To A. S. Suvorin, 10 May 1891. Aleksin.

A short letter of 10 May 1891, written three days after the previous letter to Suvorin from the same Aleksin dacha. Chekhov acknowledges a letter from Suvorin and identifies "Dedlov-Kign" – the writer and traveler I. V. Shcheglov’s contemporary S. I. Kign, who wrote under the pen name Dedlov – as the author signing with a single figure. Agreeing that his soul needs balm, he confesses a hunger for serious reading – something on Pushkin or Tolstoy, since current Russian criticism only irritates him – and, quoting Pushkin, says he now looks back on his recent European travels with something close to distaste, though he still misses Venice, Florence, and Vesuvius. He notes a new Ouida story in translation in the "Herald of Foreign Literature," done by a tax-inspector acquaintance, and wishes he knew foreign languages himself, certain he would translate beautifully. The letter turns to his summer work schedule at the dacha – the Sakhalin book on three days, a novel on the others, short stories on Sundays – and the pleasant but crowded household, the fine weather, and the fish and crayfish in the Oka. He asks when Suvorin will reach Moscow, warns him off the French exhibition, and promises him the Oka instead, with a planned steamer trip from Serpukhov toward Kaluga. He closes with a mock-serious renunciation of marriage in favor of a quiet old age at a desk, then, in a postscript, lists the cast of a vaudeville he is writing.