To M. V. Kiseleva, 1891. Venice.

A brief, giddy postcard-length note of 25 March (6 April) 1891, from Venice, to Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva, mistress of the Babkino estate and a longtime family friend – Chekhov’s first letter to her since the farewell note of 11 March (source/headnote) announcing his departure for western Europe. Part of the celebrated spring 1891 European travel series (with Suvorin, through Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and on to Nice and Paris). dateline, header date, a rapturous one-paragraph tumble of Venetian sights, a mock-gallant joke addressed to Kiseleva’s husband, a play-signature, a one-line joke, and the envelope’s reverse-side address block.

Chekhov reports himself overwhelmed and "done for" by Venice – gondolas, the Piazza San Marco, water, stars, Italian girls, serenades, mandolins, Falernian wine – and asks not to be thought ill of for succumbing. He then has "the shade of the fair Desdemona" (the Othello setting of Venice supplying the joke) send her smile to the "rural superintendent," i.e. Kiseleva’s husband Alexei Sergeevich Kiselev, continuing the running joke from the previous letter about his office (zemsky nachalnik, the land captain). He signs himself "Antonio," a mock-Venetian persona, and adds that "the Jesuits send their regards" – a wry nod to Venice’s clerical atmosphere. The envelope address (Russia, Mosca / Voskresensk, Moscow Province / to Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva) is preserved from the reverse of the postcard.