To N. N. Obolonsky, 29–30 November 1889. Moscow.

A one-page note, written while Chekhov was laid up with influenza in the autumn of 1889 – a season crowded with illness, family strain (his brother Nikolai had died of tuberculosis that June), and the recent publication of "The Wood Demon." The addressee, Nikolai Nikolaevich Obolonsky, was a Moscow physician (a specialist, per the standard PSSP commentary, in venereal and skin diseases) who was also a friend within Chekhov’s literary-medical circle; Chekhov, himself a doctor, wrote to colleagues and friends interchangeably in this register of jokey shorthand.

The note is built on a small piece of textual gamesmanship: a story had just appeared in "Novoye Vremya" (issue No. 4940, a Tuesday) bearing initials matching Obolonsky’s name – almost certainly a wink at a shared joke or a piece Chekhov wanted his friend to notice, though the story itself is not otherwise identified in the letter. Chekhov, too unwell to call on him in person, sends the tip instead, closes with a mock-solemn toast ("may influenza perish, and may great men live long"), and needles him with a question about his love life. The whole letter is four short lines; six more short "sections" reproduce the envelope’s routing text verbatim (an established feature of this letter corpus