“Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.”-Anton Chekhov

Playwright and short story genius Anton Chekhov and actress Olga Knipper had a short, independent, mostly long-distance marriage. It began with a low-key, very private wedding in May 1901, and ended with Chekhov’s tragic death three years later. Neither career was sacrificed to the traditional dictates of matrimony.

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“Give me a wife who, like the moon, won’t appear in my sky every day.”-Anton Chekhov

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“And what does it mean–dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.”-Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

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“In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.”-Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

Anton Chekhov died on 15 July 1904, with his wife by his side. Olga Knipper outlived her husband by nearly fifty-five years.