To P. N. Isakov, 9 April 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 9 April 1889, the day after the preceding letter in the source sequence (, to A. S. Suvorin), this short reply goes to Pyotr Nikolaevich Isakov, chairman of the Russian Literary Society, identified by the source’s own archival heading ("П. Н. ИСАКОВУ") and by the editors’ commentary dating it from Isakov’s letter of 5 April 1889, to which Chekhov is replying. Despite its calendar proximity to the run of medical bulletins on brother Nikolai’s illness (, 626, 627), this letter is unrelated to that thread: it is a business reply on Society matters, not a report on Nikolai’s health.

2 Isakov had written on behalf of the Russian Literary Society, inviting Chekhov to a large literary evening the Society was organizing in Petersburg in the last days of the week following Easter, meant both to raise funds for the Society and to give the public a literary entertainment; he had also reminded Chekhov of an earlier promise to contribute "some small piece" to the almanac "Severnye Tsvety" ("Northern Flowers"), which in the end never appeared. Chekhov opens with a formal salutation (3,), then declines the trip – he is glad to be useful to the Society but cannot leave Moscow, having patients he cannot abandon ("I am, after all, an Aesculapius!"), and does not expect to be free before the first of May (5). He thanks Isakov for the invitation to contribute to "Severnye Tsvety" and promises to fulfill the request when he can, closes with a holiday greeting and a formal sign-off (5), and signs simply "A. Chekhov" (6). A one-line postscript adds that he finds the Society itself very congenial (7).