To N. A. Leikin, 30 January 1884. Moscow.

Written in haste, with the Petersburg train leaving in two hours, this short note to Nikolai Leikin – editor of Oskolki and Chekhov’s chief employer at this stage of his journalism – is mostly business: a feuilleton going by registered post, a story to follow if it can be finished in time. But Chekhov also promises Leikin a parody of Boleslav Markevich’s much-discussed novel The Fever of Life (Chad zhizni), which he plans to see performed that evening at Lentovsky’s theater. He notes, with the relish of an insider, that he personally knows both Markevich and the real-life models – thinly veiled under names like Ashanin and Vyacheslavtsev – whom the novel’s gossip targets. The letter closes with a postscript teasing an unexplained "funny story" involving the poet Liodor Palmin and the journal Volna, promised for a later letter.