To I. L. Leontyev, 6 May 1889. Sumy.

1 Written from the Lintvaryov estate near Sumy on 6 May 1889, almost exactly a year after the similarly idyllic letter to the same friend translated as, this is a breezy, joke-heavy catch-up letter to Ivan Leontyev, writing under the pen name Shcheglov and addressed here by his private nickname "Jean" (and, in passing, "captain").

2 After the double dateline (1-2) and an opening flourish about birdsong and country life – undercut at once by a somber note about his sick housemate, the painter (Nikolai Chekhov’s illness) whose cough and uncertain prospects weigh on him even as a doctor (3) – Chekhov presses Shcheglov for news, urging him not to give in to gloom but to keep producing novellas, stories, and dramas regardless of anyone’s opinion (4). He offers to broker a Maly Theatre production of any drama Shcheglov writes that summer, through his actor friend Lensky (5), then breaks into a short exclamatory riff wishing they were both in Paris instead of stuck in place (6). He reports his own slow writing pace, a profitable but unnamed piece to sell in Petersburg come autumn, a possible drama of his own in the works, and – prompted by the nickname "captain" – a reminder that he has just adapted one of his own stories into the farce "A Tragedian in Spite of Himself" for the actor Varlamov, sent to the censor for a lithographed acting copy via Bazarov, along with a query about money owed to the Society for Aid to Stage Performers from "Ivanov" (7). He invites Shcheglov to visit (8), reports on the amateur theater season in Sumy, including a slighting one-word verdict on a production of "A Second Youth" (9), and asks after the provincial fortunes of Shcheglov’s own play "Gentlemen Theatregoers" (10). A short account of his election to the committee of the Society of Dramatic Writers follows, with a dry, interrupted note on the Society’s affairs (11), then regards from his household, news of a slapdash amateur staging of "In the Caucasian Mountains" at the Art Circle, and a repeated jab at "cobblers" meddling in art (12). The letter closes with a conventional blessing (13), the joke-signature "Potemkin" (14), and a final line of respects to Shcheglov’s wife (15).