To I. M. Kondratyev, 28 January 1890. Petersburg.

Written from Petersburg on 28 January 1890, to Ivan Maksimovich Kondratyev, an official of the Moscow Society of Art and Literature. The Society had asked Chekhov’s permission to stage his one-act farce russian"Предложение" ("A Proposal"), and Chekhov had initially refused, citing an earlier promise of exclusive Moscow rights for the season to the actress Madame Goreva (compare the refusal sent eleven days earlier to Nikolai Kozhin). The Society then renewed its request, backing it with a telegram that Chekhov says he encloses with this letter. Chekhov, plainly reluctant – he states outright that he does not want to be beholden to Goreva or accept her favors – gives way and grants permission, notifying Kondratyev of his consent.

The letter is a single short, coherent business note in one register throughout are the dateline (given twice, once in full and once in the abbreviated letterhead-style notation "Петербург. 90 28/1," i.e. year/day/month – the same doubled-dateline convention seen elsewhere in this edition’s letter headers, e.g. and). is the formal salutation. are the substantive body: the Society’s renewed request and enclosed telegram, then Chekhov’s grudging consent. are a closing courtesy and valediction. is the signature. it has a full salutation, connected prose sentences with subordinate clauses, and a conventional epistolary closing – unlike the corpus’s genuine telegrams (e.g.), which are bare, elliptical, and signed with surname only.