Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

TO O. L. KNIPPER.

YALTA,

January 22, 1900.

DEAR ACTRESS,

On January 17th I had telegrams from your mother and your brother, from your uncle Alexandr Ivanovitch (signed Uncle Sasha), and from N. N. Sokolovsky. Be so good as to give them my warm thanks and the expression of my sincere feeling for them.

Why don’t you write? — what has happened? Or are you already so fascinated?

… Well, there is no help for it. God be with you!

I am told that in May you will be in Yalta. If that is settled, why shouldn’t you make inquiries beforehand about the theatre? The theatre here is let on lease, and you could not get hold of it without negotiating with the tenant, Novikov the actor. If you commission me to do so I would perhaps talk to him about it.

The 17th, my name-day and the day of my election to the Academy, passed dingily and gloomily, as I was unwell. Now I am better, but my mother is ailing. And these little troubles completely took away all taste and inclination for a name-day or election to the Academy, and they, too, have hindered me from writing to you and answering your telegram at the proper time.

Mother is getting better now.

I see the Sredins at times. They come to see us, and I go to them very, very rarely, but still I do go….

So, then, you are not writing to me and not intending to write very soon either…. X. is to blame for all that. I understand you!

I kiss your little hand.