Chekhov's changing opinion on Leikin and his policies is reflected in correspondence with Bilibin about the details of the preparation of his book. He went into the matter with some care, as though convinced that this second effort would be of much more consequence to him than Tales of Melpomene. Bilibin tried unsuccessfully to persuade Leikin to raise his payments to Chekhov. If Leikin had agreed, Chekhov commented after Bilibin's failure, the editor would have felt it necessary to contribute twice as much of his own writing to Fragments in order to offset the increase in the magazine's budget. "Heaven forbid! Pity the man." (March 11, 1886.)
At the end of 1885, however, Leikin, while on a business trip to Moscow, made a generous gesture: at his own expense, he invited his protege to accompany him back to Petersburg for his first trip to that city. Chekhov stayed with Leikin from December 10-24. had long been dreaming of this trip. Petersburg had become the literary center of Russia; it was the home of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, D. V. Grigoro- vich, N. S. Leskov, V. M. Garshin, Gleb Uspensky, and A. N. Plesh- cheev; and in the writings of the city's great dead — Pushkin, Dostoev- sky, Nekrasov — the image of Petersburg lived forever. As he drove from the railway station to Leikin's house and gazed at the broad thoroughfares and beautiful buildings, there was now nothing about him of the provincial youth who only eight years before had arrived in Moscow for his first visit and gaped in unsophisticated wonder at the city's manifold attractions. Now he felt socially secure, was the "head" of a family, a practicing physician, and nearly every week his short stories were appearing in two of the important publications of this city.
Nevertheless, his reception in Petersburg took him completely by surprise. He had expected the editorial staffs of Fragments and Petersburg Gazette to evincc some interest in him, and he found Bilibin the friendly, refined, and discriminating writer and critic that he had imagined him to be from his letters. (The staff of Petersburg Gazette, he observed, greeted him "like a Persian shah.") But he was amazed to discover that well-known publicists and authors such as A. S. Suvorin, the wealthy owner of the most powerful daily New Times and a writer and dramatist of some note, and V. P. Burenin, one of that newspaper's celebrated contributors, and the old and distinguished novelist Grigorovich, and others, were not only glad to meet him but had been critically reading and appreciating his stories! Leikin, though associated with these circles, had given him no inkling of this.
After Chekhov's return to Moscow, he hurried to write Alexander in a tone of excited exaggeration: "You must remember that all Petersburg follows the work of the Chekhov brothers. I was struck by the reception which the Petersburgers accorded me. ... All invited me and sang my praises. If I had known that they were reading me, I would never have written things to order. So remember, they read you." (January 4, 1886.) And he told Bilibin two weeks later: "Formerly, when I didn't know that they read my tales and passed judgment on them, I wrote serenely, just the way I eat pancakes; now, I'm afraid when I write."
And to kind Uncle Mitrofan in Taganrog, who had visited the Chekhov family several months before, he euphorically wrote that his head was dizzy from the praise showered on him in Petersburg; that he had superb accommodations there, a pair of horses, splendid meals, and tickets gratis to all the theaters. Never had life been so sweet to him, he concluded.
In still another letter to Alexander about his visit, Chekhov significantly declared: "Leikin, for whom my presence in Petersburg was in many respects disadvantageous ... is a liar, a liar." (February 3, 1886.) He had learned that Leikin had concealed the success of his literary efforts in Petersburg from him and, in his own interests, had been trying to discourage the idea of his availability to other publications in the city. Chekhov could hardly afford to break with Leikin at this stage; besides, he felt grateful to him for giving him his first real chance to publish regularly in a respected magazine; but he was determined now not to allow Fragments to interfere any longer with the
type of story he wrote or where he published.
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For a few influential people in Petersburg's journalistic and literary circles, Chekhov's visit had attached a name and a vital personality to a pseudonym about which they had been curious for some time. Soon those forces behind the scene which could help to shape a literary career were set in motion. Thus: The eminent novelist Grigorovich drew Suvorin's attention to Chekhov's exceptionally fine tale, The Hunter, which had appeared in Petersburg Gazette. Impressed both by the story and by his meeting with Chekhov, Suvorin, at the beginning of January 1886, sent him an invitation to contribute to New Times, an offer that would have gone to the head of any young Russian author. "I'm happy over it. . . and envy you," wrote Bilibin when he learned the news, and in the same letter he reported that Leikin had said sourly: "Let him publish his longer pieces there."
In February, The Requiem, Chekhov's first tale in New Times, appeared, and his long association with this newspaper and its distinguished editor began. Suvorin paid him twelve kopecks a line, the highest rate he had ever received. Chekhov jubilantly informed the sympathetic Bilibin that his second story in New Times "brought me seventy-five roubles, somewhat more than a month's income from Fragments." (March 11, 1886.) He might have added that neither did Suvorin, unlike Leikin, place any limitations on the length of his tales or fix deadlines for their deliver)'. These were valued concessions;, for, as he explained to Leikin, before he had finished the first page of a story, a patient would enter his study for medical aid, and by the time the second page was written, an urgent message would summon him to the sickbed of a friend. Then dinner would interfere with the third page . . . and so on.
So pleased was Chekhov with these new conditions of work that he warmly thanked Suvorin in a letter that initiated one of his most extensive correspondences with a single individual. "I write comparatively little," he declared in an incredible understatement, "not more than two or three short stories a week. But the hours for New Times will be found," he assured him, "and I rejoice over the conditions of my collaboration." And with ingratiating but understandable humility before this powerful mogul of the publishing world, he added: "Thank you for the flattering things you say about my work and for having printed my story so soon. You may judge for yourself how refreshing, even inspiring, has been the kind attention of an experienced and gifted person like you in the matter of my writing. I agree about the end of my story which you have deleted and I'm grateful for your helpful advice. I've been writing for the last six years, but you are the first person who has taken the trouble to advise and explain." (February 21, 1886.) At Suvorin's request, Chekhov allowed New Times to publish his stories under his own name.