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| Chekhov and Tolstoy at a subsequent meeting, in Gaspra in 1901 |
Chekhov caught a cold while he was there. Could it have been because the two men had their first conversation while bathing? This is the story told by one Aleksei Ivanovich Yakovlev, who as an impressionable student visited Chekhov two years after the incident. He recounted (some years after both writers’ deaths) that “on their arrival (Chekhov was not alone, this was early morning), [Tolstoy] brought him to bathe, and their first conversation happened up to their necks in the water”.
There’s an entertaining essay about this meeting in Russian Life, in which the author quotes the biographer Elif Batuman: “… Chekhov arrived at the exact moment when Tolstoy was headed to the stream for his daily ablutions. Tolstoy insisted that Chekhov join him; Chekhov later recalled that, as he and Tolstoy sat naked in the chin-deep water, Tolstoy’s beard floated majestically before him.”
Alas, Russian Life suggests that “Chekhov was kidding young Yakovlev”. It seems not to match other first-hand accounts. According to the article: “Chekhov mentioned his visit a handful of times in letters over the next two months of 1895, and he didn’t recount bathing with Tolstoy then, and he seems never to have mentioned it to anyone else. Neither did Tolstoy…” So the beard-floating episode probably didn’t happen.
But cyclist-watching did. Later that day, we learn, Tolstoy suggested to his various guests they should join him in walking up to the main road “to see how our young people bicycle to Tula”, a city nearby. Why? Cycling was still something of a novelty and not entirely respectable, but Tolstoy was an enthusiast and had recently taken it up as a hobby. In his diary of that year he wrote: "I began to learn how to ride the bicycle at the [Moscow] Manège. It's very strange that I am attracted to this… I don't feel ashamed. On the contrary, I feel that this is a form of natural idiocy, that I don't care what people think, that it is sinless and fun in a childlike way." 25 April, 1895
Chekhov had recently bought a country estate not too far away, and was in the middle of a creative period in which he was writing short stories. We know the two writers talked about the novel Tolstoy was writing at the time, Resurrection. And Chekhov was able to correct a factual detail about prison sentences. During the visit, Tolstoy also asked Chekhov for help in getting accommodation for an old soldier who had gone blind.
It certainly seems that the meeting was friendly, with Chekhov no doubt expressing his admiration for the older writer (Tolstoy was 67 and Chekhov 35). They enjoyed mutual respect, and in due course Tolstoy was said to love Chekhov dearly, though they disagreed on certain issues. They would meet several more times. But Tolstoy remained the dominant father figure, tormenting Chekhov at what might have been their last meeting with a famously damning comment. According to an account by Chekhov of a visit to Tolstoy in Gaspra, “He was bedridden due to illness. Among other things, he spoke about me and my works. Finally, when I was about to say goodbye he took my hand and said, 'Kiss me goodbye.' While I bent over him and he was kissing me, he whispered in my ear in a still energetic, old man's voice, 'You know, I hate your plays. Shakespeare was a bad writer, and I consider your plays even worse than his.'"
References
https://russianlife.com/the-russia-file/when-chekhov-met-tolstoy/
https://russianlife.com/the-russia-file/cycling-with-the-count/
https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/326317-7-renowned-russian-bike-riders
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Tolstoy/Fiction-after-1880
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/11/tolstoy-thought-chekhov-worse-than-shakespeare
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