To A. S. Kiselev, 24 November 1887. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on November 24, 1887, to Alexei Sergeyevich Kiselev, husband of Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva and co-owner with her of the Babkino estate near Voskresensk where the Chekhov family summered. The occasion is the third performance, on November 25, of Chekhov’s play "Ivanov," which had opened at Korsh’s theatre in Moscow three days earlier to a famously turbulent reception – part triumph, part scandal.

2 Chekhov invites Kiselev to attend, reports that he was called out to applause again at the second showing without the hissing that had marked the premiere, and quotes – with sardonic relish – the verdict of the critic and playwright Pyotr Kicheev, who had once killed a man in a duel that Kiselev himself witnessed, that "Ivanov" is "insolently cynical, immoral, and disgusting." The letter closes with mock-ferocious teasing naming Kiselev, a close friend, as his own worst "enemy," a fragment of private banter ("very grateful to you"), and a promise of a further letter once Chekhov reaches Petersburg.