To N. A. Leikin, 29 November 1885. Moscow.

Written from Moscow on November 29, 1885, this short letter continues Chekhov’s steady business correspondence with Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, editor-publisher of the Petersburg humor weekly Oskolki ("Splinters"). Just back from a trip to Zvenigorod, Chekhov answers a batch of Leikin’s questions and concerns in quick, clipped strokes: confirming that the painter Isaac Levitan and a place called "Gatchina" are both to be found in Moscow, reassuring Leikin that his brother Nikolai’s recent illness was ordinary gastritis and not delirium tremens, and reporting that a fee from another publication ("P g") has come through.

The letter also touches Chekhov’s restless family obligations – news of "Agafopod" (a nickname within the Chekhov circle) doing well and awaiting his own payment from Leikin – and a flicker of Chekhov’s own wanderlust, floating the idea of a trip to Bulgaria and asking Leikin’s practical advice. He closes with routine business: a request that his fee be sent by December 5th, and a note that he is about to move house but that mail can still reach him at the old address. Brisk, funny in its throwaway asides, and entirely occupied with money, family, and the mechanics of freelance life, it is a characteristic specimen of Chekhov’s working correspondence with his first regular editor.