To A. S. Suvorin, 9 June 1889. Sumy.
А. С. СУВОРИНУ, 9 июня 1889 г. Сумы.
Headnote
1 Written from Sumy on 9 June 1889 to Alexei Suvorin, this is a short, chatty domestic and literary letter belonging to the same cluster of 1889 letters written from the Lintvaryov family’s estate at Luka, near Sumy, where Chekhov and his family were spending the spring and summer. It falls in the weeks surrounding the death of Chekhov’s brother Nikolai (mid-June 1889), though this particular letter is light in tone and does not dwell on that crisis.
2 After the double dateline (1-2), Chekhov presses Suvorin to finally settle on a summer dacha and renews an invitation to visit and travel together (3), then describes his craving for company, contrasting his own dread of solitude with an account of the actor Svobodin’s visit with his young son and the comic high spirits of a second actor, "Zonenshteyn," who dropped his usual dignified pose to clown, sing, and catch crayfish in his tailcoat (4). He turns to family friction: an oblique, irritated reaction to a letter from his brother Alexander that Suvorin had forwarded (5), and a firmer note asking Suvorin to disregard any promise of money to brother Nikolai, insisting Nikolai lacks for nothing and that Chekhov himself, as the family’s de facto guardian, must manage such "pedagogical measures" (6). He demurs on committing his novel-in-progress to any venue before it is finished, though he leaves the newspaper option open to Suvorin’s judgment, and reports a burst of writing energy (7). Short items follow in quick succession: drought and a failed harvest (8), a wry congratulation on a colleague’s marriage (9), warm words for the critic Stasov despite mocking his enthusiasm, and a note on reading Borodin’s letters (10), a one-line update on "the painter" (11), and a domestic vignette of crayfishing (12), before closing with greetings, the signature (13-14), and a final anecdote about a young man buying a book at the station on Chekhov’s orders (15).
4 No corrupted or garbled text was found in this letter; no editorial gap markers appear in the source. double dateline, travel/dacha talk, a guest anecdote, family business concerning two brothers, literary and household news, and closing greetings, signature, and a closing anecdote