To A. I. Sumbatov, 8 March 1890. Moscow.

A short note of regret, dated 8 March 1890 in Moscow, to the actor and playwright Prince Alexander Ivanovich Sumbatov, who wrote under the stage name Yuzhin (Александр Иванович Сумбатов-Южин), a leading figure at the Maly Theatre. Chekhov cancels a dinner engagement, promising to explain his "quite weighty" reasons in person when the two meet at a shared committee – almost certainly a theatrical or literary body on which both men sat that spring, given the date falls just weeks before Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin. No further detail on the reasons is given; this is a purely practical note, not a substantive letter.

The two other names are the "princess" – Sumbatov’s wife, Maria Nikolaevna Sumbatova (née Princess Corsini) – and Gnedich, the playwright and man of letters Pyotr Petrovich Gnedich, a mutual acquaintance in Moscow theatrical circles, to whom Chekhov sends his respects along with the princess. Sections 6-8 are the address panel from the reverse of the note/envelope ("On the reverse:" / addressee name split across two lines, "To Prince Alexander Ivanovich" / "Sumbatov."), consistent with this corpus’s established convention for short notes that survive with their address panel.