To N. A. Leikin, 24–25 September 1885. Moscow.

Written from Moscow in late September 1885, just after his return from the Kiselyov estate at Babkino, this letter continues Chekhov’s running correspondence with Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, editor-publisher of the Petersburg humor weekly Oskolki ("Splinters") and, at the time, his principal editor and creditor. Scrawled, he says, on a scrap of paper for want of anything better, it mixes small domestic and business notices – his household still hasn’t found a new apartment, he’s arranging to have his mail redirected from Voskresensk to a Moscow post office, a bill has gone off to the editor Sergei Khudekov, and the poet Liodor Palmin has left a letter waiting for him – with a report on seeing Vladimir Gilyarovsky ("Gilyai"), who complained that Leikin wouldn’t print his work; Chekhov predicts he’ll make a fine reporter.

The letter’s second half turns grimmer: an unsparing account of a Moscow gripped by illness that autumn, with the population visibly gaunt and unwell "as if sensing the Last Judgment," and a pointed dig at the public’s fear of cholera while it overlooks the far deadlier, unremarked toll of child mortality. The shift from bantering business notes to blunt social observation is characteristic of the young Chekhov, already trained by his medical studies to notice what his neighbors would rather not. He signs off simply, "Yours, A. Chekhov."