To Al. P. Chekhov, 18 November 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 18 November 1888 to Chekhov’s elder brother Alexander Pavlovich, a journalist on Suvorin’s "Novoye Vremya." A short, brisk letter mixing a favor for an acquaintance with a run of terse business and family items, closing with the familiar signature "Antoine."

2 Chekhov opens by asking Alexander to help him satisfy a request from an instructor at the Theatrical School, who wants examples of oratory: Chekhov, professing himself no theorist, recalls that short, elegant speeches were delivered in the legislative chambers on the day of Victor Hugo’s death, and asks Alexander to find out the exact date from Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, then dig up the relevant speeches in the old run of "Novoye Vremya," also asking whether Suvorin or Burenin might have further suggestions. He then asks in quick succession whether Alexander has received the power of attorney (the mock-legal document sent two days earlier in), reports that he has sent off a third leading article, remarks on the tedium of living by fiction alone, mentions his coming trip to Petersburg and asks to be told when "The Bear" will play at the Alexandrinsky, then signs off with a hurried "Keep well" and the pet signature "Your Antoine."

3 No content requiring softening; the letter is brisk business and family chat throughout, translated at full force per policy. "Burenin" is Viktor Burenin, the critic and columnist in Suvorin’s "Novoye Vremya" circle, already attested in this correspondence’s wider cast (e.g., on Chekhov’s 1887 Petersburg visit); he is invoked only as a possible further source of suggestions and takes no other role here. "Plevako,Fedchenko," and "Pokrovsky" (2, source) are the three orators Chekhov says he has heard in his lifetime – Plevako is almost certainly the famous trial lawyer Fyodor Plevako, already named in this corpus as a celebrity acquaintance in ("a handshake from a drunken Plevako"); "Fedchenko" is not otherwise identified in this corpus; "Pokrovsky" here is a public orator and should NOT be conflated with the different, unidentified acquaintance of the Chekhov father named "Pokrovsky" in – the name recurs but denotes a distinct person in each letter, per that corpus’s general caution that common Russian surnames are not evidence of shared identity without further context. Victor Hugo (2, source) is named in the source with no gloss required. The "power of attorney" (3) is the mock-legal document from, two days earlier, in which Chekhov jokingly appoints Alexander his theatrical business agent; this letter’s inquiry confirms it was sent and checks whether it arrived. "The Bear" (Медведь,, source) is Chekhov’s own one-act farce, already well established in this corpus as in active production (e.g.); the Alexandrinsky is the imperial theater in Petersburg. The idiom in (source, literally "against one’s will, one gapes one’s mouth at another’s loaf") is rendered as "eyeing another man’s loaf of bread," a standard Russian proverb for coveting what belongs to someone else – here Chekhov’s wry complaint that a fiction writer inevitably casts an envious eye at other kinds of literary work (such as journalism or, per-4, favors and errands); not attested elsewhere in this corpus’s letters, so no prior convention to match. The closing signature "Твой Antoine" mixes Russian "Твой" (Your) with the Gallicized "Antoine" for Anton – a pet form of address to Alexander not otherwise seen signed this way elsewhere in this corpus’s translated letters to him (compare "Твой А. Чехов" / "Your A. Chekhov" in), rendered here as "Your Antoine" to preserve both the Russian possessive and the French affectation of the name.