To A. P. Lensky, 21 April 1890. Moscow.

This is one of the shortest items in the correspondence: a farewell note sent the day of Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin.

Structurally it sits on the letter/telegram boundary. Against it: full verb forms and connected clauses ("Уезжаю сегодня,Приглашают Вас"), rather than the wire-elliptical, preposition-dropping grammar of a genuine telegram (compare, "Books sent spring steamer Petersburg"). For it: no salutation beyond the opening "Прощайте, голубчик," no closing courtesy beyond the invitation itself, extreme brevity, and a bare-surname signature ("Ваш Чехов," not the fuller closing formulas Chekhov uses in longer letters). On balance this reads as a same-day departure note dashed off in haste rather than a telegram proper – the connected syntax argues against wire transmission – but it shares the telegram’s compression and is flagged here for that reason.

Addressee: Aleksandr Pavlovich Lensky (А. П. Ленский), actor and later director at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, a friend of Chekhov’s theatrical circle.

Content: Chekhov announces he leaves that evening (21 April 1890) from Yaroslavl Station at 8 p.m. – the start of his journey across Siberia to Sakhalin Island. He names those seeing him off as far as Troitsa (Trinity, i.e. the Trinity–Sergius Lavra, the first major stop out of Moscow on the Yaroslavl line): "the Chekhovs" (his family), someone named in the source only as "Кувшин" ("Kuvshin," literally "jug/pitcher" – left untranslated as written rather than silently expanded to a fuller name; this is very likely a nickname current in Chekhov’s circle, possibly for Sofia Kuvshinnikova, but the source text itself gives only the short form and the translation preserves that rather than guessing), and Isaac Levitan, the landscape painter and one of Chekhov’s closest friends. Lensky himself is invited to come see him off.