To M. M. Dyukovsky, 13 December 1888. Petersburg.

1 This is the second surviving note to Mikhail Mikhailovich Dyukovsky, the same acquaintance at the Meshchanskoye School near the Kaluga Gate in Moscow whom Chekhov had asked, in a brief letter of October 5, 1888, to lend him the Address-Calendar of Moscow. (He is not to be confused with Chekhov’s cousin of the same name, Mikhail Mikhailovich Chekhov.) Writing now from Petersburg on December 13, Chekhov reports that he has bought, on Dyukovsky’s behalf or for the school, a copy of the "Sbornik pamyati Garshina" (Miscellany in Memory of Garshin) – a memorial anthology of new fiction and verse assembled by leading writers of the day, Chekhov among them, in honor of Vsevolod Garshin, the acclaimed short-story writer who had died in March 1888 (by suicide, after a lifelong struggle with severe depression). Chekhov gives the price, 2 rubles 50 kopecks, calls it a good collection, and says he will be in Moscow on December 16, inviting Dyukovsky either to come in person or to send someone to collect the book.

2 As with the earlier note, the letter is a short, practical errand – here about a book purchase and a hand-off arrangement – and preserves the envelope address on the reverse of the sheet as its own short sequence of sections. This time the envelope omits the formal honorific "Его высокоблагородию" ("To His Honor") used in the October letter, addressing Dyukovsky simply by name.