To S. A. Andreyevsky, 25 December 1891. Moscow.

Dated 25 December 1891, from Moscow, to Sergei Arkadyevich Andreyevsky, the lawyer, poet, and literary critic.

A reflective, personal letter written in response to Andreyevsky’s evident irritation that Chekhov had not yet given him his opinion of his books. Chekhov opens with a playful psychological observation – comparing Andreyevsky’s touchiness to the temperament of gods, poets, and beautiful women (with a nod to the judgment of Paris) – before turning serious. He recalls reading Andreyevsky’s account of the Lyutostansky case aloud in the country and his verses being read all summer at his house; his books now lie packed for the move to Sorochintsy, Gogol’s birthplace, where Chekhov was then relocating. He confesses that his respect for Andreyevsky’s work demands a serious critical response he feels unable to produce, admitting to a "pettiness of judgment" in his letters and comparing his own undisciplined thinking to the lawyer V. D. Spasovich’s, and his failed attempts at writing about the books to the journalism of critic A. M. Skabichevsky. He praises two of Andreyevsky’s courtroom speeches by name – one concerning a military cadet who killed a comrade, admired for its artistry, and one on the Nazarov case, admired as the most practically useful – while noting that a serious treatment of Andreyevsky’s oratory would require more space than he can give here. He promises to send or bring his own books, asks why Andreyevsky doesn’t write plays, and closes with travel plans to Petersburg after the 27th.