To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg.
М. П. ЧЕХОВОЙ, 16 марта 1891 г. Петербург.
Headnote
A letter of 16 March 1891, from Petersburg, to Chekhov’s sister Maria Pavlovna ("Masha"), written days before he and Suvorin departed on their first trip abroad, through Vienna and Italy (a journey that would extend, against expectation, to Egypt, Constantinople, and France). Practical travel and household business dominates: itinerary, a promissory note from a man named Volkov sent for safekeeping enclosed in the letter, and instructions to keep the newspapers until his return.
The bulk of the letter reports on a visit to the itinerant ("Wanderers") exhibition, where Isaac Levitan’s new landscape was the sensation of the show; Chekhov relays the older generation’s mixed verdicts (Grigorovich enthusiastic, Polonsky quibbling over a bridge’s proportions, Pleshcheyev noting a mismatch between the picture’s tranquil title and its vivid content) with the same detached, cataloguing curiosity he brings to any social occasion. A second vignette records Olga Kundasova’s boisterous laughter unsettling the Suvorin household’s French governesses. Chekhov asks Masha to have Levitan and Kundasova solicit donations for the Sakhalin schools fund, a cause he continued to promote from a distance. Closes with family greetings, a small domestic errand concerning Lika Mizinova, and a note on how to reach him if the enclosed note goes missing. The letter as preserved also carries the envelope address.
Companion piece:, a short same-day follow-up giving Masha his poste-restante addresses in Rome and Naples.