that. They think of me now as one of themselves, and stay the night with me
when they pass through Melihovo. Add to that, that we have bought ourselves
a new comfortable covered carriage, have made a new road, so that now we
don't drive through the village. We are digging a pond.... Anything else?
In fact hitherto everything has been new and interesting, but how it will
be later on, I don't know. There is snow already, it is cold, but I don't
feel drawn to Moscow. So far I have not had any feeling of dulness.

* * * * *

The educated people here are very charming and interesting. What matters
most, they are honest. Only the police are unattractive.

We have seven horses, a broad-faced calf, and puppies, called Muir and
Merrilees....




November 22, 1892.


Snow is falling by day, while at night the moon is shining its utmost, a
gorgeous amazing moon. It is magnificent. But nevertheless, I marvel at the
fortitude of landowners who spend the winter in the country; there's so
little to do that if anyone is not in one way or another engaged in
intellectual work, he is inevitably bound to become a glutton or a
drunkard, or a man like Turgenev's Pigasov. The monotony of the snowdrifts
and the bare trees, the long nights, the moonlight, the deathlike stillness
day and night, the peasant women and the old ladies--all that disposes one