the poetry and novelty of which makes up for all the discomforts of life.
Every day there are surprises, one better than another. The starlings have
returned, everywhere there is the gurgling of water, in places where the
snow has thawed the grass is already green. The day drags on like eternity.
One lives as though in Australia, somewhere at the ends of the earth; one's
mood is calm, contemplative, and animal, in the sense that one does not
regret yesterday or look forward to tomorrow. From here, far away, people
seem very good, and that is natural, for in going away into the country we
are not hiding from people but from our vanity, which in town among people
is unjust and active beyond measure. Looking at the spring, I have a
dreadful longing that there should be paradise in the other world. In fact,
at moments I am so happy that I superstitiously pull myself up and remind
myself of my creditors, who will one day drive me out of the Australia I
have so happily won....




TO MADAME AVILOV.

MELIHOVO,
March 19, 1892.


HONOURED LIDYA ALEXYEVNA,

I have read your story "On the Road." If I were the editor of an
illustrated magazine, I should publish the story with great pleasure; but
here is my advice as a reader: when you depict sad or unlucky people, and
want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder--it gives their grief as