To Ye. P. Yegorov, 26 January 1892. Moscow.
Е. П. ЕГОРОВУ, 26 января 1892 г. Москва.
Headnote
dateline (given twice, in full and abbreviated), a business paragraph on subscription funds, a report of illness, two brief domestic items, greetings, two short postscript-like notes, the closing, and a final one-line postscript about a play. Dated 26 January 1892, from Moscow.
A letter to Yevgraf Petrovich Yegorov mixing charitable bookkeeping with personal news, four days before the companion letter of 29 January 1892 to the same addressee – not a duplicate, but part of an ongoing exchange. Chekhov accounts precisely for subscription money passed through sheet No. 28 – funds collected for famine relief, a cause he was actively organizing support for in this period – noting sums already received, sums now sent, a friend’s separate collection needing receipts, and a small balance held over. He then reports a sudden illness (pain across the shoulder blades and chest, blamed on a cold caught sleeping near a hot ventilation flue in Nizhny Novgorod) severe enough to keep him from sitting, writing, or dressing normally. Domestic notes follow: a children’s library being assembled for Natasha and a spoon promised for Borya, to be delivered in person come spring. He closes with greetings to the household, a forgotten shirt left at his hotel (offered to the chambermaid), and two afterthoughts – pamphlets not yet received, and news that a play of his will not be staged.