To A. P. Lensky, 2 November 1889. Moscow.
А. П. ЛЕНСКОМУ, 2 ноября 1889 г. Москва.
Headnote
A short, warm note to the actor and director Alexander Pavlovich Lensky (1847-1908), a leading man of the Maly Theatre in Moscow and one of the finest actors of his generation. Lensky had evidently just read the manuscript of Chekhov’s play "The Wood Demon" ("Leshy") and sent back comments – comments blunt enough that Chekhov, only half-joking, resolves here never to write "big plays" again.
"The Wood Demon" had opened in Moscow in late 1889 to a poor reception and closed quickly; this letter finds Chekhov mid-retreat from it. Rather than revise the play, he plans to sell it outright to a commercial ("private") theater under a new title for 500 roubles and be done with it – a plan he in fact carried out only much later and in transfigured form: the play’s bones were eventually reworked, years afterward, into "Uncle Vanya." He is also moving to head off any Petersburg production of the piece, steering it instead toward a private Petersburg house.
The letter is otherwise social and unguarded: an invitation to Lensky to join Chekhov on a winter visit to the painter Isaac Levitan once snow falls, a mention that Chekhov is at work on a short story ("rasskazik") and expects to be in Petersburg after the 20th, and closing regards to Lensky’s wife.