To A. S. Suvorin, 7 October 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 7 October 1888 to Alexei Suvorin, five days after Chekhov’s long letter of 2 October and three days after his letter to Alexei Pleshcheyev of 4 October. It is one of the shortest items in this run of correspondence: a brief cover note offering Suvorin a short piece for the front page of "Novoye Vremya," followed by a closing aside that Ivan Shcheglov ("Jean") is still nursing his grievances over the flop of his play "The Summer Husband" – the running joke that threads through, and in this same fortnight.

2 Chekhov offers Suvorin a short article he has "scratched out" (a self-deprecating turn of phrase, not a claim of hasty or careless work) for the paper’s first page, telling him plainly to throw it in the wastebasket without a second thought if it isn’t fit for such a debut. He signs off, then adds, as if in afterthought or as a closing jab, that Shcheglov is still going on – to anyone who will listen, implicitly including Chekhov himself – about the play, and about three names associated with its Moscow production: the actress Glama, one Korit, and the actor Solovtsov. Chekhov caps the aside with a single exasperated "Ugh!" ("Уф!" in the source, matching the same exclamation Chekhov reaches for elsewhere in this stretch of letters when tired of Shcheglov’s postmortems on the play).