There is a saying: the death of each man is like him. One recalls it
involuntarily when one thinks of the last years of Chekhov's life, of
the last days, even of the last minutes. Even into his funeral fate
brought, by some fatal consistency, many purely Chekhovian traits.
He struggled long, terribly long, with an implacable disease, but bore
it with manly simplicity and patience, without irritation, without
complaints, almost in silence. Only just before his death, he mentions
his disease, just by the way, in his letters. "My health is recovered,
although I still walk with a compress on." ... "I have just got through
a pleurisy, but am better now." ... "My health is not grand.... I write
on."
He did not like to talk of his disease and was annoyed when questioned
about it. Only from Arseniy (the servant) one would learn. "This morning
he was very bad--there was blood," he would say in a whisper, shaking
his head. Or Yevguenia Yakovlevna, Chekhov's mother, would say secretly
with anguish in her voice:
"Antosha again coughed all night. I hear through the wall."
Did he know the extent and meaning of his disease? I think he did, but
intrepidly, like a doctor and a philosopher, he looked into the eyes of
imminent death. There were various, trifling circumstances pointing to
the fact that he knew. Thus, for instance, to a lady, who complained to
him of insomnia and nervous breakdown, he said quietly, with an
indefinable sadness:
"You see; whilst a man's lungs are right, everything is right."
He died simply, pathetically, and fully conscious. They say his last
words were: "Ich sterbe." And his last days were darkened by a deep
sorrow for Russia, and by the anxiety of the monstrous Japanese war.
His funeral comes back to mind like a dream. The cold, grayish
Petersburg, a mistake about a telegram, a small gathering of people at
the railway station, "Wagon for oysters," in which his remains were
brought from Germany, the station authorities who had never heard of
Chekhov and saw in his body only a railway cargo.... Then, as a
contrast, Moscow, profound sorrow, thousands of bereaved people,
tear-stained faces. And at last his grave in the Novodevitchy cemetery,
filled with flowers, side by side with the humble grave of the
"Cossack's widow, Olga Coocaretnikov."
I remember the service in the cemetery the day after his funeral. It was
a still July evening, and the old lime trees over the graves stood
motionless and golden in the sun. With a quiet, tender sadness and
sighing sounded the women's voices. And in the souls of many, then, was
a deep perplexity.
Slowly and in silence the people left the cemetery. I went up to
Chekhov's mother and silently kissed her hand. And she said in a low,
tired voice:
"Our trial is bitter.... Antosha is dead."
O, the overwhelming depth of these simple, ordinary, very Chekhovian
words! The enormous abyss of the loss, the irrevocable nature of the
great event, opened behind. No! Consolations would be useless. Can the
sorrow of those, whose souls have been so close to the great soul of the
dead, ever be assuaged?
But let their unquenchable anguish be stayed by the consciousness that
their distress is our common distress. Let it be softened by the thought
of the immortality of his great and pure name. Indeed: there will pass
years and centuries, and time will efface the very memory of thousands
and thousands of those living now. But the posterity, of whose happiness
Chekhov dreamt with such fascinating sadness, will speak his name with
gratitude and silent sorrow for his fate.
A. P. CHEKHOV
BY
I. A. BUNIN
I made Chekhov's acquaintance in Moscow, towards the end of '95. We met
then at intervals and I should not think it worth mentioning, if I did
not remember some very characteristic phrases.
"Do you write much?" he asked me once.