To Al. P. Chekhov, 26 June 1887. Babkino.
Ал. П. ЧЕХОВУ, 26 июня 1887 г. Бабкино.
Headnote
1 A business letter of 26 June 1887 from Chekhov at the Kiselyov family’s Babkino estate, where the Chekhovs summered, to his elder brother Alexander Pavlovich in St. Petersburg. Chekhov was by this date the household’s chief breadwinner, and the letter opens with a running tally – line counts and payment sums – for fees owed him by the Peterburgskaya Gazeta (the "P. Gazette"), which Alexander is deputized to collect on his behalf.
2 The letter’s unusual form is part of its content: Chekhov presents the fee calculation as a literal itemized account (line-ranges, a running total, a multiplication by the paper’s per-line rate) before turning to prose instructions for collecting and forwarding the money. He closes with family news, a joking swipe at Alexander’s own lack of earnings, regards to colleagues at Novoye Vremya, a bit of gossip about an altercation between two acquaintances, and a request that Alexander track down the address of the elder novelist Dmitry Grigorovich, an early patron.