To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on March 31, 1888, to the poet and editor Aleksei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev, this letter finds Chekhov in a low mood on a rainy day but determined to keep the letter itself cheerful. He has just leased a dacha for the summer on the Psyol River in Sumy district, near Poltava – Gogolian country, evoked through Nozdryov and the feuding Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich of "Dead Souls" and "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich."

2 Chekhov presses Pleshcheev, whose plans for a joint trip down the Volga seem to be falling through, to come to the Psyol instead, and paints the place – river, pond, orchard, woods, and an "abundance of young ladies" – in glowing terms, promising a summer of idleness, fishing, fairs, and music. The invitation is threaded with fragments of quoted verse (evoked rather than reproduced here in full) that Chekhov uses playfully to underscore his points about rest and rejuvenation.

3 He also touches on literary business: a story in progress for "Severny Vestnik" that he feels is faltering, irritation at the timid, flattering tone of a critic writing under the name Aristarkhov in "Russkie Vedomosti" (who had been unimpressed by both a piece called "Living Figures" and Chekhov’s own "The Steppe"), and a practical errand – passing along word, through Pleshcheev, to one Nikolai Alekseevich (distinct from Pleshcheev’s own son of the same name, who is separately expected, and doubted, as a summer guest) that a theatrical fee owed to Aleksandr Alekseevich had been paid in full. The letter closes with warm regards to Pleshcheev’s household and to A. M. Evreinova, and mention of a recent letter from the poet Yakov Polonsky.