To A. A. Dolzhenko, 8 May 1891. Aleksin.

A brief, playful household-errand letter of 8 May 1891, from Aleksin, to Alyosha (Alexey Alexeyevich Dolzhenko), the young nephew already established as (per the parallel greeting in source/headnote). dateline, header date, mock-formal salutation, the wine-collection errand, a greeting to "the rich auntie," a valediction, signature, and a one-line postscript recommending three Tolstoy stories.

Chekhov, away in Aleksin, instructs Alyosha to send someone to collect ten bottles of wine that have arrived for him from the Crimea, held at S. N. Filippov’s lodgings on Bolshaya Lubyanka; a calling card will secure the wine from Filippov or the doorman Yakov. Since Alyosha has lost the card previously given him, Chekhov encloses another, and gives comic, overprotective instructions: the wine is to be sent along with the next person traveling out to him (Semashko or Ivan), not carried by Alyosha himself (who would drink it on the way), and kept away from Auntie (who would also drink it) – failure earns mock excommunication ("you will not have my blessing"). He closes with a teasing "respects" to "the rich auntie," signs off, and adds a postscript urging Alyosha to use his stay to read three Tolstoy stories off the shelf.