To L. N. Trefolev, 19 October 1887. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 19 October 1887 to Leonid Nikolaevich Trefolev, the Yaroslavl poet and local-history writer with whom Chekhov had been corresponding since 1886 (see the earlier letter of 30 September 1887, in which Chekhov sent his photograph). This is a brief, businesslike follow-up: Chekhov notes that he had earlier sent Trefolev a short note and his visiting card, has had no reply, and is writing to check whether the card ever arrived.

2 The letter is preserved with its envelope-side address, addressed to Trefolev at the Yaroslavl Provincial Zemstvo Board, where he worked as a clerk; the closing honorific "His High Nobility" (Vashe vysokoblagorodie) is the standard formal address for a civil servant of Trefolev’s rank under the Table of Ranks, not a personal flourish by Chekhov. The note itself is only a few lines, opening mid-salutation ("Respected / Leonid Nikolaevich!") in the terse, functional register of a quick check-in rather than the bantering correspondence typical between the two men.