Reading Chekhov

Awareness of grief, of the loss of such a man as Anton Pavlovich, came only with the first sounds of awakening life, with the arrival of people; and what I experienced and felt, standing on the balcony and looking now at the rising sun, now at nature melodiously awakening, now at the fine, peaceful face of Anton Pavlovich, which seemed to be smiling as if he had just understood something-that, I repeat, still remains for me an unresolved mystery. There had never been such moments as those before in my life, and there never will be again.

Leo Rabeneck set down his own account of the night of July 2,1904, though he waited fifty-four years to do so. Predictably, it differed in some details from Olga's. In an article called "The Last Minutes of Chekhov," published in Paris in a Russian emigre journal, he recalled that the doctor had asked him to buy oxygen at a pharmacy and had briefly administered it to the dying man. After quoting Chekhov's (or Olga's, as the case may be) "It's a long time since I've drunk champagne," and reporting on the draining of the glass, Rabeneck writes: At that moment I heard a strange sound coming from his throat. I saw him lie back on the cushions and thought he did so to breathe more easily. Everything was silent in the room and the lamp grew dimmer. The doctor took Anton Pavlovich's hand and said nothing. After several minutes of silence I thought things were improving and that Anton Pavlovich was out of danger. Then the doctor dropped Anton Pavlovich's hand, and took me to a corner of the room. "It's finished," he said. "Herr Chekhov has died. Will you tell Frau Chekhov?"… I went to her… "Olga Leonardovna, the doctor said that Anton Pavlovich has died." She stood like a stone. Then she started to shout in German at the doctor: "It is not true, Doctor, tell me it is not true."

The third eyewitness, Dr. Schwohrer, left no account, but is quoted in an article dated July 5, 1904, which appeared the following day in the Moscow newspaper Novostia Dnia. Its author, an unidentified correspondent (he wrote under the initials S.S.), reported from Badenweiler: "I talked to the doctor who treated A. P. Chekhov here… He was, the doctor said, until the last minute, stoically calm, like a hero… 'When I approached him, he told me peacefully: "Soon, doctor, I am going to die." I wanted to bring him a new supply of oxygen. Chekhov stopped me, saying "There is no need for more. Before they brought the oxygen, I would be dead." ' " Another on-the-scene Russian journalist, Grigori Borisovich lollos (the Berlin correspondent for the Moscow newspaper Russkie Vedemosti, who had become friendly with Chekhov and Olga in Badenweiler and interviewed Olga the day after Chekhov's death), wrote on July 3, 1904: "At one o'clock at night, Anton Pavlovich began to rave, talked of some sailor, then asked something about the Japanese, and after that came back to his senses and with a sad smile told his wife, who was putting an ice-pack on his chest, 'You don't put ice on an empty heart.' " lollos went on: "His last words were, 'I am dying,' and then, quietly, in German to his doctor, 'Ich sterbe.' His pulse became very weak… dying, he sat in bed, bending, supported by pillows; then suddenly he turned on his side and without a sign, without any apparent external sign, his life stopped. An unusually peaceful, almost happy expression appeared on his suddenly youthful-looking face. Through the wide-open window came a fresh breeze, smelling of hay; a light appeared above the forest. No sound anywhere-the small spa town was asleep, the doctor left, a deadly silence filled the house; only the singing of birds could be heard in the room, where, lying on his side, freed from difficulties, a remarkable man and a hard worker, rested on the shoulder of a woman who covered him with tears and kisses."

How Chekhov's biographers have handled the eyewitness testimony (both primary and secondary) in their various renderings of the death scene offers an instructive glimpse into the workings of biographical method.

In Anton Chekhov: A Life (1952), David Magarshack writes: When the doctor arrived, Chekhov said to him in German: "Tod?"

"Oh, no," the doctor replied. "Please calm yourself."

Chekhov was still finding it difficult to breathe and ice was placed on his heart. The doctor sent one of the students for oxygen.

"Don't bother," Chekhov said. "I shall be dead before they bring it."