To Al. P. Chekhov, 6 August 1891. Bogimovo.

A money-and-family letter of 6 August 1891 from Bogimovo, the Kaluga province estate where the Chekhov family was summering, to Chekhov’s eldest brother Alexander Pavlovich Chekhov, a journalist then living in Petersburg: dateline, short-form date, a mock- solemn opening on the birth of one of Alexander’s children, a request for money and an account of Chekhov’s own debts, a note on weather and mushrooms, a joke about wanting an interest-free loan, news of a death at Suvorin’s house in Feodosia, a morning domestic scene, closing greetings, a request to write back about the money, a request for a promised photograph, signature, a substantial closing passage answering complaints in Alexander’s own letter, a joke about Alexander’s rhetorical style, and a note on a small estate that has come up for sale.

Chekhov opens with a mock-elevated jab at Alexander’s prolific fatherhood ("you fruitful fig tree"), complaining that Alexander hasn’t reported the sex of his newest child, so their mother is telling fortunes on cards to guess. He asks Alexander to send a hundred roubles owed to him, care of general delivery in Aleksin, Tula province, laying out his own strained finances – an expensive trip abroad, an accounting dispute with his publisher’s shop that leaves him only a fraction of what he is owed, and a mysterious 90-rouble notice that turns out to be explained by Alexander’s letter. He notes the rainy, mushroom-rich weather at Bogimovo, jokes about wanting to borrow five thousand roubles never to repay it, and reports that Suvorin has written from Feodosia about the death of his manservant Nikolai, who had gone in another servant’s place. A brief scene describes the household at six in the morning – his father off to church, his mother asleep, his sister out gathering mushrooms – before closing greetings to Alexander’s wife and sons, a request to be told promptly if the money can’t be sent, and a note that he is still awaiting a promised photograph. After signing, Chekhov returns at length to rebut complaints in Alexander’s letter: that he and Suvorin give unwanted "wise advice" from an ivory tower, that Alexander deserves more credit and pay for visiting a madhouse and a night shelter as a journalist, and that being underpaid is unfair – Chekhov counters that he never advised Alexander on the Chizh matter (only expressed regret at a needless fuss), sees no particular feat in the asylum or shelter visits, and points out that his own unpaid, money-losing labor on the Sakhalin book proves nothing either way. He teases Alexander for adopting the grandiloquent manner of "uncle M. E." in calling a minor shop debt a "crime," and closes with an excited note about a cheap, attractive small estate that has come up for sale nearby.