To A. I. Smagin, 7 November 1891. Moscow.

Dated 7 November 1891, from Moscow, to Alexander Ivanovich Smagin, a landowner and family friend from the Poltava region (near the Chekhovs’ rented estate at Bogimovo and later involved in the family’s search for land to buy) with whom Chekhov corresponded about finding and purchasing a small estate of his own.

Chekhov reports himself unwell – cough, cold, headache, backache – and staying at the Slavyansky Bazaar hotel with Suvorin, from whom he has caught influenza. He confirms receipt of ten roubles from Smagin (evidently sent on some errand or as reimbursement; not otherwise specified in the letter) and tells him he has put off his planned trip to Nizhny Novgorod until 1 December, when winter sleighing roads will be open and he expects to be recovered. He presses Smagin, half joking, about when he will finally buy him an estate, complaining that he is languishing in Moscow, gives his mailing address on Malaya Dmitrovka, and closes abruptly with a one-line complaint about fever before signing off.

The tone is wry and a little plaintive – a sick, restless letter, half-complaint about the cold and the flu, half running joke about Smagin making good on the promise of an estate.