To N. A. Leikin, 13 August 1889. Sumy.
Н. А. ЛЕЙКИНУ, 13 августа 1889 г. Сумы.
Headnote
Letter to Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, 13 August 1889, Sumy.
Chekhov writes from the Lintvaryov estate at Luka, near Sumy (Kharkov province, Ukraine), where the family was summering on the Psyol river. His younger brother Nikolai Chekhov, a talented but dissolute painter, had died of tuberculosis on 17 June 1889 at Luka. This letter is Chekhov’s first substantial report to Leikin since that death and the trip that followed it. Leikin (1841-1906) was a prolific humorist, editor of the Petersburg magazine "Oskolki" ("Fragments"), and Chekhov’s early publisher/mentor in the 1880s; their relationship by 1889 was warm but increasingly business-inflected, with Chekhov having largely moved on to more prestigious outlets (Suvorin’s "Novoye Vremya").
Chekhov reports on the aftermath of his brother Nikolai’s death and funeral, describing his grief and the family’s mourning; a subsequent trip meant for abroad (Vienna) that was diverted to Odessa and then Yalta after money ran short; and impressions of the provincial Russian book trade gathered while traveling, which he judges poorly run and dependent on capital-city booksellers opening branches. He recommends a Yalta publisher-bookseller, Daniil Mikhailovich Gorodetsky, to Leikin as a reliable commission agent for distributing Leikin’s books along the Crimean-Caucasian coast, and specifies terms (40%, 30% for one-ruble books) and a request for 25 copies each of "Pyostrye rasskazy" ("Motley Stories," a Chekhov collection published by Leikin) and of works by Palmin. He raises an open question of mutual accounts between himself and Leikin, asks jokingly for money if he is owed, sends regards, and notes his planned return to Moscow in early September.
SENSITIVITY / TONE FLAGS: The letter is candid and at points crude in Chekhov’s characteristic register — do not soften. Section 4 contains an overtly sexist/objectifying remark about Yalta ("a Tatar-and-ladies’ city,one man to every twenty women," difficulty being economical in such company) that implies womanizing/spending on female company; translate faithfully,. Section 3’s grief over his brother’s death is genuine and should read plainly, not melodramatically. Section 7’s begging-jest ("for the salvation of your soul,I am poor and destitute") is characteristic ironic self-deprecation about money, not literal distress.