The Summer Guest

For Amelia

            
The tyranny of the visible makes us blind.

            
The brilliance of the word pierces the night of the world.

—
CHRISTIAN BOBIN

Zinaida Mikhailovna Lintvaryova's journal is based on a true story, on the little that is known about her from Anton Chekhov's letters and the obituary that he wrote when she died.

The town of Sumy is located in eastern Ukraine. Both Ukrainian and Russian are spoken there, as they were in Chekhov's time. For the sake of consistency, I have generally used the Russian versions of Ukrainian proper nouns (Kiev for Kyiv, Elena for Olena, etc.) throughout the book, except when referring to certain contemporary events, where the Ukrainian is more appropriate.

The Lintvaryovs

Aleksandra Vassilyevna, landlady, owner of the Luka Estate

Zinaida Mikhailovna (Zina), her eldest child, a doctor

Elena Mikhailovna (Lena), a doctor

Pavel Mikhailovich (Pasha), manager of the estate, a revolutionary

Natalya Mikhailovna (Natasha), a schoolteacher

Georgi Mikhailovich (Georges), the youngest, a musician

Antonida Fyodorovna (Tonya), Pasha's wife

The Chekhovs

Pavel Yegorovich, the father

Evgenia Yakovlevna, the mother

Aleksandr Pavlovich (Sasha), the eldest son, a writer and journalist

Nikolay Pavlovich (Kolya), an artist

Anton Pavlovich (Antosha), a doctor and writer

Ivan Pavlovich (Vanya), a schoolteacher

Maria Pavlovna (Masha), the only daughter, a schoolteacher

Mikhail Pavlovich (Misha), a student

Their Guests

Aleksandr Ignatyevich Ivanenko (Sasha), a flautist and cousin to the Lintvaryovs

Valentina (Vata), another cousin

Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, a poet

Kazimir Stanislavovich Barantsevich, a writer

Marian Romualdovich Semashko, a cellist

Aleksey Sergeyevich Suvorin, a wealthy Petersburg publisher

Pavel Matveyevich Svobodin, an actor

Grigory Petrovich, a loyal servant

Anya, a cook

Ulyasha, a maid

Roman, a coachman

Artyomenko, Panas, and Mishka, Anton Pavlovich's fishing companions

SHE WROTE:

The road is leading into the distance, the distance where we are going and which we cannot see; there's a slight rise toward the horizon of tall grass and a long line of poplar trees. It's deserted, we have the whole world to ourselves; the tall grass is bending to the breeze. The air is the color of candlelight on an icon. The sun has almost reached the horizon. There's not much time, and yet you feel, with so much space around you, that nothing could ever change: not the sun, or the tall grass, or the road into the distance.

She was pleased with her words.

Well, not exactly her words; they were meant to be his words, and only as she reported them. Perhaps he had said something quite different. They had been for a ride in the carriage, and these words were a gift of vision, a way of helping her see the world. The difficulty lay in capturing a moment: his voice, its warmth and depth, was lost already. What could a short paragraph do to convey so much—the road, the trees, the sky, the light, a whole vista no one could see now, except through words? And his presence there, with her, a brief respite in her darkness, his breath, his low laughter.

You take the words, she thought; by themselves, individually, they are almost meaningless. You take them one by one and you build not only a description, a vision, but also a memory, where
you are present, and he is present, too, though neither of you is described by those words. What sort of magic was this?

If she were sentimental, or mystical, she might invoke love, or faith; but for now she must be satisfied with craft. Yes, craft. They were someone else's words, after all; she was not the author. Just the scribe, the interpreter, the diarist, the translator.

Luka, Sumy, Kharkovsky Province

April 1888

A journal. That is what I need to fill these dull long hours when I used to be working, helping others and forgetting myself. Now it seems I must remember. A journal will occupy me, although there won't be much to say.

Or will there? If my life were as it had always been until this untimely rebellion of my flesh, I would indeed have little of interest to relate. A catalogue of peasants' woes: Grigory Petrovich has the gripes again, Anyusha is suffering from sciatica and about to give birth, Kostya's toes were crushed beneath the cart wheel. My own provincial life: visits to neighboring estates, conversations when we all find a moment to be together, Pasha's problems, as usual, with the authorities. His politics, of some concern to the tsar's representatives in our remote province. There would not be much to say about me. But that bit of flesh in my brain is forcing me to withdraw from the life I knew, and I become the subject of my life. This embarrasses me and seems wrong, but Mama and Elena have encouraged me, and now they bring me tea and ink and a bound notebook and sit quietly by me while I scribble as clearly as I can. Mama says, rather too wisely, I am certain you will discover the territory of the soul, as once you discovered the human body.

I laugh and say, You mean I am to dissect myself?

You may dissect us all, in a manner of speaking. You must do what you can, whatever is necessary, to live with your diagnosis.

I'm a doctor, still, and I know what awaits me. Professor Chudnovsky himself was clear about that. I am living, as the
English say, on borrowed time. To whom am I to repay this time, and when?

I am young, only thirty, and in our family we live long lives. We are not consumptive, nor are we drinkers of alcohol; we eat well and go for long walks, summer and winter alike. What have I done to deserve this? It's nothing I caught at the practice, no, no contagious disease like typhus or diphtheria; I am simply a victim of chance misfortune. Yet I have been a useful person: If I had believed in God, I would now lose whatever tattered faith remained. Why has He chosen to take me away when I am useful to Him? Or am I, precisely, too useful, interfering with His ways?

I recall our friends in Kiev, the Zemlinskys, their youngest son was stricken in this way. They asked me about his headaches. There is so little one can do to relieve the pressure. I prescribed laudanum, then morphine. Now the headaches have come to me, though not yet so terrible. Elena will bring me what I need when the time comes . . . I try to accept my fate, if one can speak of fate.

Still I cannot believe what has befallen me, if belief is to the mind as faith is to the heart: My emotions rebel. They were trained for the useful life of a country doctor and its attendant satisfactions and disappointments. I was not meant to be taken so early from my family, and from this task that has given me a sense of honor and accomplishment, and pleasure, too.

Elena has promised that I may continue to work with her now and again. She will be my eyes; I still have my hands and my mind and my experience.

Pasha is a fine brother. He has made me a special device, a box to hold my ledger, with a ruler that I can move down the page
after each line, measuring two fingers' width—there are little notches. It will keep your letters and lines straight, he says, so that what you write will be clear.

For whom am I writing? I won't be here, some old crone by the fire, to reread my youth. It must be a sort of testament to my family when I am gone. I have nothing else to leave them.