But in her emotional state Olga was incapable of divination. She did not hesitate to write him of the way people were talking about them, or to throw out broad hints of their future life together. But these passages he ignored and perhaps disliked. The daily doings at Yalta were the substance of his letters and only occasionally did he dwell on intellectual or creative things. It soon occurred to Olga that he was holding something back and she pleaded with him to write her all, to be clear and open. We are not children, she insisted, and she wanted to hear everything that was in his heart. Patiently but realistically, he responded: "You write: 'You have a loving, tender heart, then why do you harden it?' But when have I become hard-hearted? And in what, precisely, have I shown this flintiness? My heart has always loved you and been tender to you, and I've never concealed it from you, never, never, and you accuse me of hard-heartedness simply for no reason at all. If I may judge from your letters in general, you wish and expect some explanation, some sort of long conversation — with grave faces and consequences; and I don't know what to say to you except one thing which I have told you ten thousand times already and shall probably go on telling you for a long, long time, that is, that I love you — and nothing more. If we are not together now, it is neither your fault nor mine, but that of the devil who put bacilli in me and the love of art in you." (September 21, 1900.)
With obvious elation Chekhov wrote Gorky on October 16 that he had at last finished The Three Sisters, and he added that it had been terribly hard work. The principal reason for his remaining at Yalta no longer existed. The next day a wire went off to Olga that he was leaving
for Moscow, "without fail," on October 21.
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Five days to two weeks was Chekhov's estimate of the length of time he could risk in Moscow. It would all depend on the weather. Actually he remained seven weeks. He knew that he ought not to be there at that time of the year, and it is ironic to find him just then answering a query of Lidiya Avilova about the best treatment for her tubercular brother by advising that he should at once go to Yalta because consumptives improve there very quickly.
Though Chekhov stayed at the Dresden Hotel, he appears to have made the Moscow Art Tbeater his headquarters. There were the excitement and art that he loved; there also was Olga, frantically busy with rehearsals in the daytime and performances at night. Like some stage- door Johnny, he waited for Olga after working hours so he could "talk and talk on or even be silent with her." Like him, she loved nature, and on her rare free days they perhaps strolled in one of the city's parks — a desire he had expressed in his letters — when she would not have to be worrying constantly about getting back to rehearsals. He frequently attended these rehearsals and saw regular performances, sometimes more than once, of all the plays in the repertoire that season: his own Uncle Vanya and The Sea Gull, Hauptmann's Lonely Lives, and Ibsen's Dr. Stockman* and When We Dead Awaken, although he continued to regard Ibsen's work as too involved, artificial, and intellectualized. Gorky, who was then in Moscow, often accompanied him, and the audiences, recognizing the two authors, accorded them ovations. At the end of the third act, in one of the performances of The Sea Gull, Nemirovich-Danchenko presented Chekhov with a laurel wreath bearing the inscription: "To a highly talented friend of the management and actors of the Art Theater."
Soon after Chekhov's arrival, Stanislavsky arranged for a reading of the first draft of The Three Sisters.5 Chekhov and the directors sat at the center of a large table set up in the foyer of the theater. All the company was present, including the ushers, stagehands, and even a tailor or two. Stanislavsky recalled that Chekhov was excited and felt out of place in the chairman's seat, and that the atmosphere of the gathering was a triumphant and uplifted one. During the reading Chekhov would occasionally jump up and walk about the room, especially when the lines seemed to him to ring falsely.
According to Olga, a puzzled silence reigned at the conclusion of the reading. Chekhov, concealing his embarrassment by smiling and coughing nervously, circulated among the troupe. Soon she heard snippets of •conversation: "This is really not a play, it is only a prospectus . . ."
The Moscow Art Theater's title for Ibsen's play, An Enemy of the People.
In Olga Knipper's account, she asserts that Chekhov himself read the manuscript. However, it is most unlikely that he would have elected to read the whole play before a group of experienced actors.
"Impossible to act it, there are no roles, only some hints or other . . ." Some argued whether it was a drama or a tragedy, and one speaker began in a loud voice: "Although I don't agree with the author in principle, still . . ." Chekhov, so Stanislavsky remembered, could not survive this "in principle." When no one was looking, he disappeared. Afraid that illness might have compelled him to leave, Stanislavsky hurried to his hotel. He found Chekhov in a mood of black anger: "It is impossible. Listen —'in principle'!" he exclaimed^ The real reason for his anger, Stanislavsky concluded, was that Chekhov had believed he had written a happy comedy, and now felt the play was already a failure.6
In an earlier letter to Olga, Chekhov had indicated that one of the reasons he wished to go to Moscow was to be present at the rehearsals of The Three Sisters. "Four responsible female roles, four young women of the educated class, I cannot leave in the hands of Alekseev [Stanislavsky] despite all my respect for his gifts and understanding." (September 15, 1900.) At this point, however, he did not consider the play as finished. While he was in Moscow he revised two acts and hence it seems that very little was done by way of formal rehearsals. The initial reaction, however, had discouraged him. On November 13 he wrote Vera Kommissarzhevskaya, who requested The Three Sisters for her benefit performance in Petersburg, that it was dreary, long, and more gloomy than gloom, and that people were saying that its spirit was suicidal. But Chekhov had certainly misjudged the reaction of Stanislavsky, whom he saw a great deal of in discussing the staging of the play, for this co-director wrote L. V. Sredin that he regarded The Three Sisters as "wonderful and most successful."
A tragedy occurred while Chekhov was in the city —the Moscow student son of I. A. Sinani, that genial and helpful bookseller friend of all the Yalta celebrities, committed suicide. Chekhov met the grief- stricken father at the station to comfort him, and he and Olga attended the funeral.
While in Moscow Chekhov received a letter from Suvorin, which was now a rather rare event. At the beginning of 1900 Suvorin had sent him a copy of his new play and had also wired congratulations on Chekhov's birthday and election to the Academy of Sciences. Chekhov
6 Stanislavsky may well have been incorrect in this conclusion. Chekhov was rather precise in the description of his plays, and he nowhere refers to The Three Sisters as a "comedy." His own description of it in the printed volume of his plays is: "A Drama in Four Acts." wrote him a favorable appreciation of the play and added a suggestion on how to improve the fourth act. But in another letter he sharply criticized an article of Suvorin in New Times which attacked the jury system.