most absolute freedom, freedom from force and fraud in whatever form the
two latter may be expressed, that is the programme I would hold to if I
were a great artist."

At this time he was always gay and insisted on having people round him
while he worked. His little house in Moscow, which "looked like a chest of
drawers," was a centre to which people, and especially young people,
flocked in swarms. Upstairs they played the piano, a hired one, while
downstairs he sat writing through it all. "I positively can't live without
visitors," he wrote to Suvorin; "when I am alone, for some reason I am
frightened." This gay life which seemed so full of promise was, however,
interrupted by violent fits of coughing. He tried to persuade other people,
and perhaps himself, that it was not serious, and he would not consent to
be properly examined. He was sometimes so weak from haemorrhage that he
could see no one, but as soon as the attack was over his mood changed, the
doors were thrown open, visitors arrived, there was music again, and
Chekhov was once more in the wildest spirits.

The summers of those two years, 1888 and 1889, he spent with his family in
a summer villa at Luka, in the province of Harkov. He was in ecstasies
beforehand over the deep, broad river, full of fish and crayfish, the pond
full of carp, the woods, the old garden, and the abundance of young ladies.
His expectations were fulfilled in every particular, and he had all the
fishing and musical society he could wish for. Soon after his arrival
Plestcheyev came to stay with him on a month's visit.

He was an old man in feeble health, but attractive to everyone. Young
ladies in particular were immediately fascinated by him. He used to compose
his works aloud, sometimes shouting at the top of his voice, so that
Chekhov would run in and ask him if he wanted anything. Then the old man