work
Zilbergrosh
"Zilbergrosh"
also: Зильбергрош
A story manuscript by Ye. M. Shavrova, still in progress as of this letter and previously discussed in Chekhov's letter of 6 March 1891; he half-jokingly asks permission to write its ending himself. Its title character, Madame Zilbergrosh, and the associated soup-ordering anecdote of \S4 are discussed within the letter but not separately entified.
Reading notes
- To Ye. M. Shavrova, 6 March 1891. Moscow. §7 Zilbergrosh
A Shavrova manuscript centered on a character named Zilbergrosh, evidently still unfinished; Chekhov asks Shavrova to describe Filippych in similarly vivid terms, judging Filippych "bigger" material, and presses again two sections later for her to send the finished piece.
- To Ye. M. Shavrova, 8 March 1891. Moscow. §4 Zilbergrosh's soup
Chekhov digresses into a personal anecdote about ordering giblet soup (rassolnik) apparently connected to the story's title character or setting, before returning to editorial comments on the manuscript in \S5.
- To Ye. M. Shavrova, 8 March 1891. Moscow. §5 Madame Zilbergrosh
Detailed line notes on the age, characterization, and comic "excessive well-fed-ness" of the story's title character, whom Chekhov judges well drawn -- in contrast to the underdeveloped secondary characters Shurochka and Olya, whom he argues split the reader's attention and weaken the story.
- To Ye. M. Shavrova, 8 March 1891. Moscow. §7 will you not let me fashion an ending for Zilbergrosh?
A playful, half-serious offer -- "my hands are itching" -- to write the conclusion of the still-unfinished "Zilbergrosh" himself; whether Shavrova took him up on it is not recoverable from this letter.