considerable time at the Pension Russe in the Rue Gounod. He seemed to be
fully satisfied with the life there. He liked the warmth and the people he
met, M. Kovalevsky, V. M. Sobolesky, V. T. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko, the
artist V. T. Yakobi and I. N. Potapenko. Prince A. I. Sumbatov arrived at
Nice too, and Chekhov used sometimes to go with him to Monte Carlo to
roulette.

Chekhov followed all that he had left behind in Russia with keen attention:
he was anxious about the _Chronicle of Surgery_, which he had more than
once saved from ruin, made arrangements about Melihovo, and so on.

He spent the autumn and winter in Nice, and in February, 1898, meant to go
to Africa. He wanted to visit Algiers and Tunis, but Kovalevsky, with whom
he meant to travel, fell ill, and he had to give up the project. He
contemplated a visit to Corsica, but did not carry out that plan either, as
he was taken seriously ill himself. A wretched dentist used contaminated
forceps in extracting a tooth, and Chekhov was attacked by periostitis in a
malignant form. In his own words, "he was in such pain that he climbed up
the wall."

As soon as the spring had come he felt an irresistible yearning for Russia.
He was weary of enforced idleness; he missed the snow and the Russian
country, and at the same time he was depressed at having gained no weight
in spite of the climate, good nourishment, and idleness.

While he was at Nice France was in the throes of the Dreyfus affair.
Chekhov began studying the Dreyfus and Zola cases from shorthand notes, and
becoming convinced of the innocence of both, wrote a heated letter to
Suvorin, which led to a coolness between them.