To A. S. Suvorin, 28 February 1892. Moscow.

a dateline, a repeated short date, an inspection report on the new estate, a complaint about the tedium and cost of the purchase, the timetable for moving in, packing and travel logistics, thanks for a loan, a note about stocking the pond, a nudge about undelivered book copies, praise (with a request for more) of Suvorin’s newspaper column on the land captains, a note on a small debt of honor repaid on behalf of his nephews, society gossip, a closing blessing, the signature, and a postscript about a review. Dated 28 February 1892, from Moscow, five days after the companion letter to Alexander Chekhov (, 23 February) that first announced the Melikhovo purchase, and following (22 February, to Bilibin), which broke the same news to a different correspondent.

Writing to his patron and close correspondent Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin, Chekhov gives a franker, more exhausted account of the estate purchase than the buoyant version sent to his brother days earlier: the inspection visit went reasonably well (the house, study, garden, and hotbeds pleasing him; the stock and orangery disappointing), but the transaction itself was an ordeal – costly formalities, a seller ("the painter," left unnamed in this letter) who lied about the extent of the estate’s debts, and a lingering risk that the senior notary might refuse to confirm the deed. He gives his brother Mikhail’s scouting report on a smaller property (Tapkanovo) as a fallback lodging question, then turns to thanking Suvorin warmly for a loan through the Novoye Vremya bank that made the purchase possible, with a repayment plan pegged to future book royalties. Domestic notes follow (tench bought for the new pond, carp on order) alongside two pieces of business: chasing 50 still-undelivered copies of "Kashtanka" meant for the Committee of Literacy, and praising – while asking for more, at greater length – Suvorin’s recent newspaper writing on the land captains (zemsky nachalniki), capped by a mordant aside imagining a thanksgiving service blessing the birch rods used for corporal punishment. He closes with a small item of honor (a debt repaid on his young nephews’ behalf via a lottery windfall), Moscow theatrical gossip relayed from Maria Yermolova and her husband Sergei Shubinsky about a feuilletonist named Vasilyev, a closing blessing, the signature, and a one-line postscript noting that Prince Urusov has published a critical notice about Chekhov in the French journal "La Plume."

4 ’s "painter" (Художник) selling Chekhov the estate is not named in this letter and is left as such in translation rather than supplied from outside knowledge.