To I. M. Kondratyev, 1891. Paris.

A brief, purely formal note of 23 April (5 May) 1891, written from Paris to Ivan Maksimovich Kondratyev, playwright and secretary of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers (already identified at, distinct from Alexei Mikhailovich Kondratyev of and from Ivan Kuzmich Kondratyev, the minor Moscow writer of). Confirmed against the source as a single coherent seven-section document: dateline, header date, salutation split across two lines, a two-sentence request for a statement of account and notice of his return date, closing, and signature.

written near the tail end of the celebrated spring 1891 European travel series with Suvorin, Chekhov asks Kondratyev to have his account prepared, as the Society’s official of record for fees owed to him, and tells him he will be back in Moscow on 30 April or 1 May and will call on him around then. Purely a piece of routine business correspondence, notable mainly for the Paris dateline placing it near the end of the trip.