To the Chekhovs, April 1891. Naples.

A letter of 7 (19) April 1891, from Naples, addressed jointly to the Chekhov family (, as the envelope names her, and implicitly the household at large) – part of the celebrated spring 1891 European travel series with Suvorin (Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, on to Nice and Paris). dateline, header date, an account of touring Pompeii, a comic description of the ascent of Vesuvius, the descent and the ride back by moonlight, a rueful note on travel debts, a reproach for the family’s silence, closing regards and signature, then the envelope address broken into its own lines (return address, city, street, and addressee).

Chekhov describes touring the ruins of Pompeii the day before, admiring Roman skill at combining simplicity with comfort and beauty. Lunch and good red wine send him up Vesuvius on horseback; the ascent (2:30 to 6:00) is rendered as slapstick suffering – ash, lava, two steps forward and one back – building to a vivid, almost infernal description of the crater itself: sulfurous ground, foul white smoke, flying cinders, a mixed roar of sound, and "Satan" snoring beneath the smoke; he says he now believes in hell, and notes the lava is hot enough to melt a copper coin. The descent is just as bad, and he rides back through moonlit villages thinking of Lika Lenskaya. He turns to money – the trip has run up a thousand rubles of debt against an expected three hundred, with hope pinned on amateur productions of his play "The Bear" – then chides the family for not writing and not telling him whether they have found a dacha for the summer. He signs off affectionately as "Antoine," his usual epistolary persona, and the final sections reproduce the envelope: addressed in French/Russian convention to Russia, Moscow, Malaya Dmitrovka, the Firgang house, to Maria Pavlovna Chekhova.