Learning that Gorky's wife, on her way to Karlsbad, had stopped over in Berlin with her children, one of whom had come down with measles, Chekhov asked Olga to look her up. Both women returned to the hotel room and Gorky's wife found Chekhov pale and thin — "But he was lively," she recalled, "and his eyes shone with a kindly irony." Aware of her deep concern over the method which a German doctor had employed in treating her sick child, he quizzed her about it, remarking: "Of course, I'm also a physician and this is interesting to me." Then he assured her in a comforting manner that the remedy employed was a good one. In their subsequent conversation he informed her that once his condition improved at Badenweiler, he expected to spend some time in the Italian lake region before returning home.
One of Chekhov's reasons for pausing in Berlin was to submit to an examination by a certain Professor Karl-Anton Ewald, a distinguished German' specialist in intestinal ailments, to whom Dr. Taube had written about the case. Professor Ewald thoroughly examined Chekhov, silently indicated his astonishment, and left without saying a word. "This, of course, was cruel," Altschuler commented, "but no doubt his astonishment arose from bewilderment over why they had allowed so sick a man to travel such a distance."
The image of returning health which Chekhov conveyed to his family was apparently convincing. "Today I received your letter from Berlin," Masha wrote at Yalta, where she, Ivan and their mother had been anxiously waiting for news. "We all rejoiced and at once grew merry." To be sure, he had always shielded them from the worst in his sickness, and this trip abroad may have been a conscious effort to save them the final agony of witnessing his end. Though there can be no question of his improved spirits at the outset of the trip, the reality of improved health did not impress those he met. The Berlin correspondent of Russian News, G. B. Iollos, who won Chekhov's warm devotion by his innumerable kindnesses, reported to his editor Sobol- evsky: "In Berlin I've already personally got the impression that Chekhov's days arc numbered — he appears to me gravely ill, terribly emaciated, coughing and gasping for breath at the slightest movement, and always with a high temperature." And describing Chekhov's departure for Badenweiler, Iollos wrote: "In Berlin it was difficult for him to mount the slight stairway of the Potsdam Station; for several minutes he sat, helpless, and breathing heavily. I recall that when the train started, despite my request that he remain quietly in his seat, he hung
out the window and long nodded his head as the train pulled away."8
The picturesque little watering place of Badenweiler, situated at the western edge of the Black Forest, sheltered by the Blauen, and less than thirty miles from Basel, cheered Chekhov after the unpleasant train trip from Berlin. They stayed temporarily in a pension until they could get their bearings. As usual the charm of a new lovely spot buoyed his spirits and set him to chatting about future plans, which now took the form of a journey home to Yalta by way of Constantinople.
In a few days they discovered the private Villa Friederike, which took paying guests, and they moved in. The setting seemed ideal. The villa, situated in a large garden with flowers beautifully tended, looked out on the mountains. The sun did not bum, he wrote his sister, but caressed one. Life in the little town oozed by slowly and quietly as he sat or reclined in the sun in his comfortable armchair from morning until seven in the evening. And he described the local doctor, Schwohrer, who attended him, as pleasant and proficient. Perhaps for the first time in the long course of his illness, Chekhov now received and submitted to effective treatment for tuberculosis — to rest and quiet in a salutary locale and climate. The German doctors had turned his life upside down, he admitted to Masha in describing the rigid daily schedule and diet. Though he grumbled that there was a lot of quackery about the various dishes he had to eat, which Olga supervised on orders from Dr. Schwohrer, yet he confessed that for the first time in his life he had learned how to keep himself well fed.
His letters home and to friends now exuded extraordinary confidence. He was gaining health here by "leaps and bounds," he told Masha, and when he walked around he no longer felt aware of his illness. He slept and ate splendidly, he informed Kurkin; his doctor was a wise and knowledgeable man, he told Sobolevsky; and he good-naturedly wrote Rossolimo that the only thing incurable about him was his laziness. With pathetic optimism he declared in a letter to his mother on June 13: "My health is improving so that I must say that I'll be entirely well in the course of a week." Olga felt confident enough to leave him occasionally to take trips to Basel to have her teeth fixed, and to request the Art Theater to send her for study the script of a new play they intended to perform during the next season.
By the end of a quiet week of treatment at Villa Friederike, how-
8 This report and others of Iollus to Sobolevsky, on Chekhov in Berlin and Badenweiler, were later published in Russian News, July 1904.
ever, Chekhov's incessant craving for motion, action, change reasserted itself. That forccs outside himself should be the arbiters of his destiny seemed intolerable. His mounting dissatisfaction began to manifest itself in the sick man's carping criticism of his surroundings. On July 16 he wrote Masha that he just could not get used to German peace and quiet. "There is not a sound in the house or outside it, except that at seven in the morning and at noon a band plays in the garden, expensive, but very untalented. You don't sense a single drop of talent in anything here, nor a single drop of taste; yet there is order and honesty, and to spare. Our Russian life is much more talented, and as for the Italian and the French, there is really no point in comparing them." Five days later he struck a more ominous note in another letter to Masha: "Dr. Schwohrer, who treats me —that is, makes visits, puts in an appearance — is Taube's idol; what he prescribes Taube also prescribes, so that my treatment differs very little from that in Moscow. The same stupid cocoa, the same oatmeal." That day they left the lovely Villa Friederike — it had become "too common," he explained to his sister — and rented a room in the excellent Sommer Hotel.
While Chekhov's own medical knowledge may have told him that all this doctoring, which he despised anyway, was too late, his optimism and intense love of life kept his thoughts focused on future plans. Hardly a letter back home now failed to contain some mention of his eagerness to be off. He had not yet had his fill of traveling, he told Masha. The Italian lakes were celebrated for their beauty, and it was pleasant and inexpensive to live there. After that he would surely come to Yalta and see them all in August. His cousin in the shipping business at Yalta was asked to provide the sailing schedule from Trieste to Odessa. Rossolimo was importuned to tell him whether it was possible to take a steamer from Marseilles to Odessa, and whether the ships provided comfortable quarters. "What a despairing heap of boredom is this German resort Badenweiler!" he declared in this letter to Rossolimo.
Chekhov and Olga liked their room in the Sommer Hotel. He enjoyed sitting on the balcony and watching the street scenes below, especially the movement of people in and out of the post office. But his move coincidcd with a change for the worse in his condition. In a letter to Masha on June 28 he complained of the heat, and for the first time since he came to Germany he struck a discouraging note on his health: "I'm eating really delicious food, but it is of no use, for my stomach gets out of order. Clearly my stomach is hopelessly ruined and it is hardly possible to set it to rights except by fasting, that is, to eat nothing — and that's that. As for the shortness of breath, there is only one cure — not to move." That same dav Masha, convinced from all his previous reports that he was on the way to recovery, wrote to tell him that she and Ivan were planning a trip together to the Caucasus. "So, keep well, dear Antosha, try not to cough and eat more, gather your strength and come home." These were the last letters Chekhov and his beloved sister exchanged.