There were compensations for the hours of hospital duties in the pleasant gatherings frequently held in the evenings at Dr. Arkangelsky's home. Here his young medical disciples, some of whom later became well-known physicians, and the Chekhov brothers staying at Voskre- sensk discussed contemporary political questions, the recent works of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and I. S. Turgenev, declaimed the verse of N. A. Nekrasov, and sang popular folk songs.
The three lively children of Colonel В. I. Maevsky, who commanded the local battery at Voskresensk, were often Chekhov's companions on walks and mushroom-hunting expeditions. These youngsters inspired the charming story Children, and years later the Maevsky family and the artillery officers grouped around it were no doubt in Chekhov's mind when he created the characters of The Three Sisters. One of these officers, Lieutenant E. P. Yegorov, suddenly proposed to Masha — who was taken completely by surprise, for she had never had a single serious conversation with him. Marriage had not yet entered her head and the bewildered Masha asked Chekhov for advice. He told her to forget about it, and he would take care of the matter. And he apparently did, for they all continued to meet on very friendly terms at the Maevskys' and Lieutenant Yegorov never once broached the subject again.
So pleasantly did the time speed by during these summer months that Chekhov neglected his writing and apologized to Leikin for not sending him more items. "The summer is not the time to do anything," he asserted. "Only poets can unite their scribbling with moonlight nights and love. They can be in love and at the same time write verse. With us prose writers, it is a different business." (August 1 or 2, 1883.)
Once back in Moscow, however, Chekhov again applied himself zealously to his writing. Reluctantly he accepted Leikin's proposal that, in addition to his numerous fictional efforts, he contribute a regular column to be called "Fragments of Moscow Life." He disliked the gossipy reportage and the tiring and time-consuming running around the city for copy which such a column would require. But he had to earn still more money, for the financial demands being made upon him by the family were increasing all the time. Earlier in 1883, in responding to Alexander's request from Taganrog for medical advice on the illness of the daughter who had recently been born to him, he voiced one of his rare complaints about the burdens he had assumed in his struggle to help the family: "Do not envy me, brother! Writing, apart from the 'twitches' [a nervous affliction, perhaps due to strain from overwork, which began at this time and long troubled Chekhov] brings me nothing. The hundred roubles a month which I receive vanish in the belly and I haven't the means to change my graying, indecent coat for something less shabby. I pay bills in all directions and nothing remains. The family itself gobbles up more than fifty roubles. ... If I were living alone, I would live like a rich man. . . ." (May 13, 1883.)
And the conditions under which he did his writing now began to try his patience and shred his nerves. A victim of his own unfailing hospitality, as well as of that of members of his family, he sometimes found it necessary to give up his bed for a night and seek one in the house of a friend. Late in August, when Alexander arrived for a visit with his wife and two children, Chekhov explained to Leikin why the column he was sending was "pale" and the story "a sick trifle": "I write under the most wretched conditions. Before me my nonliterary work mercilessly whips my conscience. In a neighboring room howls the child of a relative who has just arrived. In another room Father reads aloud to Mother. . . . Someone has wound up the music-box and plays La Belle Helene. I want to scamper off to the country, but it is already one o'clock in the morning. For a writing man it would be hard to imagine a more wretched situation. My bed is occupied by a relative who conducts a conversation with me about medicine: 'My daughter must have a pain in her stomach and that is why she cries.' I have the misfortune to be a medical man and everyone thinks it necessary to 'have a chat' with me about medicine. And when they are bored talking about medicine, they take up the subject of literature." (August 20 or 21, 1883.)
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There were times, it appears, when the desperate need for money compelled the hard-working medical student to piece out his small earnings from the magazines with other work. For about 1884 Chekhov was engaged to teach Russian to a senator's two young sons who were preparing to enter a lyceum. One of them, A. S. Yakovlev, whom Chekhov later aided in his efforts to become a writer of fiction, left an interesting account of the youthful teacher in his shabby clothes who immediately charmed them with his genial smile, kind eyes, and a method of instruction devoid of any form of punishment. And when by chance they overheard their father telling a visitor that their tutor was a promising author, their prankish behavior was transformed into reverential awe. When Chekhov commented on their unusual restraint, the boys explained that they regarded writers and artists as superior beings. "My friends," Chekhov declared with an air of indifference, "your father exaggerates. I don't have any talent, and I write because I have to, otherwise your good teacher would have nothing to eat and he
needs to eat every day. Isn't that so? I'm just thankful that there are kind editors who print Antosha Chekhonte." Within a few months the j job ended, for the boys passed their examinations.
At about the same time the young teacher was writing brother Alexander that his own examinations would soon be upon him, and if he managed to prove his right to enter the fifth and last year of the Medical School that would be "finita la commedia." But clinics in nervous diseases, surgery, obstetrics, and skin diseases competed with the humorous magazines for his time as he found it necessary to increase the number of his contributions. "I was badly corrupted," he wrote several years later, looking back on this period, "by the fact that I was born, grew up, went to school and began to write in an atmosphere in which money played a shockingly major role." (August 29, 1888.) Every minute he was not studying he was running about the city, seeking fresh copy for his column on Moscow life — to theaters, court trials, inquests, patk entertainments, and social gatherings. And when deadlines loomed with nothing written, he would visit Palmin, Gilyarovsky, Levitan, and other friends to pump them for the latest gossip. It is little wonder that toward the end of the year he wrote Leikin: "I'm extremely weary, spiteful, and ill. . . . The devil knows where I get the time to work — that is why I didn't send you a tale for the last number. . . . And to the fatigue, add hemorrhoids." (December 10, 1883.)
Despite his incredible load, Chekhov found time to read the manuscripts of aspiring authors, to entertain many old friends, and to make new ones. Leikin, on a visit to Moscow, brought with him the famous author N. S. Leskov who was Chekhov's favorite Russian writer at this time. With his characteristic sense of emphasis, Chekhov wrote Alexander of their meeting, at which Leskov presented him inscribed copies of his best-known works:
"Half drunk, he turned to me and asked: 'Do you know who I am?'
" 'Yes, I know.'
" 'No you don't know. I'm a mystic.'