As 011 his previous visits to Yalta, Chekhov, as a well-known figure, was soon much pursued by the local gentry. Though he was as bored as a sturgeon, he wrote Tatyana Shchepkina-Kupernik, wenches with or without manuscripts were pestering him, and soon the familiar protest was heard that too many visitors prevented him from working. He took refuge, he paradoxically explained to Masha, in a girls' school, where he often dined with the head, Varvara Kharkeevich, and her teachers. In no time he found himself on the board of trustees, and he enjoyed having the pretty little girls in their white pelerines curtseying to him as he roamed about the halls on his official duties.
Before long the irresistible urge to be useful in a community had overtaken him. He attended the Town Council to listen to the local Ciceros; joined the Red Cross chapter; accepted an invitation to a meeting of district physicians, started a campaign in the newspapers to raise money for starving peasant children in Samara, and he even indulged in a little medical practice. If he wished, he wrote Menshikov, he could build up a large practice — in this town of tuberculars!
One day, after he had been in Yalta almost a month, Chekhov dropped in at the bookshop and the proprietor handed him a telegram that had been sent by Masha to Sinani: now would anton pavlovicii chekhov receive the news of his father's death? This was on October 13, and Chekhov's father had died the day before. Masha, perhaps because she distrusted her brother's invariably optimistic reports on his health, had taken this precaution, which had served only to confuse Sinani so that he had delayed a day in conveying the telegram to Chekhov. News of the death was already going the rounds in Yalta. Chekhov hurried to the post office, but there he found only a letter from Ivan telling him of their father's operation. After sending a telegram to Masha, he also wrote her for details, adding: "However this may be, the news is sad, entirely unexpected, and has grieved and disturbed me profoundly. I'm sorry for Father, sorry for all of you; the realization that all of you in Moscow are experiencing such difficulties at a time when I'm at peaceful Yalta — this realization does not leave me and haunts me constantly." (October 14, 1898.) He concluded by making a number of inquiries about his mother, and urged that she come to join him at Yalta.
In lifting a heavy box of books at Melikhovo Chekhov's father had sustained a severe rupture. After a tortuous journey to a Moscow clinic, where he underwent a long and painful operation, he died. When Chekhov learned the details from his sister and brothers, he intensely regretted that he had not been home at this crucial time. If he had, he said more than once, things might have gone differently. It does seem that the operation had been bungled; but with the reputation of his profession in mind, Chekhov felt it necessary to write Masha to still rumors to this effect in the neighborhood. There had been no question of his going to the funeral. Because of the delay in his receiving the news, and the fact that at best it would have taken him three or four days to reach home, he could never have got there in time. Besides, his health and the weather in Moscow then made the trip unwise. It pleased Chekhov that his father was buried in the exclusive Novodevichy cemetery which he had visited when he was so near death
himself as a patient in Dr. Ostroumov's clinic.
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Father's death ended his diary, Chekhov wrote Masha, and also the course of Melikhovo life. He spoke frequently now of selling the estate and building a new nest for the family, for he believed that his mother would not wish to go on living at Melikhovo.
Even before his father's death Chekhov had begun to explore the notion of buying a place in or near Yalta, for by now he had come to realize, because of the state of his health, that at best he could live at Melikhovo only during the summer months. The delightful weather he had been experiencing at Yalta encouraged him. The climate was very healthy, he reasoned, and obviously agreed with him. He began to rationalize his former dislike of the town while at the same time confessing boredom as visiting friends and celebrities left with the onset of winter. His letters suggest almost a comie effort to balance drawbacks with virtues — there were no good books to be had in the library and the only theater was wretched, but after all Yalta was the most cultured spot in the Crimea. Though it took between two or three weeks for a parcel to arrive from Moscow, and the only way to reach Yalta was by boat from Sevastopol or overland in a carriage, still he had heard that a direct railroad would soon be built. Then there was the captivating scenery —the sea and the mountains — which compensated for the annoying provincialism of the natives. And to Masha he offered that last despairing justification of a sick man: "It is pertinent to point out that in Yalta there are neither noblemen nor bourgeoisie; all are equal before the bacilli, and this Yalta classlessness constitutes its true worth." (December 2, 1898.)
Sinani took him to see a house for sale near the Tatar village of Kuchukoi, eighteen miles from Yalta, located on the mountain road to Sevastopol. The little house, with four rooms and a red roof, perched on dizzying heights, with a magnificent view of the sea, entranced him. No one could have been more practical than Chekhov in outlining to his sister and brothers every defect and virtue of this house and location, totally impractical for him and his family. But the place was so charmingly touching, cozy, original, and artistic (he would concludc)! Under no circumstances would he buy it unless they agreed, but it was cheap — only two thousand roubles!
The family failed to respond to his enthusiasm for this mountain retreat. Meanwhile the advice of the local doctors that if he wished to remain any time in Yalta he should buy a house, he construed as a command for immediate action. The doctors had also told him that he should not spend a full winter at Yalta. But why buy a house if he could build one? He quickly found the ideal spot in the suburb of Autka, about twenty minutes' walk from Yalta — an advantage, he thought, for the remoteness would protect him from visitors. The elevation was quite high and provided the kind of striking view of the sea and mountains which he loved. Just fine for a little house, he wrote Masha on October 9, where you could turn the key in the lock and leave everything. But he promised to wait, on both the Kuchukoi and Autka possibilities, for he did not wish, he joked, to subscribe to the old caricature of himself — Chekhov pursuing two hares at oncc.
The news of his father's death settled the matter. Chekhov decided to buy the site in Autka. Besides, he was weary of wandering from one hotel or rented apartment to another (he had moved three times so far during his stay in Yalta), and of taking potluck on meals. The altered circumstances of his life seemed to demand that he make definite plans for the future. Of course, there was the question of money. He asked and received from Suvorin an advance of five thousand roubles against the income from the sale of his books, to be paid back at the rate of no more than a thousand a year. The land cost four thousand and the estimate for building a house was ten thousand, toward which the bank was willing to give him a mortgage of seven thousand.