Henri Troyat
Translated by Michael Henry Heim
[1] ...The friends who came to see Chekhov found him stretched out on a daybed wearing a dressing gown.He would apologize to them for the informality of his attire and force himself to make jokes and appear interested in everything, but they were all struck by his hollow cheeks, waxen complexion, and dilated pupils.Dr.Rossolimo observed that like all tubercular patients he spoke of the disease with an almost reckless indifference.With his burning hands and flushed cheeks could he really believe in cure?
[2] One evening Chekhov was reminiscing happily with the writer Gilyarovsky, one of the first to encourage him to write, when Gilyarovsky mentioned he had recently returned from a visit to the steppe.All at once Chekhov grew pensive.“Oh, the steppe, the steppe! What a lucky man you are! That’s where the poetry is.” And he closed his eyes, smiled a childlike smile, and let his head drop onto the pillow.“I am certain he dreamed of steppe,”Gilyarovsky wrote.
[3] Towards the end of the month Chekhov’s temperature went down and he felt strong enough to get out of bed.On May 31 he announced triumphantly to his sister: “Just think.Today for the first time I put on shoes and a coat [...] and for the first time went out for a ride.” Now there was nothing to hold him back from the journey Dr.Taube had counseled.On June 3, 1904, Anton and Olga took the train for Berlin.
[4] Although he had left Moscow in a morbid mood, Chekhov perked up at once in Berlin.A change of place always did him good.From a comfortable room at Hotel Savoy(“the best in Berlin”) he wrote Maria letter after optimistic letter: his appetite had improved; he was putting a bit of flesh on his bones; his diarrhea had subsided; his legs no longer arched; in fact, he was on his feet all day, “running around Berlin,” raiding the shops, riding through the Tiergarten.It was the first time he had ever been out of Russia with Olga, and he felt all the closer to her for their being “stranded” in a foreign city; he enjoyed discovering a new world and discussing new impressions with her.He claimed jestingly that he had not seen a single good-looking woman and that German women dressed “abominably.” Yet, as he admitted to Maria, “people live a comfortable existence, the food is good, life is good, life is not expensive, [...] the streets are clean, order reigns.” In his optimism he even made plans to spend some time at the Italian lakes and return to Yalta in August via Constantinople.