To N. M. Lintvareva, 5 July 1891. Bogimovo.
H. M. ЛИНТВАРЕВОЙ, 5 июля 1891 г. Богимово.
Headnote
Written from Bogimovo the same day as, a companion letter to his sister Maria Pavlovna ("Masha") Chekhova: dateline, header line, and a run of short comic paragraphs on one running theme, all addressed to the same correspondent, Natalya Mikhailovna Lintvaryova, of the Lintvaryov family who hosted the Chekhovs at Luka in earlier summers.
The letter’s mock-formal salutation, "Most esteemed Baroness Ikskul," is not addressed to the real Baroness Varvara Ikskul but is Chekhov’s household nickname for Masha herself – confirmed by the companion letter 982, written to Masha the same day, which closes "bring Baroness Ikskul with you" and asks Lintvaryova’s household to be greeted. Read together, the two letters are a coordinated joke: Chekhov begs Masha directly to hurry home (982) and simultaneously enlists Lintvaryova, addressing her as if she were charged with fetching "the Baroness," to drive Masha back to Bogimovo. The letter is built entirely on shared household in-jokes and nicknames from that summer at Bogimovo: Amenaisa, Gege, Pauchok ("the little spider," a nickname for a household naturalist who is cataloguing spiders –. 982’s fuller account of his spider-leg count), Kiselikha and the young Kiselyovs, and Elena, who also appears running up and down the stairs in 982 – the same recurring figure in both letters, referent not otherwise specified in the source.
The content is a string of comic appeals and reports rather than business: an invitation dressed as an order (bring seventy-three colored jackets and come), reminiscences of shared outings (Vorontsovo, the dog Fingal, a picnic, fried eggs), a mock complaint about the glitter of life at Luka among "the Markovs and the barons", news of an amateur theatrical planned for 15 July, the illness of the old innkeeper of an establishment Chekhov jokingly calls their "Hermitage", his mother’s greetings, an ultimatum that he will leave Bogimovo if Masha has not returned by the 10th, and closing notes on a failed kitchen garden and the summer heat. is a one-word sign-off, "Carnation" (Гвоздика), left untranslated as anything but the plain flower name; its significance as a nickname or private joke is not otherwise established in this corpus.