To A. S. Lazarev, 23 January 1887. Moscow.

1 Written in Moscow on January 23, 1887, to Alexander Semyonovich Lazarev (who wrote under the pen name "Gruzinsky"), a young humorist and fellow contributor to Nikolai Leikin’s comic weekly Oskolki ("Splinters"), then teaching at a provincial teachers’ seminary in Kirzhach, Vladimir province. Lazarev had evidently cut short a recent visit to Chekhov in Moscow to hurry back to his post.

2 The letter is a short, teasing rebuke in Chekhov’s characteristic mock-solemn register: he needles Lazarev for abandoning a lively gathering and for a show of professional "zeal" that earned him no reward, then pivots to office gossip – editor Leikin’s irritation over Chekhov’s own request for a raise – capped with an ironic scriptural flourish ("There is no power but of God") and a final jab about unpaid provisions, before closing with the ordinary address on the back of the letter to the seminary in Kirzhach.