for the irregularities which the government had ventured upon in putting
down the riots in Fourmis (there were many killed and wounded). It was a
stormy and extremely interesting sitting.

Men who tie boa-constrictors round their bodies, ladies who kick up to the
ceiling, flying people, lions, _cafe'-chantants_, dinners and lunches begin
to sicken me. It is time I was home. I am longing to work.




TO A. S. SUVORIN.

ALEXIN,
May 7, 1891.


The summer villa is all right. There are woods and the Oka: it is far away
in the wilds, it is warm, nightingales sing, and so on. It is quiet and
peaceful, and in bad weather it will be dull and depressing here. After
travelling abroad, life at a summer villa seems a little mawkish. I feel as
though I had been taken prisoner and put into a fortress. But I am
contented all the same. In Moscow I received from the Society of Dramatic
Authors not two hundred roubles, as I expected, but three hundred. It's
very kind on the part of fortune.

Well, my dear sir, I owe you, even if we adopt your reckoning, not less
than eight hundred roubles. In June or July, when my money will be at the
shop, I will write to Zandrok to send all that comes to me to you in
Feodosia, and do not try and prevent me. I give you my word of honour that