To M. N. Albov, 30 September 1891. Moscow.
М. Н. АЛЬБОВУ, 30 сентября 1891 г. Москва.
Headnote
Dated 30 September 1891, from Moscow, to Mikhail Nilovich Albov, an editor at the journal "Severny Vestnik" ("Northern Herald").
Chekhov reports that a short tale, "The Story of My Patient," is nearly finished – another week or two of work – but he is seriously worried whether the censor will pass it. The magazine is a censored publication, and although the story preaches no harmful doctrine, its cast of characters gives him pause: it is narrated by a former socialist, and its central figure is the son of a deputy minister of internal affairs. Both are quiet, apolitical types in his telling, but he considers it too soon to announce the piece publicly. He asks Albov to read the story once it arrives and judge for himself: send it to typesetting and announce it if he thinks it will clear the censor, but return it unset and unshown to the censor if he judges Chekhov’s worry justified – because an outright refusal from the censor would make the story impossible to place with an uncensored publication afterward, since word of the refusal would frighten off any other printer. The letter closes with a request to greet Kazimir Stanislavovich and a short sign-off.
The addressee’s patronymic is given in the source as "Nilovich." The prose writer commonly identified with the surname Albov in this period, Vasily Pavlovich Albov, carries a different patronymic; the translation preserves the source’s "Mikhail Nilovich" exactly rather than silently correcting it, as the editorial record does not resolve the discrepancy.
Kazimir Stanislavovich matches, name and patronymic, Kazimir Stanislavovich Barantsevich, a prose writer of the Oskolki circle whom Chekhov corresponds with elsewhere in this period.
The tone is businesslike and mildly anxious – a working writer managing his relationship with an editor and the censor at once, not a literary or personal letter.