To N. M. Lintvareva, 16 July 1890. Sakhalin.

This is a telegram, not a letter — four short sections in the source, two of which are archival apparatus rather than Chekhov’s own words: is the dateline, is the wire text itself, is the editorial note "На бланке:" ("On the form:") marking that what follows was written on the telegraph blank itself, and is the destination address block as it appeared on that blank ("Sumy. To Lintvaryova."). The body text is genuinely elliptical, wire-economy Russian ("Наши упорно молчат. Беспокоюсь. Попросите телеграфировать еженедельно." — clipped clauses, no connective tissue) and closes with a bare surname signature, "Чехов," with no epistolary salutation or closing courtesy — matching the corpus’s established telegram profile (compare). the four sections are one coherent telegraph transaction (dateline, wire text, form note, address block).

Dating and context: 16 July 1890, sent from Sakhalin — this places it during Chekhov’s residence on the island proper, after the overland Siberian journey (which concluded when he reached Sakhalin around 11 July 1890) and before his return voyage that autumn. It is a separate, later item from, which is already drafted elsewhere in this corpus and should not be confused with this one.

Content: Chekhov is anxious. "Наши упорно молчат" ("Ours obstinately/stubbornly keep silent") — he has had no word from his family in Moscow despite being on Sakhalin for several days, and he asks Lintvaryova (from whose family’s Sumy estate, Luka, the Chekhovs had rented rooms in previous summers and with whom the family evidently maintained a mail-forwarding or news-relay relationship) to have someone wire him weekly. The anxiety is plain and unadorned — a single adjective-free line of worry, then a practical request, then the sign-off.