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Anton Chekhov: 16 June 1904

 Anton Chekhov: 16 June 1904

Gregorian Calendar 29 June


I just cannot get used to German silence and calm.

One day is like any other day in Badenweiler. 

There’s not a sign of good taste or talent anywhere.

At 7 in the morning a band plays in the garden: they’re awful.

But there’s loads of order and formality and honesty.

Names: Doktor Formula, Frau und Fraulein Bassoon, Herr Lipp.

My health has improved, not so much out of breath.

Never submit a manuscript to two publishers at once.

They might both publish at once, ignoring your protests.

Out walking I don’t notice I’m ill, no aches and pains.

My legs are thinner than ever they’ve been.

Anyway, my play would seem to have been received well.

At 7.30 a German visits, a kind of masseur.

Herr Spa rubs me over with water, then I rest a while.

Idea for a novella: all one man’s thoughts over course of one day.

His thoughts about their thoughts and so on and so forth.

At 8 I drink some acorn cocoa. At 10, enjoy oatmeal porridge.

Introduce the ‘women in his life’ gradually, no hurry.

Their opinions about him and them and so on, some of it true.

Fresh air in the sunshine. Read the newspapers.

Russia fighting the Japanese is all they talk about. Who will be next?

At midday the band does their whole routine again: overblown.

1 pm lunch, where I eat only the courses Olga advises.

That is, the courses instructed by the German doctor.

My crocodile (my Olga) must go to the dentist in Basel this afternoon.

Good reason for a siesta. At 4 o’clock more cocoa. Supper at 7.

The novella would simply move from his last thought to his next.

Punctuation, of course, essential but sparing.

Before bedtime a cup of strawberry tea: a soporific.

In all this treatment is a blend of quackery and commonsense.

While the true cure for my ills fast approaches.

I have a great longing to go to Italy.

There are places that simply do not compare. For example, Italy.

Maybe I will travel via the sea route to Yalta.

 

 Notes. On the Gregorian 16 June (Julian, 3 June), Chekhov had telegrammed his sister Masha about leaving Moscow, as it turned out for the last time: “We leave today. Health good. Shall write. Anton.” The fanciful stanza above includes paraphrases of lines in his letter to Masha dated 16 June (Julian) from translations of Sidonie Lederer (1955) and Gordon McVay (1994). The author died on 2 July (Julian), i.e. 15 July (Gregorian), in Badenweiler, near the Swiss border.



 

 

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