To D. T. Savelyev, 4 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 4 February 1889 to D. T. Savelyev, a provincial acquaintance in the Rostov-on-Don / Taganrog area (a different Savelyev correspondent from the Timofey Savelyevich Savelyev of – the editors’ commentary identifies this addressee only by the initials "Д. Т.," i.e. a patronymic "Timofeyevich" combined with a different first-name initial, so the two should not be conflated), replying to a letter of Savelyev’s on which Chekhov himself had noted the date 17 January 1889 (o.s.). The year is fixed by that endorsement and by the letter’s reference to the just-opened premiere of "Ivanov."

2 Chekhov explains that he has just returned from Petersburg, where he was staging his play ("Ivanov," which premiered at the Alexandrinsky Theater on 31 January/1 February 1889), and found Savelyev’s letter waiting; he reports that he has arranged with Suvorin’s bookshop to send Savelyev the books and wall calendars he had requested, with delivery promised for 6 February, and apologizes for the delay, explaining he was out of town. He reports the play’s triumphant reception and refers Savelyev to the notice in "Novoye Vremya" for details, thanks him for his New Year and name-day good wishes (returning the same wish "squared"), and asks him to tell a mutual acquaintance, Anna Ivanovna, that Chekhov’s complete works cannot be sent to her just now because two of the volumes are sold out and being reprinted – promising to send them once reprinted, and to try to visit her in the south this coming spring, an invitation he says he has "long since taken note of." He adds that a summer trip through the Caucasus (Batum, Tiflis, Baku) left him exhausted by the time he reached Rostov. He closes with travel logistics – he will telegraph from Taganrog if he decides to visit, and will be at a dacha near Sumy or in Poltava province, where he would be glad to have Savelyev join him – warm closing wishes and his signature, and a final postscript- like line renewing, more seriously, the invitation to come stay a week at the dacha.