unexpected departure was the following letter:
'PETROVSKOE, 12th April.
'Only this moment (i.e. at ten o'clock in the evening) have I received
your dear letter of the 3rd of April, but as usual, I answer it at once.
Fedor brought it yesterday from town, but, as it was late, he did not
give it to Mimi till this morning, and Mimi (since I was unwell) kept
it from me all day. I have been a little feverish. In fact, to tell the
truth, this is the fourth day that I have been in bed.
'Yet do not be uneasy. I feel almost myself again now, and if Ivan
Vassilitch should allow me, I think of getting up to-morrow.
'On Friday last I took the girls for a drive, and, close to the little
bridge by the turning on to the high road (the place which always makes
me nervous), the horses and carriage stuck fast in the mud. Well, the
day being fine, I thought that we would walk a little up the road until
the carriage should be extricated, but no sooner had we reached the
chapel than I felt obliged to sit down, I was so tired, and in this way
half-an-hour passed while help was being sent for to get the carriage
dug out. I felt cold, for I had only thin boots on, and they had been
wet through. After luncheon too, I had alternate cold and hot fits, yet
still continued to follow our ordinary routine.
'When tea was over I sat down to the piano to play a duct with
Lubotshka, (you would be astonished to hear what progress she has
made!), but imagine my surprise when I found that I could not count the
beats! Several times I began to do so, yet always felt confused in
my head, and kept hearing strange noises in my ears. I would begin
'One-two-three--' and then suddenly go on '-eight-fifteen,' and so on,
as though I were talking nonsense and could not help it. At last Mimi
came to my assistance and forced me to retire to bed. That was how my
illness began, and it was all through my own fault. The next day I had
a good deal of fever, and our good Ivan Vassilitch came. He has not left
us since, but promises soon to restore me to the world.
'What a wonderful old man he is! While I was feverish and delirious he
sat the whole night by my bedside without once closing his eyes; and at
this moment (since he knows I am busy writing) he is with the girls in
the divannaia, and I can hear him telling them German stories, and them
laughing as they listen to him.
''La Belle Flamande,' as you call her, is now spending her second week
here as my guest (her mother having gone to pay a visit somewhere), and
she is most attentive and attached to me. She even tells me her secret
affairs. Under different circumstances her beautiful face, good temper,
and youth might have made a most excellent girl of her, but in the
society in which according to her own account, she moves she will be
wasted. The idea has more than once occurred to me that, had I not had
so many children of my own, it would have been a deed of mercy to have
adopted her.
'Lubotshka had meant to write to you herself, but she has torn up three
sheets of paper, saying: 'I know what a quizzer Papa always is. If he
were to find a single fault in my letter he would show it to everybody.'
Katenka is as charming as usual, and Mimi, too, is good, but tiresome.
'Now let me speak of more serious matters. You write to me that your
affairs are not going well this winter, and that you wish to break into
the revenues of Chabarovska. It seems to me strange that you should
think it necessary to ask my consent. Surely what belongs to me belongs
no less to you? You are so kind-hearted, dear, that, for fear of
worrying me, you conceal the real state of things, but I can guess that
