Masha wrote him on February 3, shortly after she returned from her winter vacation at Yalta: "It has become dull for me in Moscow, especially since I'm unwell and am always sitting alone, grieving over you at home, for I almost never see Olga. Yesterday we nearly quarreled. I tried to keep her from going to Morozov's ball, but she went nevertheless and got back only by morning. Today, of course, she was all worn out when she went to rehearsal, and tonight she has a performance."
Chekhov continued to enter fully into Olga's theatrical life, corresponding with both her and Stanislavsky on the casting and staging of Gorky's first play, The Petty Bourgeois. That winter the Art Theater undertook a substantial reorganization, largely in an effort to provide a firmer financial basis for the institution. Their "angel," the wealthy industrialist and patron of the theater arts, Sawa Morozov, procured and renovated a new auditorium for the company and provided a large subsidy for its operation. Then a selected group of the actors and administrative personnel were asked to buy shares and constitute themselves the board of managers. Chekhov, whom all regarded as a member of the organization, was also invited to become a shareholder. He willingly agreed if he could obtain the rest of the money which the purchaser of Melikhovo still owed him, and on the condition, he jestingly stipulated to Morozov, that any profits from the venture should comc to him and the losses to his wife. However, he protested the discrimination involved in singling out a special group for this privilege. It was the principle of the thing, he argued, and he suggested that names ought not to be stressed, but that all who served three or five years and received a salary not below a certain figure ought to be invited to become shareholders. His fears were soon realized when several members who were not invited, including the highly talented Meierhold, left the Art Theater, although in some cases differences with the directors on artistic theories may have influenced the exodus.
At first Olga had qualms about taking up her option to buy shares, for she realized that such action would bind her more firmly to the theater and to her acting career. Once having dccided, however, she was more than anxious that her husband also invest. He had to insist that though she, as an actress in the company, could rightfully buy shares on credit, he could not do that. Stanislavsky likewise was dismayed over Chekhov's delay, for he imagined that this failure signaled a break with the Art Theater by their great dramatist, from whom he expected more plays. Chekhov had to reassure him of his undying devotion and that as soon as he obtained the money he would purchase shares.
Out of their esteem for Chekhov the Art Theater, on January 11, staged a special' performance of Uncle Vanya for a huge congress of physicians meeting in Moscow. The cast outdid itself. Some of the rural doctors present wept as they identified their gloomy, harsh existence with that of Dr. Astrov in the play. A demonstration took place at the end. Two telegrams of gratitude were sent to their fellow physician back at Yalta, and a reproduction of the Braz portrait of Chekhov, embossed in a heavy gilt frame, was presented by the doctors to the Art Theater. Olga wrote him all the details, how many of the audience had come backstage in raptures to shake her hand and to ask her to send him greetings. If only he could have been there! she lamented. After the performance she went on to a merry dinner with some of the actors, who joked much about their marriage, and from there to a variety show where they enjoyed oysters, champagne, and gypsy songs. Chekhov had to content himself with thanking two of his close medical friends who had participated in the congress: Dr. Chlenov, to whom he expressed regrets over the selection of the reproduction of the hated Braz portrait; and Dr. Kurkin, to whom he wrote: "Such honor I did not and could not anticipate, but I accept the reward with joy, although I confess that it was not deserved." (January 13, 1902.)
It was a time for honors. That January Chekhov was presented the Gribocdov Prize1 for his Three Sisters. How awkward, he wrote Olga. ""This will not bring me anything other than a scolding from Burenin, and besides I'm already too old for such encouragement." (January 29, 1902.) And the irresistible attraction that fame has for organizations won him honorary memberships in the Petersburg Society of Don Cossacks and in the Society of Russian Students of Dorpat University.
The small change of Chekhov's letters that winter, and it predominated in them, annoyed Olga. She wanted to know everything that took place between him and those famous figures, Tolstoy and Gorky, who were still in the neighborhood of Yalta, but he would mention only occasional visits: that Gorky was writing a new play, or that Tolstoy's continued illness deeply worried him. His real concern over the mounting political disturbances in the country was only hinted at to Olga,
1 The prize was presented by the Society of Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers. A. S. Griboedov was the author of the celebrated comedy Woe from Wit, written in 1822-1823.
who took an interest in such matters. Although he was corresponding with the leader of an organization to aid imprisoned students and was writing to the recent political exiles A. V. Amfiteatrov and L. A. Suler- zhitsky to offer them any assistance within his power, he preferred to stick to chronicling the weather, to laconic and weary answers to her persistent queries on his health and daily regimen, or to telling her that he was in a vile humor on his birthday because he was unwell and the telephone kept ringing with congratulations, all of which reminded him to ask Olga the date of her birthday! "Masha says," Olga sharply declared, "that you don't know what to write to me. Is the correspondence difficult for you?" And in a moment of exasperation she protested: "You write of the weather, about which I can read in the newspapers. . . ." It was a thoughtless jibe, for she knew the weather determined his daily existence. But he meekly replied: "My darling, if I have written you often about the weather, it was because I imagined it would interest you. Forgive me, I won't do it again." (January 19, 1902.) Overwhelmed by remorse, she begged him to go on writing about the weather.
The long separation was fraying their nerves. It set her on fire, Olga wrote, even when he caressed her with words in his letters. Masha, aware of Chekhov's need, pleaded with the directors of the Art Theater to give Olga a brief vacation to go to Yalta. The possibility electrified both husband and wife. The visit would take place for a few days at the end of February, just before the troupe paid their second visit to Petersburg for a series of performances. Chekhov urgently pressed her to demand an extra day or two from her "master," Nemirovich-Danchenko, for he would have time only to kiss her and could not dare think of anything else. If the visit were only for two days, he pointed out, how hard it would be for them to part again! Finally Olga informed him that she could come for "four days and five nights." Now, he replied, everything is glorious. "Are you really coming soon? I'm hoping, hoping, hoping." Olga arrived at Yalta on February 22.
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"Come back, darling, as soon as possible. I can't exist without my wife," Chekhov wrote Olga the day after she left for Petersburg. "My room and my bed are now like a summer cottage forsaken by its occupants." As he feared, their interlude had been one of intense but all- too-brief delight.