To I. M. Kondratyev, 5 March 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 5 March 1889 to Ivan Maksimovich Kondratyev, this short business note continues the royalties/catalog thread of (28 February 1889): Chekhov corrects a performance count on a bill Kondratyev has just sent him, and adds a minor note for the catalogue.

2 After the double dateline (1-2) and the salutation "Dear" and "Ivan Maksimovich!" (3-4), Chekhov points out a small error in the bill he received the day before: his play "The Bear" ("Медведь") ran eighteen times at Korsh’s theater, but the bill records only seventeen, an error he attributes to a performance where "The Bear" was substituted for Turgenev’s "An Evening in Sorrento" and so did not appear on the playbill (5). He then adds an unrelated aside for the catalogue – that his play "The Proposal" ("Предложение") will be printed under the pseudonym "A. P." (6) – apologizes for troubling Kondratyev with such trifles (7), and closes with "Sincerely yours" (8) and the signature "A. Chekhov" (9).