it were a background, against which it stands out in greater relief. As it
is, your heroes weep and you sigh. Yes, you must be cold.

But don't listen to me, I am a bad critic. I have not the faculty of
forming my critical ideas clearly. Sometimes I make a regular hash of
it....




TO A. S. SUVORIN.

MELIHOVO,
March, 1892.


The cost of labour is almost nil, and so I am very well off. I begin to see
the charms of capitalism. To pull down the stove in the servants' quarters
and build up there a kitchen stove with all its accessories, then to pull
down the kitchen stove in the house arid put up a Dutch stove instead,
costs twenty roubles altogether. The price of two men to dig, twenty-five
kopecks. To fill the ice cellar it costs thirty kopecks a day to the
workmen. A young labourer who does not drink or smoke, and can read and
write, whose duties are to work the land and clean the boots and look after
the flower-garden, costs five roubles a month. Floors, partitions, papering
walls--all that is cheaper than mushrooms. And I am at ease. But if I were
to pay for labour a quarter of what I get for my leisure I should be ruined
in a month, as the number of stove-builders, carpenters, joiners, and so
on, threatens to go for ever after the fashion of a recurring decimal. A
spacious life not cramped within four walls requires a spacious pocket too.