To V. A. Tikhonov, 7 December 1889. Moscow.

Written 7 December 1889 from Moscow to Vladimir Alexeyevich Tikhonov (1857–1914), a playwright, prose writer, and later editor whom Chekhov knew through Petersburg theatrical and journalistic circles; the two carried on a long, jocular correspondence full of theater-world in-jokes. This is a short, breezy note that mixes a comic catalogue of ailments with brisk professional and personal business.

Chekhov opens with a mock-dramatic complaint of illness (cough, cold, "hydrophobia," etc.) and general ill temper, and reports that his household – family and servants alike – is down sick, leaving his flat resembling a hospital. He then reports a piece of business: he has already delivered Tikhonov’s play (jokingly called "Kachuchi-chuchi," evidently Chekhov’s own comic garbling/nickname of its real title) to the theatrical Committee via the copyist/publisher Rassokhin, as instructed, and expects it has already appeared. He congratulates Tikhonov on the birth of a daughter with a facetious wish that she marry into the aristocratic Sheremetev family and one day open a theater bearing her name that pays Chekhov and Tikhonov each a generous cut of receipts. He closes by noting he won’t be in Petersburg before January, and signs off.