Jean Shtcheglov, in whose company you were so bored for a whole evening, is
a great opponent of every sort of heresy, and amongst others of feminine
intellect; and yet if one compares him with K., for instance, beside her he
seems like a foolish little monk. By the way, if you see K., give her my
greetings, and tell her that we are expecting her here. She is very
interesting in the open air and far more intelligent than in town....




TO MADAME AVILOV.

MELIHOVO,
April 29, 1892.


... Yes, it is nice now in the country, not only nice but positively
amazing. It's real spring, the trees are coming out, it is hot. The
nightingales are singing, and the frogs are croaking in all sorts of tones.
I haven't a halfpenny, but the way I look at it is this: the rich man is
not he who has plenty of money, but he who has the means to live now in the
luxurious surroundings given us by early spring. Yesterday I was in Moscow,
but I almost expired there of boredom and all manner of disasters. Would
you believe it, a lady of my acquaintance, aged forty-two, recognized
herself in the twenty-year-old heroine of my story, "The Grasshopper" and
all Moscow is accusing me of libelling her. The chief proof is the external
likeness. The lady paints, her husband is a doctor, and she is living with
an artist.