To I. P. Chekhov, 28 April 1886. Petersburg.
И. П. Чехову, 28 апреля 1886 г. Петербург.
Headnote
1 Written from Petersburg on 28 April 1886 to Chekhov’s older brother Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov, a schoolteacher in Moscow. It is a brisk, businesslike note about a portrait – likely of their late grandfather or another family subject – being reproduced from a catalogue, with Chekhov directing Ivan to a version marked in blue pencil and quoting the price. He mentions his own complimentary copy from the printer Golike, gives a quick round of Petersburg news (a party at Suvorin’s with the writer Grigorovich, new acquaintances among local artists, a planned visit to the humorist Leikin’s country place), and closes by signing as an officer of the "Oskolki" publishing association, whose office address he supplies.
2 The letter is a minor but characteristic specimen of Chekhov’s practical, transactional correspondence with family: terse, itemized, and mixing small domestic errands (ordering a portrait, paying for "certificates of merit") with glimpses of his busy literary-journalistic life in Petersburg at the height of his association with "Oskolki" and Suvorin’s circle.