To N. A. Leikin, 8 December 1886. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 8 December 1886 to Nikolai Leikin, editor of the comic weekly Oskolki (Splinters) and one of Chekhov’s earliest publishers and patrons. Chekhov and his sister had recently stayed as Leikin’s guests in St. Petersburg, and the letter mixes warm thanks for that hospitality with a stream of small, breezy business and gossip: a story enclosed for publication, errands run for Leikin around Moscow, an unreliable acquaintance nicknamed "the pagan god" who owes Leikin money, a request for a well-bred puppy, and complaints about the foul December weather.

2 The letter is a good specimen of the playful, punning private register Chekhov used with Leikin in the mid-1880s, when he was writing at a furious pace for the comic press while also beginning to place more serious work. The teasing wordplay on "nerves" (нервы) versus the invented "nervs" (невры) and the joke about the weather "taking up prostitution" show the loose, joking idiom of these letters, distinct from the more formal voice of Chekhov’s literary correspondence.