To M. P. Chekhova, 26 April 1889. Sumy.

A short, dashed-off note to his sister Maria ("Masha") Chekhova, written from the Lintvaryov estate at Luka, near Sumy, where the Chekhov family was spending the summer of 1889 on the Psyol river. It is really a list of errands and greetings rather than a proper letter: a request for felt slippers sized to brother Ivan’s foot, a mandolin string, and news that the fish trap arrived safely and that brother Nikolai (the painter, already gravely ill with the tuberculosis that would kill him a few weeks later that June) is doing well. The greeting list mixes real names – their father Pavel, the Korneev and Lensky families – with the household’s joke surnames "Vermishelyova" and "Makaronova" ("Mrs. Vermicelli" and "Mrs. Macaroni"), typical of the family’s private comic register.

The letter is signed with the pet name "Antonio," and the envelope on the reverse is addressed to Masha in Moscow via a nonsense alias, "Akaky Petrovich Nakakiev" – a play on Gogol’s Akaky Akakievich from "The Overcoat" grafted onto a scatological pun, presumably a family in-joke about whoever was expected to receive or forward the letter at the Korneev house on Kudrinskaya-Sadovaya. The tone throughout is light and domestic, a glimpse of the Chekhov household’s summer routine at Luka rather than any literary or professional business.