To M. P. Chekhova, 4 April 1887. Slavyansk.
М. П. ЧЕХОВОЙ, 4 апреля 1887 г. Славянск.
Headnote
1 Written on Holy Saturday, 4 April 1887, from the station town of Slavyansk in the south, as Chekhov traveled toward Taganrog for the Easter holiday. It is addressed to his younger sister Maria Pavlovna ("Masha") Chekhova at the family’s Moscow apartment on Kudrinskaya Sadovaya.
2 A brief, breathless travel note dashed off early in the morning: a comic inventory of a fog-bound landscape ("birds, crocodiles, zebras" all in hiding), an Easter greeting ("Christ is risen!"), and a string of wry observations on his fellow travelers, closing with the French valediction "Votre a tous" ("Yours to all"). The letter preserves its original physical form as a postcard or folded note, ending with the reverse-side address block exactly as addressed for delivery.