To M. P. Chekhova, 30 November 1887. Petersburg.

1 This brief note to Chekhov’s sister Maria Pavlovna was written during a stay in Petersburg in late 1887, while Chekhov was lodging with his eldest brother, Alexander Pavlovich. It is a piece of household business dashed off between larger concerns: money sent home, an installment on Misha (Mikhail Chekhov)’s piano, and a debt at the local shop to be settled down.

2 The letter’s real weight falls on its middle lines: Alexander’s common-law wife, Anna Ivanovna Khrushchova-Sokolnikova, was dying of consumption (bugorchatka), and Chekhov – already a practicing physician – describes the sickroom in blunt, clinical terms ("filthy, it stinks... stifling") before promising a fuller letter to follow. The note closes with a small, wry aside that Alexander "keeps his spirits up," a line typical of Chekhov’s habit of undercutting domestic misery with dry understatement.