So, the tale that spoke to me across a century from the packet of papers I inherited from my father, when I understood its provenance, was not so altogether surprising that I missed a heartbeat.
The packet was labelled The Fatal Debut (a provisional title, I believe) in Chekhov's own hand on the wax paper wrapper containing his papers. However, the handwriting of the enclosed manuscript was not wholly in Chekhov's own distinctive penscript, but in other hands (his brothers Aleksandr, Nicholya, Misha and others). The work was translated and annotated by my father, from whose ms (see specimen pages) I have drawn for my own restoration of the novel.
His ownership of the original manuscript (deposited in my father's bank) is accounted thus:
My father, a polyglot, born 1903, travelled widely in his schooldays, studying at Herder Realgymnasium, Berlin ; Escuela Alemana, Barcelona ; Institut Minerva, Zurich ; and Handelsschule Weiss, Vienna.
In World War II, my father, by now a naturalised Englishman serving in the British Army, was an interpreter with SHAEF at the Nürnberg Trials.
According to a diary note of March 8 1946, he interrogated a General Vadim Ignatyvich Kulikov, who, in his youth, had been a close friend of Chekhov. (Kulikov, embittered by his failure to protect his Mari family against the post-revolutionary dekulakization in the inter-war years, had, remarkably, at the age of 69, defected to the Germans to lead a Cossack Unit subordinated to a Sicherungs Division, stationed in Glogau, Poland, which was active in the Kiev area and Croatia in 1943, deployed against saboteurs. After the series of interrogations conducted by my father, and following demands from the Soviets for Kulikov's repatriation, he was returned to Russia later in 1946, where after a show trial in Moscow he was executed for treason.)
In his private confession to my father, Kulikov stated he had "... exchanged half a carton of Chesterfields, two tins of cocoa and one can of condensed milk for the 'FD ms' in possession of a fellow prisoner, Vassily Gremoukhin, a collaborator, and émigré son of the ciseleur, Anatoly Gremoukhin, a distinguished former workmaster in the St. Petersburg House of Carl Fabergé".
From extant notes and journal references uncovered by my father, it seems Chekhov visited Gremoukhin in 1901 the month before his marriage to Olga Knipper to lay preparations for the special commission of a wedding gift: "A pair of engraved rock-crystal toilet bottles with mounts of enamelled translucent pink on a guilloché ground, one surmounted by a varicoloured chalcedony dog, the other by a cat in purpurine, each with cabochon ruby eyes."
Chekhov did not warm to Gremoukhin. Evidently, the commission was of a private nature and was not passed through Fabergé's books; Chekhov was, as so often during his courtship, pressed for cash and Gremoukhin demanded security against completion of the gift. (Gremoukhin's telephone number is given as Moscow 1173, by the way.)
Chekhov writes: "The manuscript was to hand (I had only that day assembled the pages for archiving) and, reluctantly, the work was placed in Gremoukhin's safekeeping as my guarantee. The hastiness of the agreement was prompted by the arrival of the maître, Fabergé himself, who benignly greeted me with the words: 'I must tell you at once, sir, the only doctor in whom I have ever put my faith at all is the good Berncasteler Doktor!' (He was referring to his favourite dry white Moselle.)"
In the event, as Gremoukhin's son related to my father, Chekhov never redeemed his manuscript, on which I have presumed to confer the title: D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv.
A sample chapter, Inductive Detection, from 270 transcribed pages (see mss below in a copyist's hand) may be read here ... you'll note the last page is irreverently overwritten by my father with notes on ordnance and supply columns!
A number of extracts from the as-yet-unpublished crime novel,
D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv, have been posted here over recent years :
A Skirmish with Wolves,
D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv, have been posted here over recent years :
A Skirmish with Wolves,
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2015/01/d-r-tchekhov-skirmish-with-wolves-and.html
or Winter Rules,
or Chekhov’s talking raven,
or Dead Wife, New Hat,
or Inductive Detection,
or D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv. A long lost novel,
https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2011/10/d-r-tchekhov-detektiv-long-lost-novel.html
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Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence,
see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html
and Listen Close to Me (2011)
