To N. N. Obolonsky, December 1889. Moscow.

1 Dating and addressee: Mid-December 1889, written from Moscow. The addressee, identified in the standard edition as Н. Н. Оболонский (N. N. Obolonsky), was a Moscow physician and friend of Chekhov’s, a fellow doctor with whom Chekhov corresponded on both medical and personal matters in this period. The playful opening ("Happiest of Hymen’s chosen...") suggests Obolonsky had recently married or was newly wed, making this in part a congratulatory note wrapped around a practical request.

2 A short, informal note combining social pleasantry with a medical favor. Chekhov forwards a letter from a patient, Olga Schwarz (daughter of "Dr. Schwarz"), whom he had already examined in the autumn without success, diagnosing Basedow’s disease (Graves’ disease / exophthalmic goiter — an old eponym still in period use). He asks Obolonsky, if he has a spare quarter-hour, to visit the patient at her home on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street (about 8 minutes from Chekhov’s own residence), while explicitly leaving it optional ("if you would rather not, so be it"). He then reports that his sister (Maria Chekhova) is ill in bed with a fever suggestive of typhoid, remarking that his apartment has become a makeshift hospital. The note closes with a brief valediction and signature.