That Glimpse of Truth

by David Miller

  Maria Chekhov, his younger sister, visited Chekhov in the clinic during the last days of March. The weather was miserable; a sleet storm was in progress, and frozen heaps of snow lay everywhere. It was hard for her to wave down a carriage to take her to the hospital. By the time she arrived she was filled with dread and anxiety.

  “Anton Pavlovich lay on his back,” Maria wrote in her Memoirs. “He was not allowed to speak. After greeting him, I went over to the table to hide my emotions.” There, among bottles of champagne, jars of caviar, bouquets of flowers from well-wishers, she saw something that terrified her: a freehand drawing, obviously done by a specialist in these matters, of Chekhov’s lungs. It was the kind of sketch a doctor often makes in order to show his patient what he thinks is taking place. The lungs were outlined in blue, but the upper parts were filled in with red. “I realized they were diseased,” Maria wrote.

  Leo Tolstoy was another visitor. The hospital staff were awed to find themselves in the presence of the country’s greatest writer. The most famous man in Russia? Of course they had to let him in to see Chekhov, even though “nonessential” visitors were forbidden. With much obsequiousness on the part of the nurses and resident doctors, the bearded, fierce-looking old man was shown into Chekhov’s room. Despite his low opinion of Chekhov’s abilities as a playwright (Tolstoy felt the plays were static and lacking in any moral vision. “Where do your characters take you?” he once demanded of Chekhov. “From the sofa to the junk room and back”), Tolstoy liked Chekhov’s short stories. Furthermore, and quite simply, he loved the man. He told Gorky, “What a beautiful, magnificent man: modest and quiet, like a girl. He even walks like a girl. He’s simply wonderful.” And Tolstoy wrote in his journal (everyone kept a journal or a diary in those days), “I am glad I love … Chekhov.”

  Tolstoy removed his woollen scarf and bearskin coat, then lowered himself into a chair next to Chekhov’s bed. Never mind that Chekhov was taking medication and not permitted to talk, much less carry on a conversation. He had to listen, amazedly, as the Count began to discourse on his theories of the immortality of the soul. Concerning that visit, Chekhov later wrote, “Tolstoy assumes that all of us (humans and animals alike) will live on in a principle (such as reason or love) the essence and goals of which are a mystery to us… . I have no use for that kind of immortality. I don’t understand it, and Lev Nikolayevich was astonished I didn’t.”

  Nevertheless, Chekhov was impressed with the solicitude shown by Tolstoy’s visit. But, unlike Tolstoy, Chekhov didn’t believe in an afterlife and never had. He didn’t believe in anything that couldn’t be apprehended by one or more of his five senses. And as far as his outlook on life and writing went, he once told someone that he lacked “a political, religious, and philosophical world view. I change it every month, so I’ll have to limit myself to the description of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak.”

  Earlier, before his TB was diagnosed, Chekhov had remarked, “When a peasant has consumption, he says, ‘There’s nothing I can do. I’ll go off in the spring with the melting of the snows.’” (Chekhov himself died in the summer, during a heat wave.) But once Chekhov’s own tuberculosis was discovered he continually tried to minimize the seriousness of his condition. To all appearances, it was as if he felt, right up to the end, that he might be able to throw off the disease as he would a lingering catarrh. Well into his final days, he spoke with seeming conviction of the possibility of an improvement. In fact, in a letter written shortly before his end, he went so far as to tell his sister that he was “getting fat” and felt much better now that he was in Badenweiler.

  Badenweiler is a spa and resort city in the western area of the Black Forest, not far from Basel. The Vosges are visible from nearly anywhere in the city, and in those days the air was pure and invigorating. Russians had been going there for years to soak in the hot mineral baths and promenade on the boulevards. In June, 1904, Chekhov went there to die.

  Earlier that month, he’d made a difficult journey by train from Moscow to Berlin. He traveled with his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, a woman he’d met in 1898 during rehearsals for The seagull. Her contemporaries describe her as an excellent actress. She was talented, pretty, and almost ten years younger than the playwright. Chekhov had been immediately attracted to her, but was slow to act on his feelings. As always, he preferred a flirtation to marriage. Finally, after a three-year courtship involving many separations, letters, and the inevitable misunderstandings, they were at last married, in a private ceremony in Moscow, on 25 May 1901. Chekhov was enormously happy. He called Olga his “pony”, and sometimes “dog” or “puppy”. He was also fond of addressing her as “little turkey” or simply as “my joy”.

  In Berlin, Chekhov consulted with a renowned specialist in pulmonary disorders, a Dr Karl Ewald. But, according to an eyewitness, after the doctor examined Chekhov he threw up his hands and left the room without a word. Chekhov was too far gone for help: this Dr Ewald was furious with himself for not being able to work miracles, and with Chekhov for being so ill.

  A Russian journalist happened to visit the Chekhovs at their hotel and sent back this dispatch to his editor: “Chekhov’s days are numbered. He seems mortally ill, is terribly thin, coughs all the time, gasps for breath at the slightest movement, and is running a high temperature.” This same journalist saw the Chekhovs off at Potsdam Station when they boarded their train for Badenweiler. According to his account, “Chekhov had trouble making his way up the small staircase at the station. He had to sit down for several minutes to catch his breath.” In fact, it was painful for Chekhov to move: his legs ached continually and his insides hurt. The disease had attacked his intestines and spinal cord. At this point he had less than a month to live. When Chekhov spoke of his condition now, it was, according to Olga, “with an almost reckless indifference”.

  Dr Schwöhrer was one of the many Badenweiler physicians who earned a good living by treating the well-to-do who came to the spa seeking relief from various maladies. Some of his patients were ill and infirm, others simply old and hypochondriacal. But Chekhov’s was a special case: he was clearly beyond help and in his last days. He was also very famous. Even Dr Schwöhrer knew his name: he’d read some of Chekhov’s stories in a German magazine. When he examined the writer early in June, he voiced his appreciation of Chekhov’s art but kept his medical opinions to himself. Instead, he prescribed a diet of cocoa, oatmeal drenched in butter, and strawberry tea. This last was supposed to help Chekhov sleep at night.

  On 13 June, less than three weeks before he died, Chekhov wrote a letter to his mother in which he told her his health was on the mend. In it he said, “It’s likely that I’ll be completely cured in a week.” Who knows why he said this? What could he have been thinking? He was a doctor himself, and he knew better. He was dying, it was as simple and as unavoidable as that. Nevertheless, he sat out on the balcony of his hotel room and read railway timetables. He asked for information on sailings of boats bound for Odessa from Marseilles. But he knew. At this stage he had to have known. Yet in one of the last letters he ever wrote he told his sister he was growing stronger by the day.

  He no longer had any appetite for literary work, and hadn’t for a long time. In fact, he had very nearly failed to complete The Cherry Orchard the year before. Writing that play was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. Toward the end, he was able to manage only six or seven lines a day. “I’ve started losing heart,” he wrote Olga. “I feel I’m finished as a writer, and every sentence strikes me as worthless and of no use whatever.” But he didn’t stop. He finished his play in October 1903. It was the last thing he ever wrote, except for letters and a few entries in his notebook.

  A little after midnight on 2 July 1904, Olga sent someone to fetch Dr Schwöhrer. It was an emergency: Chekhov was delirious. Two young Russians on holiday happened to have the adjacent room, and Olga hurried next door to explain what was happening. One of the youths was in his bed asleep, but
the other was still awake, smoking and reading. He left the hotel at a run to find Dr Schwöhrer. “I can still hear the sound of the gravel under his shoes in the silence of that stifling July night,” Olga wrote later on in her memoirs. Chekhov was hallucinating, talking about sailors, and there were snatches of something about the Japanese. “You don’t put ice on an empty stomach,” he said when she tried to place an ice pack on his chest.

  Dr Schwöhrer arrived and unpacked his bag, all the while keeping his gaze fastened on Chekhov, who lay gasping in the bed. The sick man’s pupils were dilated and his temples glistened with sweat. Dr Schwöhrer’s face didn’t register anything. He was not an emotional man, but he knew Chekhov’s end was near. Still, he was a doctor, sworn to do his utmost, and Chekhov held on to life, however tenuously. Dr Schwöhrer prepared a hypodermic and administered an injection of camphor, something that was supposed to speed up the heart. But the injection didn’t help – nothing, of course, could have helped. Nevertheless, the doctor made known to Olga his intention of sending for oxygen. Suddenly, Chekhov roused himself, became lucid, and said quietly, “What’s the use? Before it arrives I’ll be a corpse.”

  Dr Schwöhrer pulled on his big moustache and stared at Chekhov. The writer’s cheeks were sunken and gray, his complexion waxen; his breath was raspy. Dr Schwöhrer knew the time could be reckoned in minutes. Without a word, without conferring with Olga, he went over to an alcove where there was a telephone on the wall. He read the instructions for using the device. If he activated it by holding his finger on a button and turning a handle on the side of the phone, he could reach the lower regions of the hotel – the kitchen. He picked up the receiver, held it to his ear, and did as the instructions told him. When someone finally answered, Dr Schwöhrer ordered a bottle of the hotel’s best champagne. “How many glasses?” he was asked. “Three glasses!” the doctor shouted into the mouthpiece. “And hurry, do you hear?” It was one of those rare moments of inspiration that can easily enough be overlooked later on, because the action is so entirely appropriate it seems inevitable.

  The champagne was brought to the door by a tired-looking young man whose blond hair was standing up. The trousers of his uniform were wrinkled, the creases gone, and in his haste he’d missed a loop while buttoning his jacket. His appearance was that of someone who’d been resting (slumped in a chair, say, dozing a little), when off in the distance the phone had clamored in the early-morning hours – great God in Heaven! – and the next thing he knew he was being shaken awake by a superior and told to deliver a bottle of Moët to Room 211. “And hurry, do you hear?”

  The young man entered the room carrying a silver ice bucket with the champagne in it and a silver tray with three cut-crystal glasses. He found a place on the table for the bucket and glasses, all the while craning his neck, trying to see into the other room, where someone panted ferociously for breath. It was a dreadful, harrowing sound, and the young man lowered his chin into his collar and turned away as the ratchety breathing worsened. Forgetting himself, he stared out the open window toward the darkened city. Then this big imposing man with a thick moustache pressed some coins into his hand – a large tip, by the feel of it – and suddenly the young man saw the door open. He took some steps and found himself on the landing, where he opened his hand and looked at the coins in amazement.

  Methodically, the way he did everything, the doctor went about the business of working the cork out of the bottle. He did it in such a way as to minimize, as much as possible, the festive explosion. He poured three glasses and, out of habit, pushed the cork back into the neck of the bottle. He then took the glasses of champagne over to the bed. Olga momentarily released her grip on Chekhov’s hand – a hand, she said later, that burned her fingers. She arranged another pillow behind his head. Then she put the cool glass of champagne against Chekhov’s palm and made sure his fingers closed around the stem. They exchanged looks – Chekhov, Olga, Dr Schwöhrer. They didn’t touch glasses. There was no toast. What on earth was there to drink to? To death? Chekhov summoned his remaining strength and said, “It’s been so long since I’ve had champagne.” He brought the glass to his lips and drank. In a minute or two Olga took the empty glass from his hand and set it on the nightstand. Then Chekhov turned onto his side. He closed his eyes and sighed. A minute later, his breathing stopped.

  Dr Schwöhrer picked up Chekhov’s hand from the bedsheet. He held his fingers to Chekhov’s wrist and drew a gold watch from his vest pocket, opening the lid of the watch as he did so. The second hand on the watch moved slowly, very slowly. He let it move around the face of the watch three times while he waited for signs of a pulse. It was three o’clock in the morning and still sultry in the room. Badenweiler was in the grip of its worst heat wave in years. All the windows in both rooms stood open, but there was no sign of a breeze. A large, black-winged moth flew through a window and banged wildly against the electric lamp. Dr Schwöhrer let go of Chekhov’s wrist. “It’s over,” he said. He closed the lid of his watch and returned it to his vest pocket.

  At once Olga dried her eyes and set about composing herself. She thanked the doctor for coming. He asked if she wanted some medication – laudanum, perhaps, or a few drops of valerian. She shook her head. She did have one request, though: before the authorities were notified and the newspapers found out, before the time came when Chekhov was no longer in her keeping, she wanted to be alone with him for a while. Could the doctor help with this? Could he withhold, for a while anyway, news of what had just occurred?

  Dr Schwöhrer stroked his moustache with the back of a finger. Why not? After all, what difference would it make to anyone whether this matter became known now or a few hours from now? The only detail that remained was to fill out a death certificate, and this could be done at his office later on in the morning, after he’d slept a few hours. Dr Schwöhrer nodded his agreement and prepared to leave. He murmured a few words of condolence. Olga inclined her head. “An honor,” Dr Schwöhrer said. He picked up his bag and left the room and, for that matter, history.

  It was at this moment that the cork popped out of the champagne bottle; foam spilled down onto the table. Olga went back to Chekhov’s bedside. She sat on a footstool, holding his hand, from time to time stroking his face. “There were no human voices, no everyday sounds,” she wrote. “There was only beauty, peace, and the grandeur of death.”

  She stayed with Chekhov until daybreak, when thrushes began to call from the garden below. Then came the sound of tables and chairs being moved about down there. Before long, voices carried up to her. It was then a knock sounded at the door. Of course she thought it must be an official of some sort – the medical examiner, say, or someone from the police who had questions to ask and forms for her to fill out, or maybe, just maybe, it could be Dr Schwöhrer returning with a mortician to render assistance in embalming and transporting Chekhov’s remains back to Russia.

  But, instead, it was the same blond young man who’d brought the champagne a few hours earlier. This time, however, his uniform trousers were neatly pressed, with stiff creases in front, and every button on his snug green jacket was fastened. He seemed quite another person. Not only was he wide awake but his plump cheeks were smooth-shaven, his hair was in place, and he appeared anxious to please. He was holding a porcelain vase with three long-stemmed yellow roses. He presented these to Olga with a smart click of his heels. She stepped back and let him into the room. He was there, he said, to collect the glasses, ice bucket, and tray, yes. But he also wanted to say that, because of the extreme heat, breakfast would be served in the garden this morning. He hoped this weather wasn’t too bothersome; he apologized for it.

  The woman seemed distracted. While he talked, she turned her eyes away and looked down at something in the carpet. She crossed her arms and held her elbows. Meanwhile, still holding his vase, waiting for a sign, the young man took in the details of the room. Bright sunlight flooded through the open windows. The room was tidy and seemed undisturbed, almost untou
ched. No garments were flung over chairs, no shoes, stockings, braces, or stays were in evidence, no open suitcases. In short, there was no clutter, nothing but the usual heavy pieces of hotel-room furniture. Then, because the woman was still looking down, he looked down, too, and at once spied a cork near the toe of his shoe. The woman did not see it – she was looking somewhere else. The young man wanted to bend over and pick up the cork, but he was still holding the roses and was afraid of seeming to intrude even more by drawing any further attention to himself. Reluctantly, he left the cork where it was and raised his eyes. Everything was in order except for the uncorked, half-empty bottle of champagne that stood alongside two crystal glasses over on the little table. He cast his gaze about once more. Through an open door he saw that the third glass was in the bedroom, on the nightstand. But someone still occupied the bed! He couldn’t see a face, but the figure under the covers lay perfectly motionless and quiet. He noted the figure and looked elsewhere. Then, for a reason he couldn’t understand, a feeling of uneasiness took hold of him. He cleared his throat and moved his weight to the other leg. The woman still didn’t look up or break her silence. The young man felt his cheeks grow warm. It occurred to him, quite without his having thought it through, that he should perhaps suggest an alternative to breakfast in the garden. He coughed, hoping to focus the woman’s attention, but she didn’t look at him. The distinguished foreign guests could, he said, take breakfast in their rooms this morning if they wished. The young man (his name hasn’t survived, and it’s likely he perished in the Great War) said he would be happy to bring up a tray. Two trays, he added, glancing uncertainly once again in the direction of the bedroom.