To A. S. Suvorin, 13 February 1889. Moscow.

Written from Moscow around 13 February 1889 – the day after the preceding note to N. N. Obolonsky and one day before the next, longer letter to Suvorin dated 14 February – this short note continues the running exchange between Chekhov and Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin, his publisher, friend, and the editor of Novoye Vremya. Like many of the briefer letters between them, it strings together several unrelated items, tied only by the occasion of writing rather than by a single subject.

The first item concerns Suvorin’s play Tatyana Repina (1888), which was in performance in Moscow at the time. Chekhov reports forwarding some “correspondence” documenting the play’s stormy Moscow reception, contrasting it, in his characteristic joking register, with the subdued reception of his own Ivanov: he personifies the two plays as “Ivanov” (monotonously meek) and “your Tanya” (unruly). “Lyalin” is mentioned as someone who might make journalistic use – in a feuilleton, a short satirical newspaper column – of this correspondence; he is not further identified in the letter and should be checked against other Suvorin-circle correspondents of the period before being linked elsewhere in the corpus. (Chekhov would himself later write a private one-act parody also called Tatyana Repina, as a gift to Suvorin, later in 1889 – this letter belongs to the run-up to that joke, not to the parody itself.)

Chekhov then thanks Suvorin warmly for a gift of a balalaika, promising to have it restrung and playable within a day – a small domestic, musical note characteristic of the two men’s friendship (cf. the balalaika’s resale value, discussed further in the 14 February letter that follows this one). A wry aside on the poor box-office takings for a Monday-morning performance of Chekhov’s own Ivanov in Moscow follows, quoting an exact and unglamorous sum (14 rubles 43 kopecks) for comic effect.

The letter closes with Chekhov reminding Suvorin of a promise to visit during Lent and proposing an excursion to “Troitsa” – the Trinity-Sergius Lavra monastery northeast of Moscow, a common day-trip destination from the city – once spring is in the air, followed by regards to Suvorin’s household, a plain admission that he misses them, and the sign-off, “Your A. Chekhov.”