To M. V. Kiseleva, 28 September 1887. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 28 September 1887 to Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva, a family friend and writer who, with her husband Alexei Sergeyevich Kiselev, owned the Babkino estate near Voskresensk where the Chekhovs summered for several years. The tone is the light, teasing one Chekhov used with the Kiselev household.

2 Chekhov encloses a laudatory review of his work from "Novoye Vremya" and jokes that a favorable notice in the official "Government Herald" now gives his writing something like state sanction – so that Alexei Sergeyevich Kiselev, Maria Vladimirovna’s husband, risks the Peter and Paul Fortress if he dares criticize him. He reports the family well, describes his own affairs as "dry going" (borrowing the priests’ parting joke after a Babkino dinner), sends greetings to the Kiselev household including their son Seryozha, and signs off mock-grandly as "Genius Chekhov." A postscript notes his sister Maria Pavlovna’s ("Ma-Pa") sighting of an overdressed acquaintance, Mlle Syrout, and mentions a letter and book already sent, plus a planned note to Kiselev punning on his name as "Kisselhoff."