no worse than the nerves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since you have
already written the ending I shall not put you out by sending you mine. I
was inspired and could not resist writing it. You can read it if you like.
Stories are good in this way, that one can sit over them, pen in hand, for
days together, and not notice how time passes, and at the same time be
conscious of life of a sort. That's from the hygienic point of view. And
from the point of view of usefulness and so on, to write a fairly good
story and give the reader ten to twenty interesting minutes--that, as
Gilyarovsky says, is not a sheep sneezing....

I have a horrible headache again to-day. I don't know what to do. Yes, I
suppose it's old age, or if it's not that it's something worse.

A little old gentleman brought me one hundred roubles to-day for the
famine.




TO A. I. SMAGIN.

MOSCOW,
December 16, 1891.


... Alas! if I don't move into the country this year, and if the purchase
of the house and land for some reason does not come off, I shall be playing
the part of a great villain in regard to my health. It seems to me that I
am dried and warped like an old cupboard, and that if I go on living in
Moscow next season, and give myself up to scribbling excesses, Gilyarovsky