Olga had become used to these outbursts, which were by no means frequent, and perhaps she had some idea of the ominous factors that caused them. Then, too, it was easy for her to overlook them, for Chekhov's letters were still abundantly expressive of his unwavering love for her. When she was low, he urged her to think of what their summer together would be or he told her what a great actress she was. And he may have drawn a smile when he wrote that the only thing he did not like about her was her habit of dawdling over the washstand. She worried too much about the eternal verities, he told her. "You ask: What is life? That is just the same as asking: What is a carrot? A carrot is a carrot, and nothing more is known about it." (April 20, 1904.)
Even the knotty problem of finding a house seemed on the way to solution, for Sobolevsky knew of one in the same village of Tsaritsyno and offered to use his influence to obtain it for them for a moderate price. Chekhov excitedly wrote about it to Olga at Petersburg: it was absolutely dry, well-built, suitable for living in all year round, and best of all a sturgeon, weighing more than a hundred pounds, had been caught in the pond nearby. He pleaded with her to attend the boat exhibition in Petersburg and pick out for him a light, pretty, and inexpensive craft to use for fishing. "I'm dreaming of the summer!" he wrote Olga. "I'm longing so to be alone, to write, to think!" (April 18, 1904.) A few weeks earlier, when she had informed him that their mutual friend, the actor Moskvin, had just become a father, he rather touchingly responded: "Tell Moskvin I envy him; I would give ten thousand for a baby now. I'm very dreary without a living creature to comfort me. But there, you will do your best, I rely upon you." (March 20,1904.)6
Shortly before Chekhov set out for Moscow, the slight degree of good health he had been enjoying at Yalta vanished again. Yet his spirits remained high at the thought of their being together and the things they would do. Incorrigible stalker of the future that he was, did he sense the futility of it all? In an earlier letter to Olga, after an imaginative flight of planning for their summer and autumn, he had suddenly stopped short and declared: "But that is all dreams, dreams!" (March 3,1904.)
Chekhov fell ill during the journey, ate nothing, and upon his arrival in Moscow on May 3 was at once put to bed, in the new apartment with the elevator, on Leontievsky Lane. Olga called in her own family physician, Yu. R. Taube, a German and a general practitioner. The diagnosis was "catarrh of the intestines," for some time now a chronic condition with Chekhov and no doubt a warning that the tubercle bacilli had spread through his stomach, and this affliction was complicated by an attack of pleurisy. Breathing grew extremely difficult, severe pains in the arms and legs kept him awake at night, and his temperature ran high. Dr. Taube gave him morphine injections, put him on a rigid diet, insisted that he remain in bed, and ordered that as soon as he regained sufficient strength he should travel to Germany for treatment by a
6 This quotation is entirely omitted, without any indication, in the Soviet edition of Chekhov's Complete Works and Letters. The quotation may be found in Pisma A. P. Chekhova (Letters of A. P. Chekhov), ed. M. P. Chekhova, Moscow, 1916, Vol. VI.
specialist in tuberculosis. Chekhov, in reporting this new medical situation to Dr. Altschuler back in Yalta, concluded with rather grim humor: "Now I lie on a divan the whole day, and from lack of anything to do I constantly scold Ostroumov and Shchurovsky. It gives me great pleasure."7
On the other hand, just before he had left for Moscow Chekhov had jestingly urged Altschuler to come there soon, to "save him from the Germans." In short, he anticipated that if he fell ill his wife would insist upon his being treated by German physicians or one of German origin, to whom her family were naturally quite partial. Later Altschuler indignantly pointed out that Dr. Taube had not taken the trouble to consult any of the Russian doctors who had attended Chekhov, and that his ordering him abroad for treatment was contrary to Dr. Ostrou- mov's advice. In the end, Altschuler blamed the German doctors for what he considered to be Chekhov's premature death.
Chekhov's strict regimen soon prompted him to write Masha, who had left for Yalta on May 14 for her regular summer vacation and also to be with their mother, that he felt like roaring from boredom. As a doctor, curiously enough, he could not submit to the "rest and quiet" he had so often prescribed for his own patients. His nature required activity, and his sense of duty compelled him to continue the struggle with life's demands no matter what the adverse circumstances might be. The day after he took to bed he wrote Goltsev to forgive his inability to call at the office of Russian Thought and he requested that manuscripts be sent to him for editing, and they were. To a young writer who had solicited his opinion on a lengthy poem, Chekhov replied with rather detailed criticism. He concluded: "In general, there is often an absence of logic in the actions of your hero, whereas in art, just as in life, nothing happens by chance." (May 28, 1904.) From his sickroom he also tried to take care of his various petitioners — a Moscow teacher, whom he hardly knew, begged him to use his influence to have her son transferred from a distant institution to the Moscow School of Medicine, where the student could live at home and thus save money. Think, the father is a fine man and is poor, Chekhov wrote to Goltsev in an effort to persuade him to assist in the matter. And in informing the father of the steps he had taken, Chekhov assured him that when he returned from Europe, he would continue to do everything in his power to fulfill his request. Then another teacher, this one
7 Literaturnoe Nasledstvo (Literary Heritage), Moscow, i960, LXVIII, 258.
from Yalta, sought help in securing permission to marry the sister of his dead wife. Chekhov consulted a lawyer and wrote the petitioner a lengthy statement which amusingly reveals the subtle legal chicanery that was practiced in that shadowy region between church and civil law in Russia.
Nor did Chekhov allow his illness, or the fact that at best he could appear only in dressing gown and slippers, to interfere with his desire for visitors. Not infrequently he summoned them by letter; often they were friends who heard that he was sick and felt they must call. Gilya- rovsky, that swashbuckling, strongman reporter and poet of Chekhov's youthful days of struggle in Moscow, was readily received by Olga, according to his account. Chekhov, stretched out on a Turkish divan, greeted him with his charming smile and the visitor observed the waxlike appearance of the skin of his hollow cheeks. Gilyarovsky spoke of his recent trip to the steppes and of his experiences among the drovers of huge herds of horses. "Ah, the steppes, the steppes!" exclaimed Chekhov. "What a lucky man you are. There you find poetry and strength. Everything is bronzed, not the way we are. Only remember: Drink vodka till you are fifty but don't dare to after that; change to beer." They talked of former times, of happy memories — and Chekhov laughed, pleased to avoid serious subjects, the visitor recalled. At one point Chekhov, a blissful smile on his face, closed his eyes and dropped his head on the pillow. "I imagined," remarked Gilyarovsky, "that he was seeing the steppe."
One day, probably at the end of May, Rossolimo received a few lines from Chekhov asking him to call. Though evening was coming on and it was a warm and humid day, he went at once. The air in Chekhov's study, where he lay, was close. By a lamp with a green shade Olga sat with her elbows on the table, turning the pages of Russian Thought. Chekhov's hand seemed hot and dry to his visitor, his cheeks flushed, and though he spoke with some difficulty, he talked cheerfully. To Dr. Rossolimo's queries about his condition, he described the severe stomach pains he had been having but mentioned appreciatively Dr. Taube's inventiveness in devising tasty dishes that caused him no discomfort. About his tuberculosis, the visitor recalled, Chekhov spoke with the optimism customary among those so afflicted. These two old classmates also chatted warmly about their student days and the many medical friends they had in comihon. When Chekhov asked what he had been doing, the visitor gave him an interesting account of his recent trip to