To A. S. Suvorin, 18 December 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on the evening of 18 December 1888 to Alexei Suvorin, this unusually long letter is a single sustained set piece: a near-verbatim, semi-dramatized account of Chekhov’s visit that evening to the actress Nadezhda Nikulina to negotiate her casting, and the casting of Maria Yermolova, in Suvorin’s play "Tatyana Repina." Chekhov reports the scene almost as dialogue, with himself as a harried go-between among three feuding women (Nikulina, her sister, and – by letter – Yermolova), pauses for a request about his own work-in-progress and a caution against answering the actresses directly, and closes with regards to Suvorin’s family and a one-line postscript reporting that "Ivanov" is finished and being copied out.

2 The letter opens with dateline and re-dating (1-2), then a mock- heroic opening flourish – a line adapted from a well-known Russian victory ode – announcing that Nikulina has summoned him (3). Chekhov reports first stopping at the actor Alexander Lensky’s, where he learns that the company resents Nikulina’s demands, that Lensky himself will play Adashev (having passed on Sabinin, who is tired of seducer roles), that the report of Yermolova refusing to play Repina is news to Lensky, that Repina is in his view a Yermolova role, and that the older actress Fedotova – whom Lensky calls old and intriguing – will likely insist on Rybakov being cast (3). At Nikulina’s, Chekhov is received warmly (4) and Nikulina (called interchangeably "Nikulina" and, by her own household, "Nadya" throughout) launches into a long complaint (5): she is willing to play Kokoshkina but not understands why Suvorin will not let her play Repina, protests that she could outdo "Masha" (Yermolova) in the death scene, and predicts Fedotova will play the role too virtuously. Nikulina’s unnamed sister – described as an old maid with a "ratlike face" – enters and adds her own volley of gossip: that Fedotova won’t play drunken women, that Yermolova hates Suvorin (reportedly over his treatment of her Ophelia) and has sworn never to act in one of his plays, and that Nadya herself would do well in the part (6-7). Chekhov presses Nikulina for a plain answer to telegraph Suvorin (8), and she explains her own predicament: she had committed to Krylov’s play, dropped it on Suvorin’s first telegram, and Krylov promptly sold it to Korsh for Rybchinskaya’s benefit performance, leaving her without a vehicle (9). Pressed again (10), she proposes sending to Yermolova to ask whether she will play, conditioning her own participation on Yermolova’s answer (11); Chekhov refuses to go himself, explaining that Suvorin, being touchy about appearing to solicit, should not be put in the position of petitioner (12), which draws an indignant protest from Nikulina (13) over the sister’s continued chatter (14). Nikulina writes to Yermolova on the spot (15). While they wait, Nikulina’s husband – whom Chekhov nicknames "Krechinsky," after the swindler-hero of Sukhovo-Kobylin’s comedy, and describes as a graying, side-whiskered, moneyed ex-remount-officer type – enters and is introduced (16); a domestic exchange follows in which he asks after the tobacco, is told his wife has written to Yermolova about Repina, opines that the role isn’t suited to her, is reminded that Suvorin doesn’t want her to play it anyway, and delivers his own verdict that she belongs to comedy, not drama – provoking her indignant reply that he never even attends dramas, and his retort that he sees enough of them in life without paying for the privilege (17-23). A comic aside on tobacco’s harms and the sister spilling a tin of it follows, Chekhov noting he found it funny but could not laugh (24). At last a footman brings Yermolova’s reply in a strikingly modern-looking envelope Chekhov calls "socialist-democratic" (25); her note agrees to play if it is for Nikulina’s sake, needles her for having herself wanted the role, and promises an answer after reading the play (26), which Chekhov glosses as containing a jab at both Suvorin and Nikulina (27). He takes his leave, promising Suvorin the final answer the next day, and reflects on the women’s mutual hostility and intrigues, noting that Lensky – eager to see every actress but Yermolova "blown sky-high" – will be his guide through the politics, and that in Lensky’s view Yermolova will eventually play the role but the production may now be too tangled to happen at all (28). A brief, unrelated request follows – Chekhov asks Suvorin to find and send on the proof-sheets of his own story, the one beginning at chapter VII (29) – before he returns to instruct Suvorin not to answer the actresses’ telegrams or letters without his knowledge, having limited his own authorized message to a single question (30), then notes the irony that Krylov, by hastily selling his play out from under Nikulina, has inadvertently kept "Tatyana" alive as a live possibility for her (31). The letter closes with regards to Suvorin’s household (32), signature (33), and a terse one-line postscript: "Ivanov" is finished and being copied out (34).

3 No content requiring softening in the sensitivity sense: this is backstage theatrical gossip, occasionally sharp-tongued about the actresses’ vanity and intrigues (e.g.’s "she’ll ruin the whole thing,"’s characterization of the women as hating one another), but consistent with Chekhov’s habitual dry, satirical register elsewhere in this corpus when reporting theater business, and translated faithfully without softening.