person
Al. Al. (contemplating the Zaraysk estate)
Al. Al.
also: Ал Ал, Al. Al.
A person referred to only by the abbreviation "Al. Al." whom Chekhov talks out of an ill-timed winter trip to inspect Suvorin's estate near Zaraysk, citing bad roads and a cold, and proposing dinner at Testov's instead. Distinct from Alexei Alexeyevich Suvorin, Suvorin's son, who is named in full three sections earlier in the same letter handling famine-relief donations for "New Times" -- the letter uses the same initials for two different men, and nothing in the text ties this second figure to the son (who is not elsewhere associated with the Zaraysk property or shown contemplating buying/inspecting land). Not otherwise identified in this corpus; flagged as provisional and requiring further research.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 26 October 1891. Moscow. §4 I talked Al. Al. out of going to Zaraysk
This "Al. Al." is NOT Alexei Alexeyevich Suvorin, named in full just one section earlier in \S3 handling famine-relief money. The letter abbreviates two different men with the same initials in close succession: the son is a settled, cross-referenced figure in this corpus who does not elsewhere appear connected to the Zaraysk estate, while this second figure is defined solely by contemplating a trip to inspect Suvorin's property there -- an errand nowhere else attached to the son. Rather than force an identification, the two are kept as separate entities; see for the estate itself, discussed by Chekhov in his own voice (declining to go there in winter) in the earlier \S4.