To S. N. Filippov, 18 April 1890. Moscow.

It is very short – five brief sections, one of which is only the dateline and one only the signature – but it reads as a complete, self-contained note: a real salutation ("Ну, милый Сергей Никитович" – "Well, dear Sergei Nikitovich"), a farewell/departure announcement, two short sentences of substance, a closing courtesy ("Крепко жму руку" – "I press your hand firmly"), and a full signed close ("Ваш А. Чехов" – "Yours, A. Chekhov"). The terseness is a function of genre and occasion (a quick goodbye note dashed off just before departure), not evidence of elision or telegraphic compression – grammar throughout is complete and unelided, unlike the bare, article-dropping terseness that flagged as a telegram. No structural or coherence concerns.

Written 18 April 1890 from Moscow, in the very last days before Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin (he left Moscow on 21 April 1890 Old Style). The letter is explicitly a goodbye: "я исчезаю" ("I’m off" / "I disappear"). Chekhov asks Filippov to keep writing "more briskly" so that editors will actually read his manuscripts through – a collegial, mildly needling piece of professional advice from one working writer to another – then asks not to be forgotten while away, with a self-deprecating, mock-pious turn of phrase ("Не забывайте меня грешного" – "Don’t forget me, sinner that I am") and a warm image comparing any line of news reaching him on Sakhalin to "the singing of angels in the wilderness." The letter closes with an ordinary handshake courtesy and signature.