Chekhov's death is one of the great set pieces of literary history.
According to an account written by Olga, his wife, in 1908, on the night of July 2,
1904, Chekhov went to sleep and woke up around one. He was in pain, which made it
difficult to lie down on the road. He felt sick with pain. He was, he said, in torment,
and for the first time in his life he asked for a doctor. It was eerie, but the feeling
that something positive had to be done, and quickly, made me gather all my strength. I woke
up a Russian student living in the hotel and asked him to go for the doctor. Dr. Shvara came
and gently, careingly, started to say something, cradling Anton in his arms. Anton set up unusually
straight and said lovely and clearly, although he knew almost no German. Ich sterbe. I'm dying.
The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne.
Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said, it's a long time since I drank
champagne. Calmly drained his glass, lay down quietly on his left side, and shortly afterwards
fell silent, forever. The dreadful silence of the night was disturbed only by a large
moth which burst into the room like a whirlwind, beat tormentedly against the electric lamps,
and flew confusedly around the room. The doctor left, and in the silence and heat of the night,
the cork suddenly jumped out of the unfinished bottle of champagne with a terrifying bang.
It began to grow light, and as nature awoke, the gentle, melodious song of the birds came
like the first song of the morning, and the sound of an organ came from a nearby church.
There was no human voice, no bustle of human life, only the beauty, calm, and majesty of death.
Awareness of grief, of the loss of such a man as Anton Pavlovich, came only with the first
sounds of awakening life, with the arrival of people, and what I experienced and felt,
standing on the balcony, and looking now at the rising sun, now at nature, melodiously awakening,
now at the fine, peaceful face of Anton Pavlovich, would seem to be smiling,
as if he had just understood something. That, I repeat, still remains for me an unresolved mystery.
There had never been such moments as those before in my life, and there never will be again.
Thank you.
