To P. A. Sergeyenko, 4 May 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 4 May 1888 to the writer Pyotr Alekseyevich Sergeenko, an old university friend of Chekhov’s whom he addresses here by Sergeenko’s own pen name, "Poor Yorick" (after the jester in Shakespeare’s "Hamlet").

2 Chekhov answers a letter that took half of April to reach him, passes along his coming summer address at the Lintvaryov estate near Sumy, and reports that he has already rented a "den" on the river Psyol and leaves the next day with his family. He is noncommittal about a possible trip to Mount Athos – his mother ("grandmother" is a private joke) hasn’t decided – and says that if he goes it will be in the autumn, at the suggestion of Alexei Alekseyevich Suvorin, the son of his publisher and friend Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, with whom he has agreed to travel. He closes by inviting Sergeenko to look him up if their paths cross in Odessa that summer, since he plans to sail down the Dnieper to Odessa and on to the Crimea in early June.