To Ye. P. Yegorov, 20 December 1891. Moscow.
Е. П. ЕГОРОВУ, 20 декабря 1891 г. Москва.
Headnote
Dated 20 December 1891, from Moscow, to Yevgraf Petrovich Yegorov, the same land captain (zemsky nachalnik) in Nizhny Novgorod province addressed in the earlier letters of 5 October 1891, 11 December 1891, and 14 December 1891.
A short, businesslike note continuing the famine-relief bookkeeping: Chekhov sends a further 17 rubles, with more promised. He reports that he confidentially asked the chairman of the Literary Fund (which held 200 thousand rubles of principal capital) for a 500-ruble loan to pass on to Yegorov, but was refused for lack of funds. He then thought of A. N. Pleshcheyev, who came into a large inheritance and had offered Chekhov a loan when they met in Paris that spring, but Chekhov cannot locate his address. He notes he is leaving for Petersburg on 26 December, to stay until 10 January, and gives his address there (Malaya Italyanskaya, 18, at Suvorin’s apartment), where he will try again to raise money. He mentions an earlier 116 rubles sent on 14 December and an unanswered long letter. Finally, he reports the donors’ instruction that the funds collected so far go toward feeding livestock, not people – a detail distinct from the schoolchildren-feeding question raised in.