wail to heaven.

I was completely cleaned out over the move.

Ah, if you could come and see us! In the first place it would be very
delightful and interesting to see you; and in the second, your advice would
save us from a thousand idiocies. You know we don't understand a thing
about it. Like Raspluev, all I know about agriculture is that the earth is
black, and nothing more. Write. How is it best to sow clover?--among the
rye, or among the spring wheat? ...




TO I. L. SHTCHEGLOV.

MELIHOVO,
March 9, 1892.


... Yes, such men as Ratchinsky are very rare in this world. I understand
your enthusiasm, my dear fellow. After the suffocation one feels in the
proximity of A. and B.--and the world is full of them--Ratchinsky with his
ideas, his humanity, and his purity, seems like a breath of spring. I am
ready to lay down my life for Ratchinsky; but, dear friend,--allow me that
"but" and don't be vexed--I would not send my children to his school. Why?
I received a religious education in my childhood--with church singing, with
reading of the "apostles" and the psalms in church, with regular attendance
at matins, with obligation to assist at the altar and ring the bells. And,
do you know, when I think now of my childhood, it seems to me rather