To A. S. Suvorin, 14 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 14 February 1889 to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, this is a long, loosely itemized letter of the kind Chekhov often sent his publisher and closest correspondent during the "Ivanov" season – a string of largely unrelated items strung together with the offhand intimacy of two men on easy terms, moving from a balalaika and theater photographs to a newspaper scandal, a family secret about a wayward priest, a comic literary scheme, and an invitation to visit.

2 After the double dateline (1-2) and salutation, Chekhov opens with domestic business: his brother Misha priced a balalaika at a music shop and Chekhov suspects Suvorin overpaid for it; he then asks after theater photographs from the photographer Shapiro and requests a large print of Suvorin for his drawing room, framing the two of them as "kinsmen" now that their plays ran the same season in the same theater and both are disliked by the critic Krylov (3). He reports a long, complaining letter from the actor Svobodin and his own bantering reply, then muses on actors who – unlike the Bohemian stereotype – keep respectable, well-off domestic lives, naming Davydov and Svobodin as examples (4). He congratulates Suvorin’s paper on the Ashinov scandal (5), then turns to a family matter too delicate to publish freely – what he knows of a "Father Paisy," involving Paisy’s wife, scandal, and money from Chekhov’s uncle (6) – and worries Paisy may again bolt without a passport, proposing only half-seriously that the church authorities post him to New Athos to assist a bishop short of staff (7). Practical and social notes follow: a canceled trip to Petersburg to see "Ivanov" before its run ends, and his sister’s schedule likewise preventing her from going (8); a joking plan to turn Suvorin’s play "A Man’s Grief" into a "funny tragedy" by keeping the male role and rewriting the wife (9); an invitation for Suvorin to visit during Lent, with a promise (he admits it will be hard to keep) not to talk theater, and a jab at Shcheglov’s "theater-madness" (10); envy of Suvorin’s writing paper and good wishes for Anna Ivanovna’s health (11); a note on an upcoming costume ball expected to raise real money for the Society of Art and Literature (12); and a closing burst of mock-encouragement that Suvorin grow richer still, with a joke about Leo Tolstoy and a closing "May Allah keep you!" (13), followed by the bare signature "A. Chekhov" (14).