To N. M. Yezhov, 8 August 1888. Sumy.

1 Written from Sumy (in the Ukrainian countryside, where Chekhov was summering with the Lintvaryov family) on August 8, 1887, this short letter answers the young writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Ezhov, a fellow contributor to the humor magazines. Chekhov excuses his long silence – a month spent traveling through the Crimea and the Caucasus – and congratulates Ezhov on his recent marriage. The "Alexander Semyonovich" of the letter’s fourth section is Alexander Semyonovich Lazarev, who wrote under the pen name "Gruzinsky"; he and Ezhov moved in the same Moscow humor-magazine circle, and the bare "Gruzinsky" invoked later in the letter’s greetings refers to this same person, not a separate acquaintance.

2 The letter is a light, joking specimen of Chekhov’s correspondence with the younger "Oskolki" writers: mock envy at being beaten to the altar, wry reflections on marriage’s effect (or lack of effect) on a writer’s material, some professional matchmaking on Lazarev-Gruzinsky’s behalf with Alexei Suvorin’s "Novoye Vremya," and a scatter of small personal errands and greetings. Its structure is that of a typical period letter: a place/date heading, the body, closing wishes and signature, a couple of afterthoughts, and the full mailing address as written on the envelope, reproduced here as its own segments.