Catching him alone, young Leskov introduced himself. Chekhov asked about the relations of his distinguished father with Suvorin. The son replied that at times they were very hostile but that his father regarded Suvorin as essentially a good man who had been spoiled by his love of money and the low journalists who surrounded him. Chekhov agreed: "Suvorin is not an evil man. His money, of course, has corrupted him, but more so that shocking New Times camarilla! ... He involuntarily submits himself to their influence. They corrupt him, the whole editorial staff, the newspaper, and its readers."
Indeed, shortly before this talk with Leskov, Chekhov, in a letter to Alexander, who still worked on New Times, denounced another attack in that paper against Dreyfus. He despised the reactionary political world in which Suvorin lived. Though it is difficult to credit the evidence, A. Ya. Bechinsky, editor of the Yalta newspaper Crimean Courier, reports Chekhov as telling him in conversation that Bechinsky, "together with other young political activists, ought to set up an extreme-left Yalta organization and struggle everywhere and in everything for social activity and fight against reactionary tendencies in society." However much Chekhov had come to desire social improvement in Russia, he was no revolutionist. Now, as in his youth, his profound skepticism about the sincerity of the efforts of political organizations to achieve human betterment kept him from giving his allegiance to any.
Despite the simple pleasures of Yalta and the life and friends he had already made for himself there, Chekhov could never lose sight of the fact that it was a provincial town. At times he had acute misgivings at the thought of having committed himself to building a house and living there through the fall and perhaps the winter. He would rather be bored in Moscow, for whose theaters and restaurants he languished. There were moments when even the snow of the north seemed attractive to him in this pleasant climate, and he gloomily declared that staggering around health resorts and his enforced idleness were worse than the depredations of bacilli.
But the bacilli gave him no peace of mind. A telegraphic report from an Odessa correspondent, published on the front page of the Petersburg News on October 25, announced: the condition of the
writer chekhov, living at yalta, has worsened: constant cough, fluctuation of temperature, periodic blood-spitting. Anxious queries soon began to arrive. He was furious, largely because of the anxiety this report would cause his family, whose members he had regularly been informing of the improved state of his health. He at oncc set about denying the newspaper account, sending a correction to the press. Rather defiantly he answered Suvorin's query: "I don't know who found it necessary to frighten my family by this cruel telegram, which is entirely false. All this time my temperature has been normal; I've not once taken my temperature, for there has been no occasion to do so. I have a cough, but it is no worse than always. My appetite is wolflike, I sleep well, drink vodka, wine, etc. The day before yesterday I had a cold, remained at home in the evening, but now I'm again feeling fine." (October 27,1898.)
Though it was not in Chekhov's nature to be unfriendly to anyone, newspaper reporters were almost an exception, and this incident increased his dislike. Dr. Isaac Altschuler, a specialist in tuberculosis as well as a victim of the disease, who had decided to settle in Yalta at about the same time Chekhov did, tells in his valuable memoirs of the origin of the false report. Two ladies called early one morning, before Chekhov had arisen, to ask him to participate in a literary evening for charity. In order to get out of it, he explained to the visitors, through his barely opened bedroom door, that he must decline because he had recently been spitting blood. "There you have it," explained Chekhov, "one of the ladies told this to an acquaintance, adding the word 'frequent' blood-spitting; the acquaintance wired to the Odessa newspaper, which added 'cough'; the Petersburg News printed the telegram, adding 'fever'; the Moscow Daily News put in 'racking cough,' and so forth. . . . I've always told you that the Odessa reporters are awful people."
When Dr. Altschuler first saw Chekhov in October, he found him cheerful, but at times he noticed a weary look on his face, a shortness of breath when the author went up an incline, and the throaty efforts made to stifle a cough when talking. Like so many others, he quickly became an admirer of Chekhov on short acquaintance, and he observed how the various distinguished writers who came to Yalta soon fell under the spell of the charm of his personality, talent, and original and brilliant mind. "His kindness, his desire to be useful in anything, to help in trifles as well as in important matters, was most exceptional."
At the beginning of their acquaintance Dr. Altschuler sensed, as. did other physician friends, that Chekhov under no circumstances wished to talk about his health. To the usual question how he was feeling, he invariably replied: "At the moment, fine, almost well, only there is this cough." Yet he would often call attention to Dr. Altschu- ler's cough, and seriously advise him to take care of himself. Doctors in particular, Altschuler explains, were inclined either to overestimate their own symptoms of illness and exaggerate the treatment, or underestimate them and rationalize little or no treatment by irrelevant medical conclusions. Chekhov belonged to this second category. And in addition, he had fallen a victim to the special psychology of the tubercular, largely an outgrowth of the uncertain and long development of the disease, which compelled him to reject what would appear to be clear and indisputable evidence of his affliction.
On November 27, however, Dr. Altschuler received a note from Chekhov asking him to come at once. The secret could no longer be concealed. The physician found him in bed in a state of slight hemorrhage from the lungs. The examination revealed his serious condition,, and from that time on Chekhov became his patient. Yet Dr. Altschuler could not prevail upon him then to undertake a serious course of treatment. Chekhov firmly insisted that being doctored was repulsive to him,, and he wanted no one to remind him of his illness or to pay attention, to it. Dr. Altschuler noticed that Chekhov had trained himself to speak slowly, not raising his voice, and if he did cough he would try rather furtively to get rid of the sputum in a paper cone which he would later dispose of. Though he concealed this relapse from the family, he wrote Suvorin: "I've had five days of spitting blood and only today has it ceased. But this is confidential, don't tell anyone. I'm not coughing at all, my temperature is normal, and my blood frightens others more than me — therefore I try to keep this a secret from my family." (November. 29,1898.)
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A knowledge of Chekhov's illness, however, did not discourage those who were anxious to see him married, and they obviously shared the common notion of those days that tuberculosis was not easily communicable. While Chekhov was still in Nice, Kovalcvsky, though concerned about his friend's health, inquired whether he was thinking of marriage. "Alas, I'm not up to such a complex, intricate thing as marriage," Chekhov explained. "The very role of a husband terrifies me, for there is something grim in it, like the role of a captain. Lazy as I am, I'd prefer a much easier role." (February 10,1898.)