To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 25 October 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 25 October 1888 to the poet and "Severny Vestnik" editor Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheyev, this letter is a dense run of miscellany typical of the autumn 1888 sequence (cf. letters 490, 497, 499, 502, 506), opening with thanks for a copy of Chekhov’s own play "Kalkhas" ("Calchas," also called "The Swan Song"), which Pleshcheyev has had privately copied out for him – Chekhov jokes about rewarding the unnamed copyist with sweets from Moscow. He then reports, with wry precision down to the minute, two brief visits from "Elena Alexeyevna," expressing sympathy for her boredom and describing the dull pre-winter mood of his own household.

2 The middle of the letter turns to the business and politics of "Severny Vestnik": Chekhov notes, with some irony, that a request from Pleshcheyev to keep the journal’s financial troubles secret was already moot, since a correspondent had described the crisis to him in detail weeks earlier, adding that it was being discussed openly at the funeral of a person named "Poletika." He then reasons through the journal’s subscriber numbers (4,000, with room to grow via advertising) and dismisses the rival journal "Epokha" ("Epoch") as juvenile after its first issue.

3 The longest and warmest passage concerns "Zhorzhinka" – an affectionate diminutive for Georges Lintvaryov, the member of the Lintvaryov family at whose Luka estate the Chekhovs summered, previously named by first name alone or as "Georges"/"Zhorzh" in letters 490 and 499 (where he is reported traveling toward Petersburg to play piano). Chekhov calls him the only true artist among all the musicians he has known, praises his soul and taste, but diagnoses laziness and self-doubt as his chief faults, and appeals to Pleshcheyev – whom Georges trusts – to encourage him. This opens into a broader, affectionate lament for the whole Lintvaryov family’s unrealized potential.

4 The letter closes with an extended, sharp-edged meditation on envy prompted by Chekhov’s recent Pushkin Prize (cf. letters 496-509, where the prize and the reactions to it are discussed at length). Chekhov argues that if the prize was undeserved, the envy of it is likewise groundless, and draws a sarcastic distinction between peers who might legitimately envy him and lesser figures – named here as "the Lehmans and Co." – whom he accuses of narrow vanity, no patriotism, and no real love of literature. He extends the same defense to Vladimir Korolenko, the "Severny Vestnik" writer and Chekhov’s fellow prize recipient (cf. letter 483, where Korolenko is likewise discussed as a valued, "irreplaceable" figure at the journal), arguing that envious mediocrities would resent the two of them even for saving the fatherland outright. The letter ends with the standing formula of household greetings and signature.