To S. N. Filippov, 2 February 1890. Petersburg.

Written 2 February 1890 from Petersburg to the journalist and writer Sergei Nikitich Filippov, this is a brisk letter of business answered “point by point,” written during Chekhov’s short stay in Petersburg in the weeks before he set out across Siberia for Sakhalin Island (he would leave Moscow in April 1890). The letter is a single coherent item: a proper dateline, an opening formula announcing the point-by-point reply, five numbered items, a closing turn to personal news, well-wishes, and a signed sign-off. full sentences, no missing articles/prepositions, and a complete salutation-to-signature arc.

Content, point by point: (1) Aleksei Sergeevich Suvorin, editor of Novoye Vremya, has declined to print Filippov’s sketch about the Dnieper because it concerns summer subject matter and it is currently winter; (2) Chekhov has not yet managed to see Suvorin’s son Mikhail Alekseevich Suvorin, who is confined at home because his children have scarlet fever; (3) Chekhov relays Suvorin’s blunt answer to Filippov’s query about replying publicly to the newspaper Novosti – “just go ahead and write it, why ask?” – and tells Filippov to stop seeking permission in future; (4) Chekhov confirms he is indeed going to Sakhalin, but frames the trip as broader than a study of the convict system – a deliberate year-to-eighteen-month excision from his own life; (5) he will come to Moscow eventually but cannot say when, citing plain inertia. The letter closes with the (characteristic Chekhov) claim of having no news at all, a small joke about having nothing left to say, a well-wish, and a teasing question about a female neighbor of Filippov’s who publishes verse, ending with a mock-warning not to fall for her.