To A. S. Suvorin, 22 April 1889. Moscow.
А. С. СУВОРИНУ, 22 апреля 1889 г. Москва.
Headnote
1 Written from Moscow on 22 April 1889 to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, the publisher and Chekhov’s regular correspondent and patron, on the eve of Chekhov’s departure south for the Lintvaryov estate near Sumy (where he had also stayed the previous year) with his brother Nikolai – referred to here only as "the painter" – whose health (tuberculosis) was already a serious concern; Chekhov plans to continue on to the Caucasus afterward. The letter is a short, chatty travel-and-news note rather than a sustained topic, mixing practical announcements, banter, and a closing string of brief items appended after the signature.
2 Chekhov gives his summer address, mentions sending Suvorin a vaudeville for possible publication (not before May), and asks him, half in earnest, to write cheerful letters from his own upcoming trip to the Tyrol so as to relieve the boredom Chekhov expects at Sumy; he promises in return to avoid complaining about boredom himself. A comic aside on his own spending (money "swimming away" like a perch caught by a pike) closes with a mock-moral about needing to work for money.
3 The middle of the letter turns to family logistics: his mother is being sent ahead with his younger brother Mikhail ("Misha"/"Mishka"), who is reluctant to leave Moscow, ostensibly for want of leave from his university studies but, Chekhov suspects, actually because he is in love with a "Verochka Mamysheva." Chekhov closes this passage with a wry complaint about the burdens of being the practical head of a family of siblings each with their own troubles.
4 After the signature, three further items are appended in quick succession, in the loose postscript manner typical of Chekhov’s letters to Suvorin: a note that the actor Lensky is about to travel to Tula to perform the role of Adashev (evidently in a touring production of Suvorin’s play "Tanya," elsewhere called "Tatyana Repina" in this correspondence – see cross-reference below) and a request for the printed first act to be sent to Sumy; an anecdote about a chance visit from a former bookseller named Sveshnikov, encountered destitute and on foot but sober and clear-eyed, walking to Petersburg to resume his old trade, with a reminder of memoirs of his that Suvorin had once seen; and a one-line exclamation about the fine weather.
5 No corrupted or garbled text was found in this letter; no editorial gap markers appear in the source.