To A. A. Dolzhenko, 9 June 1887. Babkino.

1 Written on 9 June 1887 from Babkino, the country estate near Voskresensk where the Chekhov family summered, to Alexey Alexeyevich Dolzhenko, a young relative (the son of Chekhov’s aunt Fedosya) who lived with the family in Moscow and ran errands and small commissions for them. The occasion is trivial and domestic: a spoon – evidently a keepsake or commissioned piece, not Chekhov’s own – is being made to order back home in Taganrog, and Chekhov, twenty-seven and already the household’s practical manager even while on holiday, is instructing "Lyolya" (as Dolzhenko was known in the family) on what price to accept for it.

2 The letter is brief and affectionate, mixing brisk instructions with teasing: a mock threat to inform the family patriarch Ivan Yegorovich Chekhov (Anton’s uncle) that Dolzhenko has been visiting the Yermolin sisters, an invitation to the dacha, and a closing postscript about a shipment of dried Sea of Azov fish (tarani) and rusks arriving from Taganrog. The letter closes with the address block from the envelope, preserved here as its own short sections.