To the Chekhovs, 1891. Venice.

A brief postcard-length family letter of 26 March (7 April) 1891, from Venice, addressed to "the Chekhovs" (ЧЕХОВЫМ) – the household in Moscow generally, the same recurring correspondent block as neighboring letters of this trip. Written the day after the giddy note to Kiseleva (source/headnote); part of the celebrated spring 1891 European travel series with Suvorin. dateline, header date, a weather-soured note on Venice, a domestic errand about a gnawed raincoat, a question after the family dog, a correction to an earlier cost-of-living claim, a one-line travel notice, a mock-solemn blessing, a signature, an art-critical aside on the paintings of Venice, and a closing joke about Desdemona’s house.

rain has ruined the beauty of Venice and Chekhov is eager to move on. It reminds him of his leather raincoat back home, possibly rat-damaged, which he asks to have sent for mending at a specific Moscow shop. He asks after "Signor Mangus" (the family dog), half-joking that he dreads news of its death. He then walks back an exaggeration from a previous letter about how cheap Venice is, blaming Madame Merezhkovskaya’s figures and correcting "a week" to "a day" – still cheap, he insists, a franc there being worth what a ruble is at home. He announces the next leg to Florence, offers a facetiously pious blessing, and signs off. A postscript records seeing Titian’s Madonna with admiration, alongside a wry complaint that mediocre paintings are preserved next to the masterpieces out of sheer conservatism. The letter closes with the standing local joke that the house said to have belonged to Shakespeare’s Desdemona is available to rent.