To F. O. Shekhtel, 14 April 1886. Moscow.

1 Written on 14 April 1886 in Moscow to Franz Osipovich Shekhtel, the architect and close friend who would later design many of Moscow’s Art Nouveau landmarks. The letter is a rapid-fire string of jokes, apologies, and asides written the day after Easter (Paskha), apologizing for a botched plan to meet Shekhtel at the train station the night before. Chekhov blames a sick friend (Gilyarovsky), an unavailable brother (Nikolai), a late-arriving telegram, and bad weather, then pivots into banter about a shared circle of friends, a proposed outing to the village of Kraskovo, and a visitor who left the room reeking of heliotrope cologne.

2 The letter is a good example of Chekhov’s private comic voice: clipped numbered lists, mock-solemn self-accusation ("swinishness"), and throwaway one-line jokes and questions dropped between longer remarks. It captures the texture of his Moscow social life in his mid-twenties — a whirl of weddings, drinking, holiday visits, and needling his friends - well before the graver tone of his later correspondence.