shake, his hands
shake, his head shakes, from some illness I suppose, pool fellow. He is timid, afraid of everyone and sidles dong edgeways; I am shy at times, but he is a great deal worse. His family consists of a wife and three children. The eldest, a boy, is just like his father, just as frail. The wife was once very good-looking, even now one can see it; she, poor thing, goes about in pitiful tatters. They are in debt to the landlady, I have heard, she is none too gracious to them. I have heard, too, that there is some unpleasant business hanging over Gorshkov in connection with which he lost his place. . . . Whether it is a lawsuit—^whether he is to be tried, or prosecuted, or what, I can't tell you for certain. Poor they are, mercy on usl It is always still and quiet in their room as if no one were living there. There is no sound even of the children. And it never happens that the children frolic about and play, and that is a bad sign. One evening I happened to pass their door; it was unusually quiet in the house at the time; I heard a sobbing, then a whisper, then sobbing again as though they were crying but so quietly, so pitifully that it was heart-rending, and the thought of those poor creatures haunted me all night so that I could not get to sleep properly.
Well, good-bye, my precious little friend, Varinka. I have described everything to the best of my abilities. I have been thinking of nothing but you all day. My heart aches over you, my dear. I know, my love, you have no warm cloak. Ah! these Petersburg springs, these winds and rain mixed with snow—^they'll be the death of me, Varinka! Such salubrious airs. Lord preserve us!
Don't scorn my description, my love. I have no style, Varinka, no style whatever. I only wish I had. I write just what comes into my head only to cheer you up with something. If only I had had some education it would have been a different matter, but how much education have I had? Not a ha'porth.
Always your faithful friend,
Makar Dyevushkin.
April 25. Honoured Sir, Makar Alexyevitch,
I met my cousin Sasha to-day! It is horrible! She will be ruined too, poor thing! I heard, too, from other sources that Anna Fyodorovna is still making inquiries about me. It seems as though she will never leave off persecuting me. She says that she wants to forgive me, to forget all the past and
that she must come and see me. She says that you are no relation to me at all, that she is a nearer relation, that you have no right to meddle in our family affairs and that it is shameful and shocking to live on your charity and at your expense. . . . She says that I have forgotten her hospitalily, that she saved mother and me from starving to death, perhaps, that she gave us food and drink, and for more than a year and a half was put to expense on our account, and that besides all that she forgave us a debt. Even mother she will not spare! and if only poor mother knew how they have treated me! God sees it 1 ... Anna Fyodorovna says that I was so silly that I did not know how to take advantage of my luck, that she put me in the way of good luck, that she is not to blame for anything else, and that I myself was not able or perhaps was not anxious to defend my own honour. Who was to blame in that, great God I She says that Mr. Bykov was perfectly right and that he would not marry just anybody who . . . but why write it!
It is cruel to hear such falsehoods, Makar Alexyevitchl 1 can't tell you what a state I am in now. I am trembling, crying, sobbing. I have been two hours over writing this letter to you. I thought that at least she recognised how wrongly she had treated me; and you see what she is now!
For God's saJce don't be alarmed, my friend, the one friend who wishes me well! Fedora exaggerates everything, I am not ill. I only caught cold a little yesterday when I went to the requiem service for mother at Volkovo. Why did you not come with me? I begged you so much to do so. Ah, my poor, poor mother, if she could rise from the grave, if she could see how they have treated me I V. D.
May 20. My daelinc Vaeinka,
I send you a few grapes, my love; I am told they are good for a convalescent and the doctor recommends them for quenching the thirst—simply for thirst. You were longing the other day for a few roses, my dcirling, so I am sencfing you some now. Have you any appetite, my love ?t— that is the most important thing.
Thank God, though, that it is all over and done with, and that our troubles, too, will be soon at an end. We must give thanks to haven! As for books, I cannot get hold of them anywhere for the
moment. I am told there is a good book here written in very fine language; they say it is good, I have not read it m}reelf, but it is very much praised here. I have asked for it and they have promised to lend it me, only will you read it? You are so hard to please in that line; it is difficult to satisfy your taste, I know that already, my darling. No doubt you want poetry, inspiration, lyrics—well, I will get poems too, I will get anything; there is a manuscript book full of extracts here.
I am getting on very well. Please don't be uneasy about me, my dearie. What Fedora told you about me is all nonsense; you tell her that she told a he, be sure to tell her so, the wicked gossip! ... I have not sold my new uniform. And why should I . . . judge for yourself, why should I sell it? Here, I am told, I have forty roubles bonus coming to me, so why should I sell it? Don't you worry, my precious; she's suspicious, your Fedora, she's suspicious. We shall get on splendidly, my darling! Only you get well, my angel, for God's sake, get well. Don't grieve your old friend, ^^^o told you I had grown thin? It is slander, slander again! I am well and hearty and getting so fat that I am quite ashamed. I am well fed and well content: the only thing is for you to get strong again!
Come, good-bye, my angel; I kiss your Httle fingers.
And remain, always.
Your faithful friend, Makae Dyevushkin.
P.S.—.Ah, my love, what do you mean by writing like that again? . . . What nonsense you talk! Why, how can I come and see you so often, my precious? I ask you how can I? Perhaps snatching a chance after dark; but there, there's scarcely any night at all now, at this season. As it was, my angel, I scarcely left you at all while you were ill, while you were unconscious; but really I don't know how I managed it all; and afterwards I gave up going to you for people had begun to be inquisitive cind to aS^ questions. There had been gossip going about here, even apart from that. I rely upon Teresa; she is not one to talk; but think for yourself, my darling, what a to-do there wiU be when they find out everything about us. They will imagine something and what will they say then? So you must keep a brave heart, my darUng, and wait until you. are quite strong again; and then we will arrange a rendezvous somewhere out of doors,
My dear Makar Alexyevitch,
I so long to do something nice that will please you in return for all the care and trouble you have taken about me, and all your love for me, that at last I have overcome my disinclination to rummage in my chest and find my diary, which I am sending to you now. I began it in the happy time of my life. You used often to question me with curiosity about my manner of life in the past, my mother, Pokrovskoe, my time with Anna Fyodorovna and my troubles in the recent past, and you were so impatiently anxious to read the manuscript in which I took the fancy, God knows why, to record some moments of my life that I have no doubt the parcel I am sending will be a pleasure to you. It made me sad to read it over. I feel that I am twice as old as when I wrote the last line in that diaiy. It was all written at different dates. Good-bye, Makar Alexyevitch! I feel horribly depressed now and often I am troubled with sleeplessness. Convalescence is a very dreary business! V. D.
I was only fourteen when my father died. My childhood was the happiest time of my life. It began not here but far away in a province in the wilds. My father was the steward of Prince
P.'s huge estate in the province of T . We lived in one of
the Prince's villages and led a quiet, obscure, happy life. . . . I was a playful little thing; I used to do nothing but run about the fields, the copses and the gardens, and no one troubled about me. My father was constantly busy about his work, my mother looked after the house; no one taught me anj^thing, for which I was very glad. Sometimes at daybreak I would run away either to llie pond or to the copse or to the hayfield or to the reapers—and it did not matter that the sun was baking, that I was running, I did not know where, away from the village, that I was scratched by the bushes, that I tore my dress. . . . I should be scolded afterwards at home, but I did not care for that.
And it seems to me that I should have been so happy if it had been my lot to have spent all my life in one place and never to have left the country. But I had to leave my native place while I was still a child. I was only twelve when we moved
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to Petersburg. Ah, how well I remember our sorrowful preparations! How I cried when I said good-bye to everj^hing that was so dear to me. I remember that I threw myself on father's neck and besought him with tears to
