To A. S. Suvorin, 16 October 1891. Moscow.

Written 16 October 1891 from Moscow to Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin, the newspaper publisher and Chekhov’s closest correspondent of these years. Short and miscellaneous, the letter moves rapidly through a dozen small items in the manner typical of this run of autumn 1891 correspondence.

Chekhov opens with a mock-congratulation on Suvorin’s new cook, then admits to real restlessness – he is irritable, sleeping badly, unable to finish a story for a planned "Miscellany," and has been unable to make the promised trip to Nizhny Novgorod province (part of the 1891 famine-relief effort both men were involved in that autumn). He turns to a scientific curiosity about orache (лебеда), a starchy wild plant eaten by the peasantry in famine conditions, apparently continuing a discussion begun in an earlier exchange with Suvorin’s paper’s readers. He thanks Suvorin for a passport, sketches an idea for a novella he hopes to write at the pace he kept at Bogimovo that summer, and asks Suvorin to keep his coming trip to Petersburg quiet – he means to travel incognito. Domestic and professional business follows in quick succession: a joking wish that the St. Petersburg city governor could lengthen the day to 44 hours so he might finish The Island of Sakhalin; a patient he has just treated with folk remedies (felt boots, fish oil, salt baths); instructions about proofs for "The Duel," which he may still revise before it finishes serial printing; an offhand query about whether to bother reprinting "Kashtanka"; a note passed along for a "Lyalin"; and closing greetings to Suvorin’s wife and household. The letter ends with two notes of a different register: word that Chekhov’s aunt is dying of consumption, to be passed to his brother, and a proposal that he and Suvorin travel together to the famine-stricken provinces in January.