To V. N. Davydov, 22–23 January 1889. Petersburg.
В. Н. ДАВЫДОВУ, 22 или 23 января 1889 г. Петербург.
Headnote
1 Written from St. Petersburg on 22 or 23 January 1889 to Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, an actor of the Alexandrinsky Theater who was preparing to play the title role in "Ivanov." A very brief practical note squeezed in among Chekhov’s flurry of correspondence around the play’s Petersburg production.
2 Chekhov tells Davydov he will call on him in person that same day to answer a letter Davydov has evidently sent (not preserved here), but in the meantime urges him to read through the whole play at a single sitting – "in its mass," i.e. as a continuous whole rather than in excerpted scenes or a piecemeal read – so that the character of Ivanov will come into clearer focus for him. It reflects Chekhov’s recurring concern, visible across the "Ivanov" correspondence, that the play’s central figure was easy for actors to misread out of