To A. I. Smagin, 16 December 1891. Moscow.

A short, twelve-section letter, dated 16 December 1891, from Moscow, to Alexander Ivanovich Smagin – the same Poltava-province landowner and family friend addressed in the companion run of letters from autumn/winter 1891, through whom the Chekhov family was pursuing purchase of a small country property (the "khutor") in the south.

Content: Chekhov settles a small piece of business left over from a visit by the writer Dmitry Grigorovich, who is to receive a shipment of pottery ware from Khomutets for his museum, cash-on-delivery. He downplays the question of taking a bank loan (raised in an earlier letter), preferring bank debt to a private debt for its low interest and indefinite patience. Asked whether "Sergei Ivanovich" doubts his poor health, Chekhov half-jokes that he would like to dismiss the worry too, but insists that if the khutor purchase or his move to the provinces falls through, his health really will suffer – he feels himself "dried out like an old cupboard" – and imagines Gilyarovsky commemorating his eventual move to the khutor in verse. He teases Smagin about his illegible handwriting, recounting a mix-up in which a line about ten sheep was misread for an offer involving his sister Masha, resulting in an actual, needless purchase of sheep. He gives travel and mailing details – his sister’s departure for Luka, his own departure for Petersburg on the 26th, the postal and telegram addresses via "Novoye Vremya" and Suvorin – and promises to send 3 thousand rubles and a power of attorney as soon as his sister telegraphs. He closes with a joking tally of expenses, an impatient question about whether the khutor even has a garden, greetings to Elena Ivanovna and Sergei Ivanovich (pointedly withheld from an unnamed "extravagant lady"), and a brief affectionate sign-off.

Tone: brisk, businesslike opening giving way to Chekhov’s familiar self-mocking humor – the mock-solemn defense of bank debt, the half-earnest, half-joking anxiety about his health and the stalled khutor purchase, the broad comic anecdote about the illegible handwriting and the needlessly purchased sheep – then practical travel/financial instructions, a repeated joking refrain about money ("whoever’s it is to reckon!"), and a warm but brief close, consistent with the rest of the Smagin correspondence.