...The writer and the painter became acquainted in 1879, the year the young Anton Chekhov moved to Moscow... Both were poor and young — born in different months of the same year, 1860, they had only just turned 19.
They started to develop a close relationship in 1885....
Chekhov's early short stories, with their close attention to the types, characters, and manners of people, had kinship with Levitan's early pieces....
Exactly as Chekhov carefully weighed words aiming for precision, pithiness and expressiveness, Levitan evaluated and "calibrated" his first impressions in sketches. This trait of the artist's creative personality explains the fact that he often re-used his favorite motifs, while turning out every new variation slightly differently.
[https://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/articles/isaac-levitan/crossed-destinies-anton-chekhov-isaac-levitan]