as this one has been. Again good-bye.--Your friend,

BARBARA DOBROSELOVA.



April 8th

MY DEAREST BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,--To think that a day like this
should have fallen to my miserable lot! Surely you are making fun
of an old man? ... However, it was my own fault--my own fault
entirely. One ought not to grow old holding a lock of Cupid's
hair in one's hand. Naturally one is misunderstood.... Yet man is
sometimes a very strange being. By all the Saints, he will talk
of doing things, yet leave them undone, and remain looking the
kind of fool from whom may the Lord preserve us! . . . Nay, I am
not angry, my beloved; I am only vexed to think that I should
have written to you in such stupid, flowery phraseology. Today I
went hopping and skipping to the office, for my heart was under
your influence, and my soul was keeping holiday, as it were. Yes,
everything seemed to be going well with me. Then I betook myself
to my work. But with what result? I gazed around at the old
familiar objects, at the old familiar grey and gloomy objects.
They looked just the same as before. Yet WERE those the same
inkstains, the same tables and chairs, that I had hitherto known?
Yes, they WERE the same, exactly the same; so why should I have
gone off riding on Pegasus' back? Whence had that mood arisen? It
had arisen from the fact that a certain sun had beamed upon me,
and turned the sky to blue. But why so? Why is it, sometimes,
that sweet odours seem to be blowing through a courtyard where