To Al. P. Chekhov, 23 November 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 23 November 1888 to Chekhov’s elder brother Alexander Pavlovich, a journalist on Suvorin’s "New Times." A short, rapid-fire letter in fifteen brief items – advice, complaints, family news, and money worries – of a piece with the run of letters to Alexander from this same autumn (through).

2 Chekhov opens with the bare exclamation "666!" (an in-joke whose referent is not otherwise explained in this letter or its neighbors), then advises Alexander against calling on the actress Savina, on the grounds that actresses are only to be courted and entreated, not put in a position to be begged from – a continuation of the "Bear" negotiations already underway in, and. He mentions a book by one "Shmakhov," recommended by Alexei Alexeyevich (young Suvorin), which turns out to deal only with forensic oratory, and tells Alexander to ask "the old man" (their father, Pavel Yegorovich) about it. He gives a conditional instruction about notarizing a copy of the power of attorney already sent if and only if "The Bear" is actually staged. He asks whether Alexander has heard from their mother and tells him to write her a line, then worries aloud about travel money if the Academy of Sciences prize (already the subject of) is slow to arrive. He dismisses an article Alexander had sent from "Yuzhny Krai" ("The Southern Region," a Kharkov newspaper) as one more attempt at the unanswerable question of "who am I," reports an ongoing philosophical correspondence with an unnamed older friend, and says he plans to write a scolding letter to the publisher Leykin. He asks Alexander to watch provincial papers for productions of his plays, notes he currently has two in active circulation with three more due by December, and sets himself a modest income target "for the widow" (an unidentified dependent, not otherwise named in this letter). A one-line item reports that their brother Nikolai had gone missing for ten days and has just reappeared. The letter closes with a packed valedictory – health, temperance, and a warning against reporting work in favor of leader-writing – a greeting to "Natalia Alexandrovna," and a terse, grim note that the writer Putyata has consumption and is living in poverty, before the signature "Your Antoine."

3 No content requiring softening in the sensitive-content sense, though’s report on Putyata – "He has consumption. He’s living as a beggar." – is translated at full bluntness per policy rather than euphemized; it is offered as flat reportage, not humor, consistent with Chekhov’s own physician’s-eye concern for Putyata elsewhere in this corpus. "Savina" (3) is the actress Maria Gavrilovna Savina, already extensively established in this correspondence as the actress angling to stage "The Bear"; Chekhov’s wariness here about Alexander "philosophizing" with her and being forced into the position of suitor is consistent with his general caution, expressed elsewhere in this correspondence (11), about not soliciting theatrical favors. "Shmakhov" (4, Шмахов) is not otherwise identified in this corpus; the surname is likely a real handbook or manual author on forensic/courtroom oratory, but no further biographical detail is available from the source text and none is invented here. "Alex Alexeyevich" (4) is young Suvorin, Alexei Alexeyevich Suvorin, the publisher’s son, already established as a confidant and go-between in this correspondence (e.g.). "The old man" (4, старик) most likely refers to the Chekhovs’ father, Pavel Yegorovich, who was living with Alexander’s household circle in Petersburg at this time – flagged here as an inference rather than an explicit identification in the source, since the letter does not name him directly. "The Bear" (5, Медведь) is Chekhov’s own one-act play, extensively documented elsewhere in this corpus. "The Academy" (7) refers to the Imperial Academy of Sciences and its Pushkin Prize, already the subject of Chekhov’s anxious follow-up in and. "Denis" (12) is a self-address – Chekhov invokes his own frequent pseudonym "Antosha Chekhonte" ’s better-known cousin-persona "Denis Grigoryev" only loosely here; more precisely this is Chekhov jokingly addressing himself by a version of his own name in the imagined future moment of having earned enough not to need to keep writing – not a reference to any other person, and "the widow" for whom the income target is being set is not otherwise identified in this letter or its neighbors, left unresolved per the no-bridging policy. "Nikolai" (13) is Chekhov’s brother Nikolai Pavlovich, an artist whose unreliable, dissolute habits are a recurring worry in this correspondence. "Natalia Alexandrovna" (14) is Alexander’s common-law wife (referred to elsewhere in this correspondence’s running commentary on Alexander’s domestic arrangements, e.g.’s headnote); this is a routine closing greeting, not new information. "Putyata" (14) is the writer Nikolai Apollonovich Putyata, already established in this corpus as an ailing, impoverished journalist for whom Chekhov – as his physician – had already sought help; this letter’s report that he now has consumption and is reduced to beggary marks a grim continuation of that earlier concern, worth tracking for any future timeline of Putyata’s decline.