To M. P. Chekhov, January 1889. Petersburg.
M. П. ЧЕХОВУ, Последние числа января 1889 г. Петербург.
Headnote
1 A very short, hurried note of late January 1889 from St. Petersburg to Chekhov’s younger brother Mikhail Pavlovich Chekhov, written in the thick of the Alexandrinsky Theater’s preparations for "Ivanov."
2 Chekhov sends 100 rubles, confirms his travel plans – staying in Petersburg until Tuesday, returning to Moscow on Thursday, 2 February – and vents briefly about the production: the acting is poor, the play will come to nothing good, and he is in a running, ten-times-a-day cycle of quarreling and reconciling with the actor he calls "the tiresome Davydov." He calls the whole business tedious and says there is nothing at all for him to do there. He predicts the play will run no more than four performances and judges it not worth the trouble ("the game isn’t worth the candle"), then tells his brother there is no need for their sister Masha to come to Petersburg after all.