To M. P. Chekhova, 23 April 1887. Zverevo.

1 Written at 3 a.m. on April 23, 1887, from the railway stop at Zverevo (a junction in the Don region), to Chekhov’s sister Maria Pavlovna in Moscow. Chekhov is mid-journey to a wedding in Novocherkassk and is staying, between train connections, at the estate of the Kravtsov family – friends whose steppe property he visited more than once during his 1887 trip south, which also produced material for the story "The Steppe."

2 A brief, wry travel note: he complains of the tedium of waiting at the station, jokes about the primitive abundance of life at Kravtsov’s (eight meals a day, curdled milk, game birds, and a claimed cure for consumption and rheumatism – though not for hemorrhoids), and closes with a formal address written as if for the back of an envelope, with his sister’s name and the family’s Moscow address.