Memoirs of contemporaries about A.P. Chekhov Chekhov Anton Pavlovich

N. D. TELESHOV - A. P. CHEKHOV

N. D. TELESHOV - A. P. CHEKHOV

I had a lot of meetings with Chekhov, a lot of conversations and conversations, but when Anton Pavlovich was named, I always remember with particular clarity two of our meetings: the very first and the very last, and two of his images: young, blossoming, full of life - and then hopelessly ill , dying, on the eve of his departure abroad, from where he never returned alive.

I was still a young man, about twenty, when I first met him, at that time also still a young man and a writer, just noticed. In that autumn of 1887, his book of stories "At Dusk" was published - the first one signed "Anton Chekhov", and not "Chekhonte", as before. He has just embarked on a real literary road. The criticism of that time was arrogantly silent; even the "Novoye Vremya" scoffer Burenin, an employee of the same publishing house that published this book, noted its appearance with the following quatrain:

Fiction - oh, alas!

The Minsk and Chekhovs write,

Barantsevichi da Albovs;

If you read it, you will feel sorry for Bova!

Despite the silence of criticism, the readers were keenly interested in the young writer and were able to correctly understand Chekhov and appreciate, themselves, without outside help.

I had to get acquainted with Chekhov's stories, the so-called "Colorful Stories", quite early, almost at the very beginning of Anton Pavlovich's literary speeches, when he wrote under various funny pseudonyms in "Dragonfly", in "Shards", in "Alarm Clock". Then, in my memory, in front of my eyes, so to speak, he began to move from humorous trifles to serious works of art. At that time he was still known as Chekhonte, the author of short funny stories. And I heard about him not something significant and serious, but more trifles and anecdotes, such as, for example, that Chekhov, constantly needing funny stories and various funny situations for the heroes, which he always needed a lot, announced at home that he would become pay ten kopecks for each invention of a ridiculous situation, and twenty kopecks for a full storyline, or two-kopecks, as it was said then. And one of the brothers seemed to become his zealous supplier. Or the following story was told: in the house where the Chekhovs lived, the mezzanine was given over to balls and weddings, so often the sounds of a waltz, quadrille with a gallop, polka mazurkas with annoying stomp were heard through the ceiling in the apartment on the lower floor. Chekhov's youth, if everyone was in good spirits, began to noisily pretend to be invited guests and happily dance to someone else's music, at someone else's feast. Did he come out of here afterwards famous story"Wedding" and then a vaudeville on the same theme? ..

He was far from immediately recognized as an influential critic. Mikhailovsky spoke of him coldly and casually, while Skabichevsky for some reason prophesied that Chekhov would certainly get drunk and die under the fence.

Subsequently, already in the nine hundred years, in his memoirs about Chekhov, the writer A. I. Kuprin, by the way, quotes the following words of Anton Pavlovich himself about me: “You ask Teleshov yourself: he will tell you how we walked with him at the wedding at Belousov’s ".

And indeed, we just walked. The wedding was merry, noisy, in a spacious rented house, somewhere on the Kanava embankment, there were many young people; had fun and danced almost without rest all night. And then we had supper - almost until the morning.

At that time, I was a complete stranger in the literary world. Not only was he not familiar with anyone, but he never even met any real writer. I knew them only from books.

And so, in the midst of the wedding noise, Belousov led me to a tall young man with beautiful face, with a light brown beard and clear, a little laughing eyes, as if smiling:

I already knew, read and loved his stories, just collected in the first book. I also heard that Grigorovich, a venerable old man and a major writer of that time, once came to Chekhov himself - to get to know him as a young brother to whom he prophesied a great and glorious future, welcoming in him a new literary talent, a real talent that propelled him far from circle of writers of the new generation.

And this attention of Grigorovich, and the personal impression of the stories read, and the first meeting in my life with a real writer set me up with enthusiasm. I wanted to talk to him at once about his book, about the new in literature that he gives, but Chekhov warned me with another, completely unexpected question:

Don't you play cards? Into the knocker?

And here comes Gilyarovsky with me. He longs to play the knocker, but does not know - with whom. Do you know Gilyarovsky? Uncle Gilyaya? .. Yes, here he is! - as the actors say in the most mediocre vaudeville.

Gilyarovsky came up and got to know each other. He was in a tailcoat, with St. George ribbon in the buttonhole. In one hand he held an open silver snuff-box, with the other he sent greetings to someone across the room, said to Chekhov absentmindedly something rhymed and cheerful and looked at me at the same time, but did not seem to notice me, busy with something else ... Before we had time to say two words for our first acquaintance, the music thundered again, and as a young man, they dragged me off to dance.

Go, go. Otherwise the young ladies will be offended by you, ”Anton Pavlovich said after me.

This, perhaps, would have ended our acquaintance if Anton Pavlovich had not come up to me at the end of the night, after a solemn wedding dinner with ice cream and champagne, and would not have invited me to go with him.

Soon it’s morning, ”he said. - The guests are leaving. It's time for us to leave too. Gilyay and I decided to go and drink tea ... to a tavern. Want to join us? Soon now the taverns will open - for cabbies.

And we went.

There were four of us: Chekhov's younger brother, Mikhail Pavlovich, who was a student at that time, joined us. We hired two cabs and went to look for the nearest tavern. Somewhere nearby, in one of the alleys near the Chugunny Bridge, the windows of a small tavern lit up. A frosty winter morning had just begun. It was still dark.

The inn turned out to be dirty, cheap, opening early, really for night cabbies.

This is good, - said Anton Pavlovich. - If we good books write, so we'll sit in good restaurants again. In the meantime, according to our merits, it is very splendid here.

About Chekhov's appearance at that time it was correctly said: "with the undoubted intelligence of the face, with features that resembled an innocent village boy, with wonderful smiling eyes." Perhaps such an expression as "smiling eyes" will seem too figurative, but, apart from Chekhov, I have never met such eyes in anyone that would give the impression of smiling.

Due to the fact that we were all dressed in tailcoats, we were mistaken here for wedding waiters who had finished their night's work - and this greatly amused Chekhov.

We sat down at a table covered with a gray tablecloth that had not dried out in the evening. They served us tea with lemon and a pot-bellied kettle with boiling water. But the sliced ​​lemon slices smelled strongly of onions.

Fine! - Anton Pavlovich rejoiced. - But you are complaining that there are few plots. Isn't this a plot? Here is a whole story of material.

Before our eyes, I remember, there was a dirty empty wall, painted once oil paint... There was nothing on it, except for old soot, and even on a certain level - wide, dark and greasy spots: during tea drinking, it was the cabbies who leaned against it in these places with their heads, Greasy oiled for chic with wooden oil, as was the custom of that time, and left marks on the wall for many years. It was from this wall that the conversation about writing began.

How is it that there are no plots? - Anton Pavlovich insisted on his point. - Yes, everything is a plot, everywhere a plot. Here's a look at this wall. There is nothing interesting in it, it seems. But you look into it, find something of your own in it, which no one else has found in it, and describe it. Trust me, good story can work out. And you can write well about the moon, let alone a worn-out topic. And it will be interesting. Only you still need to see something of your own in the moon, and not someone else's and not beaten.

But this is not a plot? - He pointed out the window to the street, where it was already getting light. - Look there: a monk is coming with a mug to collect on the bell ... good topic? .. There is something tragic - in a black monk at a pale dawn ...

Over tea, which, thanks to the lemon, also gave off a little onion, the conversation shifted from literature to life, from serious to funny. By the way, Chekhov assured us that there was no “children's” literature.

Everywhere they write only about Sharikov and about Barbosov. What kind of "childish" is this? This is some kind of "dog" literature! - joked Anton Pavlovich, trying to speak as seriously as possible.

And he himself soon wrote "Kashtanka" and "White-fronted" - about dogs.

Gilyarovsky made a lot of jokes, threw in biting impromptu jokes, and time flew by unnoticed.

It was already quite light. The street livened up. I felt good and happy. As I now see Chekhov's young, sweet face, his smiling eyes. I have never seen Anton Pavlovich as cheerful as during this first meeting.

Chekhov always treated young writers favorably and very cordially to many. I always said that a writer cannot sit within four walls and pull out his works, that it is necessary to see life and people, hear genuine human words and thoughts and process them, not invent them.

Go to Japan, he said to one. “Go to Australia,” he advised another.

I remember how we met once in a carriage. The meeting was completely accidental. He went to his place in Lopasnya, where he lived on a farm, and I went to the Tsaritsyno suburban area near Moscow, to rent a dacha for the summer.

Don't go to the dacha, you won't find anything interesting there, - said Chekhov when he learned my goal. - Go somewhere far away, a thousand versts, two, three. Well, at least to Asia, or something, to Baikal. The water on Lake Baikal is turquoise, transparent: beauty! If time is short, go to the Urals: the nature is wonderful there. Be sure to cross the border of Europe in order to feel the real Asian land under your feet and to have the right to say to yourself: "Well, here I am in Asia!" And then you can go home. And even to the dacha. But the job will already be done. How many will you learn, how many stories you will bring! You will see the life of the people, you will spend the night at remote post stations and in huts, just like in Pushkin's times; and the bugs will seize you. But it's good. Then you will thank me. Only by railways you must certainly ride in the third grade, among the common people, otherwise you will not hear anything interesting. If you want to be a writer, buy a ticket to Nizhny tomorrow. From there - along the Volga, along the Kama ...

He started giving practical advice as if the question of my trip had already been resolved. At the Tsaritsyno station, when I was getting out of the car, Anton Pavlovich said goodbye again:

Take good advice, buy a ticket to Nizhny tomorrow.

I obeyed and a few days later I was sailing along the Kama River, without a goal or purpose, heading for the time being to Perm. It was in 1894. I saw beyond the Urals terrible life our settlers, the incredible hardships and hardships of the people, peasant life. And when I returned, I had a whole series of Siberian stories ready, which then opened for me for the first time the pages of our best magazines.

Often Chekhov spoke about the revolution, which will inevitably and soon be in Russia. But he did not live up to 1905.

Believe me, in a few years, and soon, we will not have autocracy, you will see.

It is not for nothing that his play Three Sisters says: “The time has come, a community is approaching all of us, a healthy, strong storm is preparing, which is coming, is already close and will soon blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, and rotten boredom from our society.” And in the future, he foresaw an extraordinary flourishing of national life and a happy, joyful future for mankind. And he firmly believed in all this.

Many years have passed since our first meeting. We met in Moscow - at the publisher ID Sytin, at the Doctor's Club, at his house, where he liked to treat himself to hot potatoes baked on coals and the old Crimean "Gubonin" batter. Anton Pavlovich also visited me, at our literary "Wednesday", which he was always interested in and always asked about her. We also saw in Crimea, at his dacha in Autka, where he was already seriously ill and where, among the beauties of southern nature, among evergreen cypresses and flowering peaches, he loved to dream about Moscow September rain, about birches and willows, about a muddy pond with crucians, about how to think well about your stories and plays, looking at the float and holding a fishing rod in your hand. In his Crimean garden, in memory of Moscow, he tried to plant young birches and other northern trees, but I don’t know if they started - and if they are intact now ... I remember how in this Yalta office I was handed a recipe to the Yalta pharmacy for powders from a cough, signed by "Dr. A. Chekhov". I keep the pharmacy signature.

Despite his illness, Chekhov loved all sorts of jokes, trifles, friendly nicknames, and in general he was a hunter to laugh.

I remember how he laughed in his Yalta office at one of his own old stories.

One spring evening, two years before his death, Anton Pavlovich summoned us to his place. There were Gorky, Bunin, Elpatyevsky ... After supper, in his study, Bunin, or “Bukishon,” as Chekhov affectionately called him, offered to read aloud one of Chekhonte’s old stories, which AP had long forgotten. Bunin, I must say, masterfully read Chekhov's stories. And he began to read.

It was touching to see how Anton Pavlovich frowned at first - it seemed awkward to him to listen to his own work - then he involuntarily began to smile, and then, as the story developed, he literally shook with laughter in his soft chair, but silently, trying to restrain himself.

It’s good for you, today's writers, ”he often said half in jest, half seriously. - You are now praised for short stories. And I used to be scolded for it. How scolded! Sometimes, if you want to be called a writer, write a novel, otherwise they won't talk or listen about you, and they won't be allowed into a good magazine. This I knocked your forehead through the wall for little stories.

His affectionate attitude towards writers younger than himself was reflected in everything. For example, his letter to me from February 1903 from Yalta: “In the Dictionary of the Russian Language, ed. The Academy of Sciences, in the sixth issue of the second volume, which I received today, you also appeared. So, on page 1626, after the word "sink": "Cold tears poured from my eyes and fell in large drops on my tired chest." Teleshov. "Fantastic sketches". Here's another, on page 1814, after the word "push": "The carriages set off again along the road covered with fresh snow." Teleshov. "On triplets". And also on page 1849, after the word "glow": "Many candles burn in front of the image, casting a soft glow on the vestments of the priest." Teleshov. "Name day". Hence, from the point of view of the compilers of the dictionary. You are an exemplary writer, and you will remain as such now forever and ever ... I firmly shake your hand and wish you all the best "...

"He was a charming man: humble, sweet." This is how L. N. Tolstoy spoke of Chekhov. Indeed, he was a man of unconditional sweetness, very modest and restrained, even strict with himself. So, for example, when he was very sick and the tobacco smoke in his room was poison for him, he could not and did not dare to tell anyone who smoked a cigarette at him: “Stop it. Don't poison me. Don't make me suffer. " He limited himself only to hanging on the wall, in a conspicuous place, a note: "They ask you not to smoke." And he was patiently silent when some of the visitors still smoked.

In turn, Anton Pavlovich always treated Tolstoy with particular respect and love.

I am afraid of Tolstoy's death, - he admitted in 1900, when Lev Nikolaevich fell dangerously ill. - If he died, then in my life there would be a big empty space. First, I do not love a single person as much as him; secondly, when there is Tolstoy in literature, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even to realize that you have not done anything and will not do anything is not so scary, as Tolstoy does for everyone. Thirdly, Tolstoy stands firm, his authority is enormous, and while he is alive, bad tastes in literature, all vulgarity, all sorts of embittered pride will be far and deep in the shadows. Only one of his moral authority is able to keep the so-called literary moods and trends at a certain height ...

Elected to the honorary academician, Chekhov wrote, as is known, a sharp rejection of this honorary title when he learned that Gorky, also elected to the honorary academician, in this title was not approved by the tsarist government by order of Tsar Nicholas himself. Only Chekhov and Korolenko had the courage to do so and lay down honorary title in the form of a protest.

I recall a chance conversation with an old man, a peasant from Lopasnya, where Anton Pavlovich did not deny anyone medical assistance. The old man was a handicraftsman, a silk-winder, a man, apparently, well-to-do. We sat side by side in the carriage of the Kursk road, in the third class, on a hard bench, and had a neighborly conversation because we had nothing to do. Having learned that he was from Lopasnya, I said that I had an acquaintance there.

Who it?

Doctor Chekhov.

Ah ... Anton Pavlych! - the old man smiled cheerfully, as if he was delighted at something. But now he frowned and said: - The freak-man! - And he added at all sternly and disapprovingly: - Stupid!

Who is goofy?

Yes Anton Pavlych! Well, tell me, is it good: my wife, an old woman, went and went to heal - he cured. Then I fell ill - and treated me. I give him money, but he doesn't take it. I say: “Anton Pavlych, dear, why are you doing this? What will you live on? You are not a stupid person, you understand your business, but you don’t take money - how can you live? .. ”I said:“ Think about yourself, where will you go, if the hour is uneven, they refuse to serve you? It can happen to anyone. You cannot trade; Well, tell me, where are you going to go, with empty hands? .. ”He laughs - and nothing else. "If, he says, they drive me out of my place, then I will take and marry the merchant's wife." - "But who, I say, who will go for you, if you find yourself without a place?" He laughs again, as if the conversation is not about him.

The old man talked, and he twisted his head and sighed, otherwise he smiled in an amicable way. It was evident that he sincerely respects his "stupid" doctor, only does not approve of his behavior.

Yes. He's a good man, Anton Pavlich. Only it will be difficult for him in old age. He does not understand what it means to live without calculation.

This life "without calculation" was shown, by the way, by one significant incident from life.

A.P. Chekhov entered into an agreement with the publisher of Niva, Marx, according to which, for 75 thousand rubles, all of Chekhov's works went into the eternal possession of the publisher - not only the previous ones, but also all the future ones, immediately after they were published in the magazine, and Chekhov he had no right to transfer to anyone and never a reprint of his works, even for charitable publications. When it became known that in the very first year, from the supplements to the "Niva" and from the separately published collection of works in 12 volumes, he not only covered the entire amount given to Chekhov, but also made hundreds of thousands of rubles. Gorky wrote a letter to Anton Pavlovich with a proposal to break the agreement with Marx:

“Send this rogue Marx to hell ... On behalf of Knowledge and on my own, I suggest you this: break the contract with Marx, give back the money you took from him, and even more than necessary. We will get you as much as you want. Then give your books to us to print, that is, enter the "Knowledge" as a friend and publish yourself. You get all the profit and do not bother publishing, while remaining the complete owner of your books ... You could reduce the cost of books by publishing them in greater quantities against Marx; You are now read in the villages, read by the urban poor, and 1 p. 75 kopecks per book is expensive for this reader. Darling! toss the German to hell! By God, he's robbing you! Shamelessly steals! .. "Knowledge" can directly guarantee you a known, determined by you annual income, at least 25,000. Think about it, dear Anton Pavlovich ... "

They say that unsent letters are often more interesting and significant than those sent. If this is not entirely true, or not always so, then, in any case, a letter signed by the group famous writers, even if not sent to the address due to special reasons, may be a document that is not devoid of interest. One of these unsent letters, the content of which is associated with the memory of Chekhov, was in my possession for several years, and very few knew about it. The letter refers to that distant now time when Chekhov's literary friends were preparing for his twenty-fifth anniversary. Leonid Andreev and Maxim Gorky worked hard on composing the letter. According to the initiators, this text was supposed to collect signatures from all writers and artists in Moscow, then transfer them to St. Petersburg and collect further signatures there. Paper signed major representatives science, literature, arts, music, theater, as well as public figures, were authorized to submit to the publisher "Niva", AF Marks, writers Garin-Mikhailovsky and Asheshov and to get him a definite answer by the time of the anniversary celebration.

Here is the original text of this letter to Marx:

"V currently When the whole of Russia is preparing to celebrate the quarter-century anniversary of A.P. Chekhov, the question that has recently been painfully interested in Russian society and Anton Pavlovich's comrades is being raised with particular force. The matter lies in the striking and unacceptable discrepancy between the activities and merits of Anton Pavlovich to his native country, on the one hand, and the insecurity of his financial situation, on the other.

A.P. Chekhov has been working for twenty-five years, for twenty-five years he tirelessly awakens the reader's conscience and thought with his wonderful works, doused with the living blood of his loving heart, and he must use everything that is given to honest workers - he must, otherwise we all will be ashamed. Having created a number of major values ​​that in the West would give the creator their wealth and complete independence, Anton Pavlovich is not only not rich - the Russian writer does not dare to think about it - he simply does not have the average income in which a person who has worked a lot and who is tired can calmly relax without thinking about tomorrow. In other words, he must live what he earns now - a sad and undeserved fate for a person to whom the enthusiastic gaze of all thinking Russia is directed, behind whom, like a formidable reproach, there are twenty-five years of exceptional works that put him in the first ranks of world literature. ... Quite recently, before our eyes, a small country, Poland, managed to show the spirit of great humanity, generously gifting Heinrich Sienkiewicz in his anniversary year; will Anton Pavlovich in vast Russia be left to the whim of fate that deprived him of his most legitimate rights? ..

We know your agreement with A.P. Chekhov, according to which all his works come into your full ownership for 75,000 rubles, and his future works are not free either: as soon as they appear, they come into your property for a small fee that does not exceed his usual royalties in magazines - with the only huge difference that they are printed in magazines once, but they come to you forever. We know that in the year that has elapsed since the moment of the contract, you managed to cover several times the amount you paid to A.P. Chekhov for his works: in addition to individual publications, Chekhov's stories as an appendix to the Niva magazine should have sold out in hundreds of thousands copies and reward you abundantly for all costs you incur. Further, taking into account that for many decades you will have to use the income from Chekhov's works, we come to the undeniable and sad conclusion that A.P. Chekhov received an extremely insignificant part of what he really earned. Undoubtedly violating the property rights of your counterparty, this agreement has another negative side- no less important for the general description of Anton Pavlovich's sad situation: the obligation to give all of his new things to you, even if other publishers offered an immeasurably large payment, should fall on A.P. Chekhov with a heavy feeling of dependence and, undoubtedly, be reflected in the productivity of his work. According to one of the clauses of the agreement, Chekhov pays a penalty of 5,000 rubles for each printed sheet he gives to another publishing house. Thus, he is deprived of the opportunity to give his works even to cheap popular publishing houses. And among the penny books that go to the people and on the cover of their own bearing the names of almost all modern writers, there is no book with only one - the dear name of A.P. Chekhov.

And we ask you, in this jubilee year, to correct the unwitting, as we are sure, injustice, which still weighs upon A.P. Chekhov. Assuming that at the time of the conclusion of the contract, you, like Anton Pavlovich, might not have foreseen all the consequences of the transaction, we appeal to your sense of justice and believe that formal grounds cannot in this case be critical. There have already been cases of termination of contracts under similar circumstances - suffice it to recall Zola and his publisher Feskel. Having concluded an agreement with Zola at a time when the latter had not yet fully defined himself as a major writer who could count on a huge audience, Feskel himself terminated this agreement and concluded a new one when Zola took over French literature its proper place. And the new agreement gave the late writer freedom and security.

To actually resolve the issue, we ask to receive our representatives: N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky and N. P. Asheshov.

The paper was signed by: Fedor Chaliapin, Leonid Andreev, Yu. Bunin, I. Belousov, A. Serafimovich, E. Goslavsky, Sergei Glagol, P. Kozhevnikov, V. Veresaev, A. Arkhipov, N. Teleshov, Iv. Bunin, Victor Goltsev, S. Naydenov, Evgeny Chirikov, [M. Bitter]".

I don’t remember now exactly how all this happened: whether they showed Chekhov a copy of the letter, or even gave him about the alleged appeal to Marx regarding his release, but only soon it became clear that there was no need to collect further signatures, because Anton Pavlovich, having learned about the letter , asked not to contact him to Marx. I cannot vouch for the reliability, but I recall what was said then about the following words of Anton Pavlovich himself when he refused:

I signed a treaty with Marx with my own hand, and it is inconvenient for me to renounce it. If I made a bad bargain, then it means that I am to blame for everything: I did something stupid. And for other people's stupidity, Marx is not a defendant. I'll be more careful another time.

And that was the end of it. The original letter with the writer's autographs was delayed and remained with me along with a list of whom to go to for further signatures. Among these designated persons were: V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.A. Muromtsev, F.N. Plevako, V.I.Safonov, A.P. Lensky and many of those people of art and science popular at that time, who are now long gone. And from among those who signed the paper, no more than two or three people survived.

I gave the original of this letter with all the autographs at one time to the Chekhov room at the Public Library - now State library USSR named after Lenin - where he is now.

At the Moscow Art Theater, Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya" was a tremendous success. No one, however, could recreate the stage images with stories, nor convey to the author the real impression of the performance and staging of the play. It was necessary to show this performance to himself, so that he could appreciate and feel it. And the Art Theater chooses the Crimea as the place of its tours and travels to Sevastopol with the intention of showing "Uncle Vanya" to its favorite writer.

Personally, I was not a witness of this Sevastopol performance, since I lived in Yalta at that time, but soon I heard from Anton Pavlovich himself that he was very pleased and touched, although out of his inherent authorial modesty he did not openly express this.

After the tour, the artists moved to Yalta on vacation, where many writers gathered and lived at that time. I remember there was Gorky with his family, Elpatievsky, Mamin-Sibiryak, Kuprin, Naydenov, Bunin, the Wanderer.

On the next day, upon the arrival of the troupe, a comradely dinner was held in the city garden, at which artists and writers took part. Everyone got to know each other, and this was the beginning of a close rapprochement between the theater and Gorky, whose plan for the play At the Bottom was maturing at that time. In the fall, the play was finished and read at Wednesday, and then staged at the Art Theater. At first it was called At the Bottom of Life, and under this title it was printed abroad.

Chekhov and the Art Theater have always been close to each other. From the very inception of the theater until the death of the writer, this closeness and friendship grew, and mutual understanding and respect grew stronger. As a playwright, Chekhov was guessed, understood and explained by only one Art Theater. His plays "Ivanov" and the prototype of "Uncle Vanya" - "Leshy" were staged at one time on the stages of Moscow: at Korsh's, at Abramova's, but the chill among the audience and bewilderment accompanied these performances, and after the famous St. Petersburg failure "The Seagull" Chekhov's fate was the playwright, it seemed, was irrevocably settled.

But the Art Theater in 1898, in the very first year of its life, decided to show - in its own way - "The Seagull". He firmly believed in the new that was given by Chekhov's play, which was not understood by anyone, and believed in what the author himself wanted to say with this play. The victory was complete, stunning, enthusiastic.

The entire Chekhov as a playwright was shown and revealed by the Art Theater: "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Ivanov", "Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard" and even dramatization of some stories, in the form of miniatures, were staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater.

It is known that L.N. Tolstoy, loving and respecting A.P. Chekhov as a writer and as a person, had a negative attitude towards his plays, although he came to watch them.

In 1900, on January 24, Lev Nikolaevich saw the play by A. Chekhov "Uncle Vanya" at the Art Theater. At the end of the performance, he was backstage, where he signed the book of honorary visitors, and, by the way, turning to the artist Vishnevsky, jokingly told him:

Well you play Uncle Vanya. But why do you pester someone else's wife? You would have got yourself your own cowgirl.

This case was not invented, but certified by the theater. It is very characteristic here that LN, even in jest, remained true to his then views and not in vain used the word "cowgirl".

The attitude of the Art Theater to Chekhov's work can be clearly seen from Stanislavsky's speech at the tenth anniversary of the theater. He said: “A Seagull flew to us from Chekhov from Yalta; she brought us happiness and showed us new paths in our art ”. And in the speech of Nemirovich-Danchenko, addressed to Chekhov at the premiere of The Cherry Orchard in 1904, this attitude was expressed even more clearly.

As I now see Anton Pavlovich, embarrassedly standing on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater with the curtain open, amid thunder and a storm of applause at the premiere of his last play... They bring him flowers, wreaths, addresses, speak speeches, but he is embarrassedly silent and does not know where to look. And Nemirovich-Danchenko says to him on behalf of the entire Moscow Art Theater:

Our theater is so much indebted to your talent, your tender heart, your pure soul, that you can rightfully say: "This is my theater."

There is no doubt about how Chekhov himself felt about the Art Theater. One of his letters reads: “The art theater is best pages the book that will ever be written about contemporary Russian theater. "

Our last meeting was in Moscow, on the eve of Chekhov's departure abroad. It so happened that I went to see him in the afternoon, when there was no one in the apartment except the servant. Before leaving, there were many worries, and all his family were busy tirelessly.

I already knew that Chekhov was very ill, or rather, very badly, and decided to bring him only a farewell note so as not to disturb him. But he ordered to catch up with me and turned back from the stairs.

Although I was prepared for what I would see, what I saw exceeded all my expectations, the darkest. On the sofa, surrounded by pillows, either in an overcoat or in a dressing gown, with a rug on his legs, sat a slender, as if small, man with narrow shoulders, with a narrow bloodless face - so thin, exhausted and unrecognizable Anton Pavlovich. I would never have believed that it was possible to change that way.

And he stretches out the weak wax hand, which is scary to look at, looks with her gentle, but no longer smiling eyes and says:

I'm leaving tomorrow. Farewell. I'm going to die.

He said another, not this word, more harsh than "die", which he would not like to repeat now.

Food to die, he said urgently. - Bow to your comrades on Wednesday from me. Good people you got it. Tell them that I remember them and I love some of them very much ... Wish them happiness and success from me. We will not meet again.

Quiet, conscientious obedience was reflected in his eyes.

Tell Bunin to write and write. He will be a great writer. So tell him that for me. Do not forget.

There was no need to doubt that we were seeing each other for the last time. It was so clear. I was afraid to speak at these moments in a full voice, I was afraid to make noise with my boots. Some kind of gentle silence was needed, it was necessary with an open mind to accept those few words that were undoubtedly the last for me and came from a pure and beautiful - Chekhov's heart.

He left the next day.

And a month later, in Badenweiler, on the night of July 2, when all means of struggle had already been exhausted, the doctor ordered champagne to be given to the patient. But the patient was the doctor himself and he understood the significance of this measure. He sat down and somehow significantly and loudly said to the doctor in German: "Ich sterbe". Then he took a glass, turned to face his wife and with a smile uttered the last words in his life: “I haven’t drank champagne for a long time ... According to my wife, he calmly drank everything to the bottom in sips, quietly lay down on his left side and soon fell silent forever. The eerie silence of the night was broken only by a large black moth bursting in through the window, painfully beating against the burning electric lamps and rushing about the room.

When the doctor left, amid the complete silence and stuffiness of a summer night, a cork from an unfinished bottle of champagne suddenly jumped out with a terrible noise ...

It was beginning to get light. Soon the morning birds began to sing ...

And then - the ceremonial farewell of foreigners and the official acceptance of the coffin on the border by the Russian authorities, unfamiliar even with the name of Chekhov ... The unforgivable, rude and wild appointment of the "carriage for oysters", in which the body arrived in St. Petersburg with this very inscription, barbaric for the present case the writer, almost without any meeting thanks to the messed up telegrams. And only the next day, already in Moscow, the huge crowds of people that blocked the entire station square, the station platforms overflowing with deputations with wreaths and flowers, impressively emphasized the significance of the loss.

As close, as beloved and dear, all of Moscow we met and accompanied Chekhov to his grave in the Novodevichy Convent.

And now begins the sixth decade since the day of his death, and the name of Chekhov is becoming more and more glorious, and not only in his homeland, among us, but in everything cultural world... Our Soviet youth loves, respects and reads Chekhov a lot.

His work is multifaceted, his lyrics are poetic, his humor is inexhaustible, and his belief in a better future for mankind is unshakable.

“The chapter on Chekhov is not over yet,” Stanislavsky wrote at one time. - It has not yet been read properly, did not delve into its essence and prematurely closed the book. Let them open it up again, study it and read it to the end. "

And the time has come. The whole country honors the memory of its great writer, and his beloved Moscow is preparing a worthy monument to him in one of its best squares.

For exactly thirty years a zinc coffin, which arrived from the German border, lay in the grave at the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. At his funeral, he was first covered with fresh earth, and above the ground with a great variety of flowers, greenery and laurels. Then, after some time, a monument was erected.

And now, thirty years later, without several months, on November 16, 1933, at one o'clock in the afternoon, several people gathered near the grave. Few artists have been here Art theater- Knipper-Chekhova, Moskvin, Vishnevsky, there were members of the Presidium of the Chekhov Society, a photographer, several relatives and friends. The day was very cold, completely wintry, with thorny snow and icy wind.

It took almost three hours to break off the frozen earth and throw it into the snow. The assembled stood patiently and silently long time... Some kind of eerie mood prevented her from talking. And everyone dug and dug the earth under the raids of a dry, burning wind. Already the early winter twilight began to hang, when they finally dug up to the zinc lid and began to bring the ropes, and then, with considerable difficulty, pulled a badly dented gray coffin out of the pit onto the surface, onto white snow, and put it on a wood-burning sled, somehow knocked together from a plank leftovers. But Moskvin objected:

No, comrades! Let's carry it in our arms.

And the first one took hold of the metal bracket of the coffin.

So from the old, abolished cemetery, in solemn silence, we carried the writer's ashes in our hands to the new cemetery of the same former monastery, where the Art Theater was allocated a large square, planted with cherry trees blooming in spring.

In this "cherry orchard" a new grave was already prepared, near the alleys with the graves of artists, as well as writers who have died in recent years; Gogol's ashes were recently transferred here from the former Danilov Monastery.

We silently approached the new - the second - Chekhov's grave. The coffin was already on the platform, and in a minute they began to lower it. They quickly and silently filled the hole, over which a small earthen mound grew. Several minutes passed in solemn silence by this new mound. It quickly began to be covered with a stiff crumb of snow, like a white shroud. Then everyone silently went about their business, to their homes. The early winter twilight hung over the city outskirts in a gray haze.

Returning from the cemetery, I got off the tram at the monument to Pushkin. I stopped in front of him and involuntarily took off my cap for a minute. I thought: "From one great writer to another great writer ..."

Chekhov Twenty-five years ago, in Taganrog, in Chekhov's days, Maria Pavlovna, Chekhov's sister, told me about how Anton Pavlovich worked. This story is forever engraved in my memory. ”“ Antosha! Doesn't hear. ”“ Antoshenka! Look at your watch. It's already half an hour