The next morning, Chekhov's widow and Dr Schwoerer's Russian wife did their best to create a Russian Orthodox atmosphere m the chapel by br iging their icons and setting them up on a stand by the coffin. Later in the day an Orthodox priest from Karlsruhe arrived to perform the first panikhida. The small congregation included Dmitry von Eichler, Gr.gory Iolios, the Berlin correspondent of the Russian Gazette, the two Rabenek brothers, and Olga's sister-in-law, who arrved from Dresden. Then began the long j эигпеу back to Berlin, Petersburg and finally Moscow. In Berlin, in a railway siding where the carriage bearing Chekhov's coffin sat waiting for permission to be coupled to a passenger train going to Russia, a second memorial service was conducted by the senior priest from the embassy church, Father Maltsev, whom Olga later recalled as a person of great depth, intelligence and humour. Russian staff from the embassy brought garlands of oak leaves, flowers and foliage to decorate the carriage. The panikhida was sung in hushed voices at the request of the German authorises, lending it a mysterous aura, and Olga was moved by Father Maltsev's oration, in which he praised her late husband's gentle, sad (and occasionally denunciatory) stoi.es. They were distinguished, he said, by the desire to help people break loose from difficult situations by pouimg warmth and light into their troubled souls.13
The train bearing Chekhov's body pulled into the Warsaw station in St Petersburg early in the morning on 7 July. Only one person was there to greet it - the temporary president of Russia's Literary Foundation, Semyon Vengerov - and he was as embarrassed by the fact that he was alone as Olga was shocked by the absence of other representatives of the Petersburg literary world. Masha soon am fed from Moscow, and the three of them sat down to wait for the train which would transfer Chekhov's coffin to the Nlkolaevsky station, from which trains departed for Moscow. By midday they had been joined by Chekhov's brother Alexander and his fam^y, his publisher Adolf Marx, and Suvorin. Despite their estrangement (the letter Suvorin wrote to Chekhov 'a February 1902 had been the first in three years), the manner in which the gi'ef-stricken old man ran with his stick to greet Olga is revealing; it seemed to one witness to be more like that of a father struggling to cope with the death of his child.14 A requiem was performed at the station.15
Exactly a month after arriving in Badenweiler, Chekhov was buried ш Moscow s Novodevicny Cemetery, next to his father's grave.
II
The Russian Aftermath
The obituary in the Times Literary Supplement, published a week after his death, characterized Chekhov as the most Russian of contemporary Russian writers, and drew tne equivocal conclusion that he 'may or may not have been a man of genius'.16 Back in Russia there was no such doubt. The Crimean Courier in Yalta had followed Chekhov's every move from the time he went to live there, first recording his arrival in September 1898, and noting what proved to be his final departure for Moscow in May 1904. On 25 June the paper reported that Chekhov had arrived in Badenweiler From 3 July 1904, the day after his death, there began a deluge in the Russian press as the nation began to grieve. Friends and relatives wrote memoirs, which were published next to poems inspired by the sad event, articles about the productions of his plays and information about the foundation of Chekhov societies and museums. I ke every other newspaper, the Crimean Courier published a heartfelt obituarv that day. It then reported a few days later that a huge congregation had gathered in the Greek Orthodox parish church in Upper Autka to attend the first requiem service to be held in Chekhov's memory the same even. lg. This was the church down the road from his house, which his mother attended. The family had got to know Father Vasily well since moving in, and he had visited them on occasion. The requiem service was attended by Chekhov's mother, with his sister and two younger brothers, who were in Yalta on holiday. A week later a requiem was held in Yalta's cathedral church as in the Autka church, and it was packed on each successive occasion when requiems were held, as per Orthodox tradiuon. When the cycle of requiem services ended, lectures and 1;terary evenings were organized.17
Chekhov's body arrived in Moscow on 9 July, and thousands took part in the funeral procession as it wended its way slowly from the station in the north of the city, through the centre, past the Moscow Art Theatre building, where there was a temporary halt for prayers to be said, and then westwards to the cemetery at the Novodevichy Convent. In such volatile times, the police were extremely apprehensive that the crowds following the coffin might stage a demonstration, and stipulated that there should be no speeches at the funeral. But after the clergy and the grieving family had departed, and over 120 wreaths had been placed on his grave (did someone really count?), many mourners refused to-leave. There were some impromptu speeches to which the police could no longer call a halt, and then it started to rain heavily.18 The next day somebody piaced a bunch of wild flowers on Chekhov's grave, with a sbp of paper on which was scribbled a note in pencil which spoke of the great writer's ability to express the sad poverty of Russian life.19 Telegrams arrived for weeks at the editorial offices of Russian Thought and Russian Gazette.
It is certain that Chekhov would have loathed all tne eulogies. He once confessed to hav ng 'autobiographobia', and had always preferred to deflect attention away from himself, finding it boring to comment on his own work 'I'm afrs id of speeches,' he had said in 1899. 'As soon as someone starts giving a speech at a celebratory dinner, I become unhappy and want to crawl under the table.' He could not even bear high-flown sentiment from his wife. When, in a rush of emotion, Olga had addressed him in November 1903 as her 'superman', he had immediately written back, S'gning himself as her 'superman who frequently has to run to the WC'.21 He would have probably found the posthumous wrangles which appeared in the press about his deal w;:h Adolf Marx as distasteful as the eulogies. They started the day after his death, when the wnter Vias Doroshevich devoted a who'e secuon of his memorial article about Chekhov to deploring the unfairness of the contract. The fol'owing day, Suvorin produced an article along the same lines for New Times, which was then reprinted in numerous other Russian papers. It did not take long for the mud-snngmg to start. One journalist pointed out that it was in very poor taste to argue over commercial matters when Chekhov had only just been bui ed, but no one appeared to take heed and eventually Marx was goaded into defending himself.22 Chekhov might indeed have laughed had he known his body would be brought back to Russia in a refrigerated train carriage marked 'for oysters', but he would surely have despaired at this tawdry quarrel. He had once declared that seeing his name in the press made him feel as if he had eaten a woodlouse.23