letter. What a tormenting moment it was, what a tormenting hour, what a tormenting day, you can imagine!
And so, my friend, now more than before, I know my attachment to Dmitri Sergéitch. I myself did not realize that it was so powerful. Yes, my friend, I now know its strength. You, too, know, because you must certainly know that on that very day I decided to give up Aleksandr. All day I felt that my life was ruined—poisoned forever. Can you imagine my childish exultation when I saw my kind friend's note, which entirely changed the current of my thoughts (you see how careful my expressions are; I want you to be satisfied with me, my friend). You know all this, because Rakhmétof went to escort me to the train. Dmitri Sergéitch and he were right in saying that it was necessary for me to leave Petersburg for the accomplishment of the effect, for the sake of which Dmitri Sergéitch did not scruple to leave me all day a prey to the most terrible tortures: how thankful I am to him for this unmercifulness! He and Rakhmétof were also right in advising Aleksandr not to come to me, nor to escort me. But I had no necessity of going to Moscow; it was only necessary for me to go as far as Moscow, so I stopped at Novgorod. A few days later Aleksandr came there, and brought the documents in regard to Dmitri Sergéitch's suicide. We were married a week after the suicide, and we lived a month on the railroad in Tchudof, so that Aleksandr might be enabled to go three or four times a week to the hospital. Yesterday we returned to Petersburg, and here is the reason that I have been so long answering your letter: it lay in Masha's drawer, and she had entirely forgotten about it. And you must have thought—God knows what—at not having received an answer during all this time.
I press your hand, my dear. But please don't write any compliments to me, else I shall pour out before you my whole soul, and a perfect flood of enconiums on your nobleness, which would be the worst thing imaginable, and do you know what I think? Does it not prove the presence of a pretty good amount of stupidity, both in you and in me, by writing each other only a few lines. It seems as though
