To Al. P. Chekhov, 3 June 1887. Babkino.

1 Written from the family’s summer estate at Babkino between 26 May and 3 June 1887 to Chekhov’s older brother Alexander Pavlovich, who was in St. Petersburg overseeing production of Chekhov’s first substantial story collection, "V sumerkakh" ("In the Twilight"), published by Alexei Suvorin. Addressing Alexander with the joking nickname "Luka Ivanych," Chekhov fires off a rapid string of instructions and complaints about the book’s printing – refusing an extra signature that would raise the price, insisting the finished volume belongs to the publisher Suvorin and not to the family, and explaining the title’s allegory of life as dusk.

2 The letter is a compressed catalogue of unrelated business, in the terse, itemized style typical of Chekhov’s letters to Alexander: publishing logistics, a joking threat of hellfire over a shortchanged 16 kopecks, a detailed medical prescription for Alexander’s common-law wife Anna Ivanovna (Chekhov was a practicing physician), instructions to whip the children, and closing family news, including an invitation to their brother Nikolai.

3 Contains a casual instruction to corporally punish children ("Detei pori" – "Flog the children"), consistent with period domestic norms and Chekhov’s characteristic dark humor with Alexander; translated without softening.