To A. M. Yevreinova, 17 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 17 February 1889 (a Friday), this short but sharply worded letter is addressed to Anna Mikhailovna Yevreinova, editor of the journal in which the revised text of "Ivanov" was being set in type. After a double dateline (1-2) and a formal salutation (3), Chekhov opens with an outburst of comic indignation at the printing house, complaining that it has been sending him proofs of "Ivanov" in maddeningly small installments – "a spoonful an hour" – so that by Friday evening he still has not seen the fourth act or the end of the third, and has been stuck in Moscow all week waiting on proofs instead of getting away to the country for Shrovetide as he had planned (4).

2 He protests that the delay is not his fault: he has been returning each batch of corrected proofs the same day he receives it, "sparing no effort," and jokes that such treatment is enough to turn a man into a socialist grumbling at the established order (4). Having vented this "righteous wrath," he apologizes for troubling Yevreinova so often with "Ivanov" business (5), and draws the wry general conclusion that it is simply necessary for authors to proofread their own work (6). The letter closes with regards from his family, a conventional sign-off (7), and the signature "A. Chekhov" (8). A brief postscript (9) notes that on the preceding Sunday he had sent Yevreinova, via a conductor, the proofs of Act I and half of Act II along with a letter addressed to a "Kryukovsky," and asks whether these arrived.