To M. M. Dyukovsky, 20 February 1886. Moscow.

1 A brief note from Chekhov to Mikhail Mikhailovich Dyukovsky, written in Moscow around February 20, 1886. Dyukovsky was a relative on Chekhov’s mother’s side and, at various points, helped manage small financial matters for the family. Here Chekhov thanks him for money received, says he will ask for more if needed, and mentions that the publisher Alexei Suvorin — with whom Chekhov had just begun his pivotal association at the newspaper Novoye Vremya — has set his pay at 12 kopecks per line.

2 Though slight, the letter is a useful data point for the economics of Chekhov’s early career: it fixes the per-line rate Suvorin offered him just as their long and consequential professional relationship was beginning in early 1886, the year that transformed Chekhov from a prolific comic writer into a serious literary figure.