To I. L. Leontyev, 20 December 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 20 December 1888 to Ivan Leontyev, who wrote under the pen name Ivan Shcheglov and whom Chekhov addressed by the nickname "Jean," this short letter continues the same run of correspondence as the letters to Shcheglov of 2 November, 7 November, 11 November, and 16 or 17 November. It reports back on a theatrical errand carried out at Shcheglov’s request, recounts a two-week stay at Suvorin’s, and closes with a frank aside about Sobolev Lane.

2 Chekhov opens by grumbling, in his usual mock-reluctant register, that he hates Shcheglov’s theatrical business but went to see the Moscow theater manager Korsh anyway and talked with the actor Solovtsov: Shcheglov should send on "The Theatergoers" (the three-act version) and "A Comedian by Nature" for staging, "The Sparrow Theater" will also go on, but "The Summer Husband" is dead – Glama-Meshcherskaya has left the company and Korsh has no interest in reviving an old play when new ones are at hand. adds that Korsh and Solovtsov are giving conflicting signals ("singing from different operas") but that "The Theatergoers" will probably go on regardless. turns the running joke about Chekhov’s dislike of the theater into a sharper image: the theater as a blood-sucking serpent, with Chekhov threatening to keep attacking Shcheglov’s plays until the fiction writer in him wins out over the playwright.

3 6 apologizes for not having visited Shcheglov, blaming "lazy Khokhol blood" (Chekhov’s own half-joking reference to his Ukrainian ancestry) and the exhausting pace of his recent time in Petersburg, where he was run "like a post-horse." gives a warm account of the two weeks just spent at Alexei Suvorin’s, praising Suvorin’s sincerity and vast experience, and offering an affectionate, half-teasing portrait of Suvorin’s wife Anna Ivanovna – who "regaled" him with "slaps, moral lectures, and chartreuse" – as the one woman of his acquaintance with a genuinely independent outlook, before noting her Orfanov family background and praising her brother, the writer Mishla Orfanov, and the Orfanov family generally; the rest of the Suvorin household is described as warm and not always dull.-10 are quick closing items: Chekhov is sitting down to write a story for the "Petersburg Gazette," wishes Shcheglov well and asks him to write, and signs off as "Your Antoine." is a coda distinct in tone from the signed close: an unprompted question asking why Shcheglov so dislikes talking about Sobolev Lane, with Chekhov professing fondness for the people found there (while admitting he himself visits as rarely as Shcheglov does) and a closing maxim against turning up one’s nose at life, whatever form it takes.