Since the Moscow Art Theater, in a guest role, was performing in
Petersburg at this time, Chekhov was particularly anxious. In fact, the revolutionary fervor did seem to spill over into the performances, especially into that of Dr. Stockman (Ibsen's An Enemy of the People). Although the hero despised the masses and believed in individual action, when Stanislavsky, who played the part of Stockman, said his line: "One must never put on a new coat when one goes to fight for freedom and truth," pandemonium broke loose in the audience, many of whom had been present at the riot that day in front of the Kazan Cathedral.
Back in Yalta Chekhov wrote Olga: "I reccive letters from Petersburg and Moscow, quite ominous ones, and I read the press with aversion." (March 18, 1901.) He had in mind not only political disturbances, but also the Petersburg reviews of the performances. Though Olga and Nemirovich-Danchenko had informed him of the succcss of Uncle Vanya and The Three Sisters, the newspapers did not bear them out. Olga was in tears over the abuse of the actors. In some exasperation Chekhov reminded her of his prediction of failure in Petersburg and angrily declared that he would give up writing for the stage, sincc in Russia dramatists were kicked and not forgiven either their successes or failures.
Actually, the audience reception of his plays in Petersburg, especially The Three Sisters, had been wonderful. But the critics of the conservative press, influenced by the ancicnt rivalry between the old and new capital, and also by the progressive trends of the Moscow Art Theater, which they somehow associated with the tense political situation, could find nothing good in the performances. As was to be expected, New Times was the most offensive — Suvorin's house had been spattered with ink by the student demonstrators. Although at the end of the previous year Chekhov had received as a peacc offering a gift of a silver goblet from Suvorin, he now wrote his brother Misha in a last effort to persuade him not to take a position on New Times: "Of course, in your place I would prefer service in the printing establishment, disdaining the newspaper. New Times now has a very bad reputation, smug and satisfied people work there exclusively (if you don't count Alexander, who sees nothing), and Suvorin is given to lying, to terrible lying, especially in his so-called moments of 'frankness' — that is, he speaks sincerely, perhaps, but it is impossible to say that in the course of the next half-hour he will not do exactly the contrary." (February 27, 1901.) Nevertheless, Misha accepted a position with Suvorin on New Times.
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One of the first things Chekhov did when he arrived in Yalta from abroad was to wire Olga: await detailed telegram, well, in love,
bored without dog. am sending letters. iiow are things, health,
spirits? (February 19,1901.) "Dog" was one of his pet names for her and it had its uses in telegrams. He followed this up the next day with a letter: "My precious, my divine treasure, I embrace and kiss you ardently . . and he explained that one reason for his return was wretchedness over not hearing from her during his travels. "You ask when shall we see each other?" he continued. "At Easter. Where?"
During the remainder of February, Chekhov pressed Olga to spend her Easter vacation at Yalta after the Petersburg tour. He was feeling quite unwell, and a trip to Moscow, which she had expected, seemed difficult. His insistence moved Olga to a revolt that had been building up in her for some time: mutual friends were now talking freely about their marriage. Would he never declare himself, never set a date? Did he expect her to go on being his mistress, seeing him only in secret? Olga wrote him on March 3, indignantly refusing to come to Yalta at Easter. "Think a little," she declared, "and you will understand why." With all his delicate perception, she asked, did he want her to submit again to his mother's suffering, which she had observed when they were together at Yalta the previous summer, and to his sister's bewildered looks? Why should they have to go on hiding their affections? "It seems," she concluded rather unfairly, "that you no longer love me as you used to, and that all you really want is for me to eome and hang about you. . . ."
Chekhov had anticipated just such an outburst. Mentally he had been prepared for marriage with Olga for some time. She had discussed it in her letters and he even called her his "spouse" in his. He had found the essential love he had described to brother Misha three years before, and he had experienced with joy its "sexual attraction, being of one flesh." But the ceremony of sanctifying it by marriage seemed now entirely inconsequential in the harsh circumstances that limited his life. Like his hero Alekhin, in About Love, he knew how needless, petty, and deceptive was everything that hindered man and woman from loving each other. It was not that his marriage now would uproot the lives of his mother and sister who so depended on him, nor the fact that Olga must have her own life in art. And perhaps he did not worry much now about the sacrifice of that free element of his personality which he had stubbornly clung to for so long. For in his heart he knew that Olga, much as she desired, would never really possess that element. "Just as I'll be alone in my grave," he had jotted down in his notebook, "so in essence shall I live alone." The terrible, overriding obstacle was to consign his diseased, wasting body to a healthy young woman! He had given himself six years. Perhaps he was optimistic. In his evasive way he had tried to tell her this, but it made no difference. Some people go through their whole lives without receiving one drop of happiness, he had written her once. No doubt, that was the way it had to be. But he had found this drop of happiness, and how simple it would be now to drift along, enjoying it to the end. But life was not like that; it had its accursed formalities.
One evening, during that February, while Bunin was still at Yalta, they sat in Chekhov's study. Bunin read Gusev aloud. As he came to the end of the tale, with its gorgeous description of the massed clouds under the setting sun tinting the water with varied colors, Bunin wondered out loud whether he would ever see the Indian Ocean, which had attracted him since childhood. Chekhov's deep subdued voice interrupted him: "What do you know, I'm going to get married." And at once, Bunin recalled, he began to say jokingly that it would be better to marry a German than a Russian; she would be more efficient and her child would not crawl around the house and beat a copper pot with a spoon.
"I of course knew of his romance with Olga Leonardovna Knipper," Bunin commented at this point in his memoirs, "but I was not convinced that it would end in marriage. I was already on friendly terms with Olga Leonardovna and I realized that her background was entirely different from that of the Chekhovs. I realized also that when she became the head of the household, it would not be easy for Masha. In truth, Olga Leonardovna was an actress and would hardly abandon the stage, but nevertheless, much would have to change. Between sister and wife difficult problems would arise and all this would have its effect 011 Chekhov's health, for as always in such situations he would suffer because of one and then the other and for both together. And I thought: Yes, this is really suicide — worse than Sakhalin! But of course I kept silent."
Chekhov had made up his mind, but with his horror of ceremonies and sentimentality, he treated their forthcoming marriage in a light vein, as though to warn off any notion she might have of making a solemn event of it. He agreed to come to Moscow at Easter, even though he was awfully disinclined to leave Yalta, he said. On Mareh 16 he wrote: "I'm so weary of racing about, and my health has so obviously become that of an old man, that you'll acquire in my person a grandfather, so to speak, instead of a husband. . . . I've quite given up literature, and when I marry you, I'll order you to quit the stage; and we'll live together like planters. You don't want to? Well, so be it, act another five years and then we'll see." But he hastened to add that he was working on his story, The Bishop, a subject which had been haunting him for fifteen years. Indeed, lie was also working hard on the proofs of the Marx edition.2