For the most part, however, Chekhov lived up to the reputation that good doctors have of being their own worst patients. The commitments he had undertaken before his illness he somehow could not abandon now, despite the protests of his sister who strove to take these burdens on herself. He continued to collect and dispatch books to the Taganrog library, mildly protesting the inefficiency of their cataloguing system that listed the works of other authors under his name and confused foreign books with Russian ones and their translators with the authors. Nor could he surrender his task as examiner in the district schools, which left him with taut nerves and utterly fatigued at the end of the day. Supervising the completion of the Novoselki school took most of his time and energy, and a brief entry in his diary reflects nothing of the relief he must have experienced upon the conclusion of the work: "July 13: At the dedication of the Novoselki school, which I constructed. The peasants presented me an ikon with an inscription. The County Council was not represented." Perhaps because no district official had graced the occasion, he made a brief speech to the peasants — a kind of public effort he always tried to avoid. And he apparently did it poorly. At least, Misha, who was present with his sister, thought the talk not very fluent.
These activities probably did not place as great a strain on his weakened condition as did his guests. Reports of his illness increased the number of visitors; but his boundless hospitality and natural fondness for having people around him, as well as his customary thoughtlessness in issuing invitations to all and sundry, contributed to creating a situation which was positively damaging to his health. Rather defiantly and irrationally he wrote Leikin: "I'm getting fat and have already improved so much that I regard myself as entirely well and do not make use of the opportunities of a sick man — that is, I no longer have the right to evade guests when I wish to, and I'm not forbidden now to converse a lot." (July 4, 1897.) Chekhov's father, in his patient record of Melikhovo comings and goings, would now add in his diary "Thank God" when a guest departed.
The married brothers with their wives and children were the chief offenders, though more distant relatives also visited, such as Cousin Volodya from Taganrog. "He stayed forty-three days" was Father Chekhov's remorseless indictment of Volodya in his diary when this cousin finally left. Repeated visits by close family friends, such as Lika, Levitan, and Ivanenko — to which must be added his old Taganrog tutee Alexandra Selivanova and his former Medical School comrades, Zem- bulatov and Korobov — were more than matched by priests, monks, teachers, estate owners, doctors, and officials in the district. However, total strangers would turn up, too, such as two students from the Medical School of Moscow University who discussed student agitation and literary endeavors, with Chekhov advising them to start a student newspaper. Another new guest was the able artist Alexandra Khotyaintseva, who soon became a favorite of the family and returned often. Five years younger than Chekhov, she endeared herself to him by her caricaturing pencil and brush (she executed several paintings and sketches of him), as well as by her clever writing and conversation.
Leontiev-Shcheglov, whom Chekhov urged in his most persuasive manner to come, perhaps because he was one of the few close friends who had not seen Melikhovo, finally arrived at the beginning of May. The visitor was appalled by a marked change in Chekhov's face from when he had last seen it — only six weeks before in the clinic. It seemed to him yellow, exhausted. And he noticed how often his friend coughed. As they sat on a bench near the house, the dachshund Bromine at their feet, admiring the bed of tulips in full bloom, Chekhov said with a note of suffering in his voice that what he needed most was a full year of complete rest. "Imagine," he complained, "in the last few days almost a dozen guests have come here from Moscow. It is as though I were running an inn. And one must feed them, give them liquor, and worry about where to put them up for the night." The noises from the house and the piano-playing bothered him in the garden. If he wanted to do any writing, he had to wait until all went to bed.
"Actually they did not give him a moment's peace!" Leontiev-Shcheglov wrote in his memoirs. "Early in the morning a certain landowner arrived and stayed a long time. Then a rural physician appeared, next the village priest, and after him someone in a military uniform, perhaps a Melikhovo police officer. . . . And in the small hallway outside Chekhov's study, peasants and their wives hardly ever ceased entering and leaving, some on business, some on trifles, some for medical aid. And to cap it all, at lunchtime, like a bolt from the blue, came a guest from Moscow — a fat, unknown German, young and foppish, perhaps a dentist by profession, whom Chekhov may have met by chance at the Moscow clinic, and, as a 'colleague' of a certain sort, had hospitably given him his Melikhovo address."
Leontiev-Shcheglov was correcting the proof of a play which he had to return to the publisher next day. Chekhov read part of it and, according to his friend, made some valuable suggestions (Chekhov later told Suvorin that the play seemed to have been written not by the humorist Leontiev-Shcheglov, but by a cat whose tail the author had stepped on). He had just finished persuading the willing Leontiev- Shcheglov to send the corrected proof by mail and remain an extra day, when his guest learned that the fat German, who was already beginning to get on Chekhov's nerves, liked it so much at Melikhovo that he had decided to stay a week or two since he had plenty of time on his hands. Dismayed, Leontiev-Shcheglov persuaded the German to leave by telling him of Chekhov's poor health and his need of complete seclusion to write. And to make the story good, to his own and Chekhov's chagrin, he announced that he would leave at once with the German — a decision that he regretted, for it was the last time he saw Chekhov alive.
Several brief trips to Moscow over the summer — against the doctors' advice — enabled Chekhov to escape the Melikhovo guests. There he saw Korolenko and Ertel, who thought he had altered a great deal in appearance since the winter, despite the apparent improvement in his health. On one of these visits he sought out Levitan on the nearby estate of the millionaire S. T. Morozov, a lavish establishment which reminded him of the Vatican. He quickly departed, disgusted by the army of liveried lackeys, the vulgar furnishings, and the expressionless face of his host. On such trips to the city he preferred to look up Lika for a meal and a chat, usually with the hope of trying to persuade her to return to Melikhovo with him.
Though Chekhov had cautioned Braz that Melikhovo was the dullest estate in Russia, the artist arrived on July 4 to paint his portrait and, taking advantage of his host's hospitality, brought along his two nieces. On the same day Misha and his wife came, and found Alexander's two boys already there. Chekhov took refuge in the Lodge. Braz worked for seventeen days amidst the hurly-burly of Melikhovo, with Chekhov posing twice a day, and he still had not finished the portrait. In the end, he destroyed the canvas, attributing his failure to the conditions under which he worked and to the traces of illness which he found in Chekhov's features.
Once Chekhov had got rid of Braz, he took the brash step of making the overnight journey to Petersburg, something he had been longing to do ever since he left the clinic. He wanted to disillusion his friends there, who would be expecting to see an exhausted consumptive, scarcely breathing, by showing them, "instead, a face as round as the moon." Certainly Leikin, whom he visited, thought that he looked well, and he noted in his diary that Chekhov had good color, ate well, and was cheerful. With Suvorin, who was now deep in theatrical enterprises, Chekhov discussed drama. Shortly before, he had written Suvorin that he was reading Maeterlinck's plays and found them strange and wonderful things. If he owned a theater, he said, he would stage Les Aveu- gles, though taking the precaution to avoid the play's failings by summarizing the contents on the programs for the semi-idiotic public. Suvorin noted the visit in his diary and also the fact that Chekhov, who now thought he knew enough French, wanted to translate the tales of Maupassant, whom he admired.