masha, telling her he was not upset, that he had been prepared for the outcome of the play by the rehearsals, and that he was leaving for Melikhovo.
Another note to Misha announced that the play fell with a crash. "Throughout the theater was a strained feeling of perplexity and disgrace. The actors played abominably, stupidly. The moral is: I must not write plays."
The last letter was to Suvorin, in which he ordered him to stop the publication of a volume of plays, including The Sea Gull, the manuscript of which Chekhov had turned over to him. "I'll never forget last evening, yet I slept well and am leaving now in quite a tolerable mood. . . . Never again will I write plays or have them staged."
He intended to take the first train he could get, and when Potapenko warned him it was a very slow one, he said: "All the better. I'll sleep and dream of glory. Tomorrow I'll be at Melikhovo. What bliss! No actors, no directors, no public, no newspapers. But a fine nose you have."
"Why so?"
"I ought to have said — 'a feeling of self-preservation'. Yesterday you didn't go to the theater. I also ought not to have gone. If you had only seen the faces of the actors! They looked at me as though I'd robbed them and kept as far as possible from me."
At the railroad station Chekhov joked at his own and Potapenko's expense. When a newsboy offered a paper, he replied: "I don't read!" And, turning to Potapenko, he said: "See what a kind face he has, yet his hands are full of poison. In every paper there's a review."
Despite Chekhov's efforts at witticisms and laughter, Potapenko observed, as the train pulled out, the deep distress in his gentle eyes.
« 7 »
"When you come to Melikhovo, bring Lika with you" — was it solace that he wanted when he added this in his letter to Masha on leaving Petersburg? They had eventually resumed their old relationship, on a more restrained level, after her dismal romance with Potapenko. Chekhov still enjoyed Lika's company and his urgent invitations to her to visit were renewed. Once again she began to come to Melikhovo often, and he resumed writing his serio-comic notes. He rarely missed an opportunity to see her on his trips to Moscow, writing in advance to suggest a meal together, but at the same time playfully warning that he would not permit her "to take liberties" with him; after all, he was still unmarried.
On the other hand, he may have wished to see Lika at this unhappy time because his conscience troubled him — the performance of The Sea Gull must have revived the anguished memories of her love affair and her dead child. Masha, in describing the opening night in her memoirs, wrote that Lika "only a short time before had had an unsuccessful romance with Ignati Nikolaevich Potapenko. In earlier readings of The Sea Gull to us, it had been clear that Anton Pavlovich had to some extent reflected this romance in his play. And, of course, the performance would agitate Lika." Another reason for concern was the possibility of an encounter in the theater between Lika and Potapenko and his wife. In Chekhov's letter to Masha on October 12, in which he tried to discourage her from coming to the play, he included a comment which he obviously intended should be passed on to Lika (both had planned to stay together in Petersburg) to discourage her also: "He [Potapenko] will be at The Sea Gull with all his family, and it may happen that his box will be next to ours— then Lika will be in a pickle." A mysterious note to Potapenko at this same time, in which Chekhov asked to see him — "I must speak with you confidentially" — suggests that he also warned his friend of this possible encounter. In any event, Potapenko's decision not to appear at the opening night of The Sea Gull, a play with which he had closely associated himself, was no doubt taken in order to avoid meeting Lika.