MOSCOW,
November 30, 1891.


I return you the two manuscripts you sent me. One story is an Indian
Legend--The Lotus Flower, Wreaths of Laurel, A Summer Night, The Humming
Bird--that in India! He begins with Faust thirsting for youth and ends with
"the bliss of the true life," in the style of Tolstoy. I have cut out
parts, polished it up, and the result is a legend of no great value,
indeed, but light, and it may be read with interest. The other story is
illiterate, clumsy, and womanish in structure, but there is a story and a
certain raciness. I have cut it down to half as you see. Both stories could
be printed....

I keep dreaming and dreaming. I dream of moving from Moscow into the
country in March, and in the autumn coming to Petersburg to stay till the
spring. I long to spend at least one winter in Petersburg, and that's only
possible on condition I have no perch in Moscow. And I dream of how I shall
spend five months talking to you about literature, and do as I think best
in the _Novoye Vremya_, while in the country I shall go in for medicine
heart and soul.

Boborykin has been to see me. He is dreaming too. He told me that he wants
to write something in the way of the physiology of the Russian novel, its
origin among us, and the natural course of its development. While he was
talking I could not get rid of the feeling that I had a maniac before me,