To N. A. Leikin, 27 December 1890. Moscow.

Written from Moscow on 27 December 1890 to Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, editor-publisher of the Petersburg humor weekly russian"Осколки" ("Oskolki,Splinters"), for which Chekhov had written extensively in the early 1880s under the "Antosha Chekhonte" byline, and one of his most frequent correspondents. This is a short New Year’s/Christmas note written some two and a half weeks after that letter.

The letter is a single continuous piece of correspondence, one sitting, one register throughout (bantering holiday greeting, a health update, a travel plan, closing regards) are the doubled dateline (full form, then the abbreviated notation), the same convention seen elsewhere in this edition’s letter headers. returns Leikin’s own New Year greeting in kind, wishing him many more Christmases. is the substantive news: Chekhov explains that his planned trip to Petersburg has been postponed because of a new heart complaint – an intermittent, fluttering heartbeat that troubles him each evening – and that he plans instead to spend 5–7 days in the country once the severe frost eases. sketches the onward itinerary: country, then a day in Moscow, then on to Petersburg. turns to literary/social business, Chekhov’s intention to urge the writer Lazarev to make the Petersburg trip too, and a suggestion that Palmin likewise be pried out of his reclusiveness. are the comic sign-off, greetings to Leikin’s dog "Apel Apelich" and the rest of his household menagerie, and the signature.