Gorky was impressed by Chekhov's criticism and by the time they met at Yalta he had already formed an image which was compounded of awe of the artist and revcrence for the man. Nor was he disappointed. He promptly wrote his wife: "Chekhov is a rare person. Kind, gentle, thoughtful. The public is frightfully in love with him and gives him no peace. He has no end of acquaintances here. To speak with him is pleasant in the highest degree, and I cannot remember when I've talked with anyone with so much satisfaction." They spent whole days together discussing and disputing, and on one occasion, according to Gorky, they continued right through the night until six in the moming. They also gave a charitable public reading together, along with Elpa- tievsky, on behalf of aid to the famine-ridden in Samara.
Gorky was a keen observer of men, and his characterization of Chekhov in his letters, reminiscences, and diary is often extraordinarily acute and understanding. He noticed that when Chekhov laughed his eyes were fine, tender, and caressing, and that his laugh, which was almost a silent one — he laughed in a "spiritual" way, Gorky said — suggested always an intense delight. But coarse anecdotes never provoked even a smile. Gorky also discovered the extent to which Chekhov's illness made him misanthropic and even capricious at times in his judgments, and morose in his attitude toward people. While lying on a couch one day, coughing and playing with a thermometer, Chekhov said to Gorky: "To live in order that we may die is not very pleasant; but to live knowing that we shall die before our time is up is profoundly stupid." Despite the worshipers who constantly surrounded Chekhov, according to Gorky, he was essentially a lonely man — one born too soon, a victim of the envy of the untalented. Gorky was talented enough to be a humble follower, and was almost inordinately proud of the attention Chekhov gave him. "His confidence in me touches me deeply," he wrote his wife, "and in general I'm tremendously glad that a man who has an enormous and original talent, the kind of writer out of whom epochs in the history of literature and in social thought are made, sees something in me which has to be reckoned with. It is not only flattering but extremely good for me, for it will compel me to be more stern and exacting with myself."
Chekhov's reactions to meeting Gorky at Yalta were naturally more subdued and peculiarly Chekhovian. He read Gorky's tale The Peasant at this time and told Mirolyubov that all the charactcrs speak the same way and that it was time to get rid of this kind of writing. To Avilova he commented: "Gorky is in Yalta. In appearance he is a tramp,4 but inside he is quite an elegant person — and he pleases me very much. I would like to introduce him to women, thinking it might be useful for him, but he bristles at this." (March 23, 1899.) And he also informed the distinguished writer, critic, and thinker, V. V. Rozanov, of Gorky's visit: "He is a simple man, a vagabond, and he first began to read when he was already an adult — and thus he was reborn, and now he reads eagerly everything that is printed, and he reads without prejudice, sincerely." (March 30, 1899.) Nevertheless, Chekhov advised many to whom he wrote at this time to be sure and read Gorky.
In his rcminisccnces Gorky tells of the trip they took to Chekhov's place at Kuchukoi. While showing him around the grounds Chekhov spoke with animation of his desire to build a sanatorium on this lovely spot for invalid rural teachers —a large, bright building, with a fine library, musical instruments, bees, a vegetable garden, and an orchard. He was quickly carried away by his favorite subject of the deplorable position of teachers and education in Russia. Without widespread education, he declared, Russia will collapse, and yet the teacher, who ought to be an artist, in love with his calling, was regarded as a mere journeyman who went from village to village to teach children as though he were going into exile. Then he suddenly stopped and jestingly dismissed the whole subject. "That was characteristic of him," Gorky wrote, "to speak so earnestly, with such warmth and sincerity, and then suddenly to laugh at himself and his words. In that sad and gentle smile one felt the subtle skepticism of a man who knows the value of words and dreams; and there also flashed in the smile a lovable modesty and dclicate sensitiveness."
Spring in Yalta, however, only reminded Chekhov of Moscow; Masha's letters from there about her social life, her meetings with literary and theater groups, filled him with envy. Besides, there were questions to be settled —what to do with Melikhovo and whether to buy a house in Moscow. Though Masha's news about the weather in Moscow was anything but encouraging, he left Yalta on April 10.
4 When Gorky first called on Tolstoy, the lattcr's wife, taking him for a tramp, invited him into the kitchen for a glass of tea and a roll.
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Always an eager reader of newspapers and magazines, Chekhov now intently followed their accounts of student strikes which were disturbing the whole country. They began that winter while he was still at Yalta. In an effort to prevent excesses in the traditional revelry of Founder's Day, February 8, at Petersburg University, the Rector threatened the suspension of any students who participated in unseemly acts. Resentful students demonstrated against this order and were beaten with whips by mounted gendarmes. They declared a strike and cut all classes. Further demonstrations followed and more violent clashes. Nicholas II publicly commcnded the actions of the authorities. The strike quickly spread to other university centers throughout Russia and a serious situation developed which reactionary advisers, such as K. P. Pobedonostsev, represented to the Tsar as a deliberate insurrectionary movement. A government commission was appointed to investigate.
Chekhov received a number of letters on the situation and some suspended students visited to seek his advice. Modesty and perhaps an excessively restrictive view on the limitations of the literary artist always prevented him from taking public stands on political, social, and moral problems, although at times he seems to have admired those who did. In writing Lidiya Avilova about the prerogatives of literary artists in such matters, he declared: "Is it for us to judge in this business? Rather it is the business of gendarmes, of the police, or of officials especially destined by fate for this calling. Our business is to write and only to write. If we are to wage war, to become indignant, to judge, then we should do it only by the pen." (April 27, 1899.) He meant, of course, only in the sphere of one's literary activity, and over the last few years he had been doing just this in a number of his stories — waging war, growing indignant, and passing judgment on national moral, social, and even political problems.
Whatever his reluctance to speak out publicly on such matters, he had very definite views about them, as his letters and the memoirs of close friends testify. He did his own thinking on these problems; and by now it tended to be somewhat to the left of the average Russian progressive. When he discovered that Life, in which he later published and with which Gorky and V. A. Posse were associated, had Marxist leanings, it did not trouble him. Nor was he in any sense disturbed by the surprising request of the celebrated political and social thinker