concept

"Adieu" (epistolary sign-off)

adieu

also: adieu

A sincere, unmarked French sign-off ("farewell") dropped into an otherwise Russian letter, a common register habit in Chekhov's correspondence with the educated, Francophone Suvorin -- distinct from the mocking gentry-French affectations Chekhov satirizes elsewhere in his fiction.

Reading notes

To A. S. Suvorin, 10 January 1892. Moscow. §7 adieu
Given untranslated in the source (Cyrillic-context Russian switching into the Latin-script French word \textit{adieu}, "farewell"), a sincere, unmarked register habit -- unlike the mocking gentry-French affectations elsewhere in Chekhov's fiction -- in his letters to Suvorin, an educated and Francophone correspondent; kept as \textit{adieu} in translation rather than rendered as "farewell" or "goodbye," preserving the same brief switch into French that closes the letter's signing-off business before the final bow and signature.