I feel as though I have been travelling for a whole year. I had scarcely
got back from Sahalin when I went to Petersburg, and then to Petersburg
again, and to Italy....

If I don't manage to get home by Easter, when you break the fast, remember
me in your prayers, and receive my congratulations from a distance, and my
assurance that I shall miss you all horribly on Easter night.




TO HIS SISTER.

PARIS,
April 21, 1891.


To-day is Easter. So Christ is risen! It's my first Easter away from home.

I arrived in Paris on Friday morning and at once went to the Exhibition.
Yes, the Eiffel Tower is very very high. The other exhibition buildings I
saw only from the outside, as they were occupied by cavalry brought there
in anticipation of disorders. On Friday they expected riots. The people
flocked in crowds about the streets, shouting and whistling, greatly
excited, while the police kept dispersing them. To disperse a big crowd a
dozen policemen are sufficient here. The police make a combined attack, and
the crowd runs like mad. In one of these attacks the honour was vouchsafed
to me--a policeman caught hold of me under my shoulder, and pushed me in
front of him.