... Anna Ivanovna is as nice as ever, Suvorin talks as incessantly as ever.
I receive the most boring invitations to the most boring dinners. It seems I must make haste and get back to Moscow, as they won’t let me work here.
Hurrah, we are avenged! To make up for our being so bored, the cotton ball has yielded 1,500 roubles clear profit, in confirmation of which I enclose a cutting from a newspaper.
If anything is collected for the benefit of the Sahalin schools, let me know at once.
How is my mongoose? Don’t forget to give him food and drink, and beat him without mercy when he jumps on the table. Does he eat people? [Footnote: A naive question asked by a lady of Chekhov’s acquaintance.]
Write how Ivan is....
January, later.
I am tired as a ballet dancer after five acts and eight tableaux. Dinners, letters which I am too lazy to answer, conversations and imbecilities of all sorts. I have to go immediately to dine in Vassilyevsky Ostrov, and I am bored and ought to work.
I’ll stay another three days and see whether the ballet will go on the same, then I shall go home, or to see Ivan.