a picture of Sakhalin that would be at once scientific and artistic. For one thing the new house, a small two-story structure, seemed uncongenial. It would take getting-used-to. Then, in the first days after his return, hordes of visitors and reporters turned up. And the house was kept in a continual bedlam by the mongooses. Though excessively friendly with people, these engaging little animals, lacking cobras to attack, made for dogs and cats. They got into everything — clothes, shoes, food supplies, the inkwell. The gloves of visitors left on the hall table were torn to shreds and top hats invited messes. The family gave away two of them in the hope that they could cope with one. What troubled Chekhov most, however, was illness. Though he had enjoyed excellent health throughout most of his long journey — the constant outdoor life may well have lengthened his span of years
as soon as he got back to Moscow he was afflicted with severe coughing, headaches, a general feeling of lassitude, and what he described as "palpitations of the heart."
Though the will to work was strong, Chekhov had to struggle against a feeling of debility. He feared also that the vivid impressions he had of Sakhalin would soon fade. The urge within him was not merely a matter of paying his delayed debt to science. He had a purpose now, a message to offer to his country —the senselessness of the suffering which one group of people inflicts upon another. Somehow he felt that what he had endured on this long journey and the promise of the book to come had purged his soul of that agonizing sense of purposelessness which had troubled him so long. If the critics had regarded his tales as unprincipled writings, he would now reveal principles such as the editors of Russian Thought had not dared to embody in their liberal pages.
The consciousness of change in his outlook is clearly reflected in his comments to Suvorin at the end of 1890: "How wrong you were when you advised me not to go to Sakhalin! I have . . . myriads of midges in my head, a devilish lot of plans, and all sorts of things, so what a sour creature I would be now if I had sat at home. Before my journey The Kreutzer Sonata seemed to me to be an event, but now it seems to me absurd and ridiculous. Either I've grown up because of my journey or I have gone crazy —the devil knows which." (December 17, 1890.)
chapter xi
"Landowner A. Chekhov"
Well, Chekhov had not gone crazy; but the mysterious pulse of life now throbbed with quickened beat. Sakhalin had taught him that one must not only know all about life, but must also do something about it. The way he lived in the city seemed so petty, so bourgeois and dull that he felt ready to bite. To make matters worse, he had to put aside the Sakhalin material and concentrate on a story, for the months spent on the journey had cut heavily into his earnings. At the same time, however, he began a systematic canvass of Moscow friends to persuade them to contribute textbooks for Sakhalin schoolchildren.
The early weeks of January, 1891, found Chekhov in Petersburg. He not only had much to talk over with Suvorin, with whom he stayed, but he wished to push the collection of textbooks in the capital. And he also thought that, away from the hubbub of Moscow, he might make some progress on the short story he had begun which had already taken on the proportions of a novella. This latter hope was a vain one, for he was deluged with invitations from people who wanted to hear all the details about the grim existence of eonvicts on the Island of Sakhalin. He soon grew bored with these "conversations and imbecilities," and as tired "as a ballet dancer after five acts and eight tableaux" from running around to endless dinners where, besides trying to interest his hosts in textbooks for Sakhalin, he had to answer many foolish questions on his reeent travels. In reality, he had little faith, as he told Л. F. Koni, the distinguished lawyer and lover of literature whom he met at this time, in the private philanthropy of sueli socialites to remedy the ugly conditions among the children of the penal eolonists on Sakhalin. He would prefer to see an effort made by the government itself. Koni proposed that they call on his friend, Elizaveta Naryshkina, a lady high in court circles, to persuade her to arrange for a meeting with the Empress in order to interest her in supporting the establishment of an orphanage for Sakhalin children. Although nothing came of this plan, Chekhov's vigorous campaign to eolleet textbooks and also reading material for school libraries met with sueeess — more than 2200 volumes were eventually shipped to Sakhalin. However weary he grew of the parade of visitors, a few of them government officials, Chekhov no doubt took some satisfaction in writing his brother Ivan from Petersburg: "They attribute a significance to my trip to Sakhalin which I could hardly have expected. ... All look forward to my book and foresee a real success for it, but I have no time to write!" (January 2J, 1891.)
The pressing business of Sakhalin was not allowed to interfere with convivial gatherings with elose Petersburg friends whom he had not seen or heard from for months, and on his birthday, January 17, they tendered him a sumptuous dinner at the stylish Malo-Yaroslavcts Restaurant. Strangely enough, there were other "friends," largely journalists and young rival authors, whose antagonism at this time Chekhov felt deeply. "I'm surrounded by a thick atmosphere of ill-feeling," he wrote his sister, "extremely vague and incomprehensible to me. They feed me dinners and sing vulgar praises in my honor, but at the same time they are ready to devour me. What for? Hie devil only knows. If I were to shoot myself I would give nine tenths of my friends and admirers the greatest satisfaction. And how pettily they express their petty feelings!" (January 14, 1891.) Some of this chagrin may be traceable to an article in New Times by the shaqj-tongued
Burenin, who listed Chekhov, along with Korolenko and Uspcnsky, as new writers who had already begun to fade instead of to flower. Earlier Alexander had reported to his brother a squib which the sarcastic Burenin had been reciting to his colleagues in the newspaper office:
A talented writer named Chekhov To Sakhalin Island did set off, To search for inspiration Amidst abomination. And when he didn't find it Returned and didn't mind it.
The moral of my creation: Don't strain so for inspiration.
Chekhov's early rise to fame had naturally provoked a good deal of envy and ill-will among his contemporaries in literature. In this connection, an entry in V. A. Tikhonov's diary is relevant. After expressing his admiration of Chekhov's difficult joumcv to Sakhalin, lie adds: "What a powerful, purely elemental force is Anton Chekhov. . . .But how many enviers lie has acquired among our writers. Albov, Shellcr, Golitsyn arc not the least! Certain of them — for example, my own brother — have bccomc hateful to me bccausc of this enw and eternal disparagement of the name of Chekhov."1 Some of this ill-will had undoubtedly been inspired by Chekhov's friendship with Suvorin. Without the aid of this powerful publisher, these rivals sneered, Chekhov- would never have achieved or maintained his succcss. Lconticv-Shchcg- lov, a bit envious himself, sets clown in his diary the opinion of several young Petersburg literary rivals: "Chekhov is a 'Suvorin kept woman'!" And lie comments: "But all this scandalmongcring, 110 doubt, is from envy of his unbelievable succcss. Phui — what . . . swine they arc!" What many did not understand, however, was the genuineness of the friendship and Chekhov's refusal to exploit it for his personal gain. If anything, his book contracts with Suvorin lost him money, for with repeated editions that resulted from his growing popularity, lie could quite justifiably have demanded a higher rate of return. Nor did he take advantage of an offer by the Petersburg Gazette of forty kopecks a line to forcc an increase in Suvorin's rate in New Times, which was then only twenty-five kopccks. In many rcspccts, he employed his friendship