To A. P. Lensky, 9 April 1889. Moscow.
А. П. ЛЕНСКОМУ, 9 апреля 1889 г. Москва.
Headnote
1 A brief Easter note written from Moscow on 9 April 1889 to Alexander Pavlovich Lensky, the Maly Theatre actor and director, opening with the traditional Orthodox Easter greeting "Christ is risen." The letter follows the double dateline pattern seen elsewhere in this stretch of the corpus (1-2, "9 April 1889. Moscow." and the shorthand "9 April").
2 After the dateline and Easter greeting (1-3), Chekhov sends Lensky the volume of Marcus Aurelius that Lensky had wanted to read, noting that the pencil marginalia are his own and carry no special weight for the reader, who should simply read straight through since it is all equally good (3). He then invites Lensky to come by that evening, explaining he cannot go himself because he has a patient he does not want to leave unattended, and relays his sister’s earnest invitation to Lidia Nikolayevna to attend as well, adding that there will be music (4). The letter closes with a short valediction and signature (5-6).
4 No corruption or editorial gap markers appear in the source; the letter is complete and internally coherent as a single short document, with no sign of archival concatenation with unrelated back-matter.