It's unreasonable . . . but I could not do otherwise—I cannot, Irina! I love you too much.—Yours, G. L.'
Litvinov did not much like this letter himself; it did not quite truly and exactly express what he wanted to say; it was full of awkward expressions, high flown or bookish, and doubtless it was not better than many of the other letters he had torn up; but it was the last, the chief point was thoroughly stated anyway, and harassed, and worn out, Litvinov did not feel capable of dragging anything else out of his head. Besides he did not possess the faculty of putting his thought into literary form, and like all people with whom it is not habitual, he took great trouble over the style. His first letter was probably the best; it came warmer from the heart. However that might be, Litvinov despatched his missive to Irina.
She replied in a brief note:
'Come to me to-day,' she wrote to him: ' he has gone away for the whole day. Your letter has greatly disturbed me. I keep thinking, thinking . . . and my head is in a whirl. I am very wretched, but you love me, and I am happy. Come. Yours, I.'
She was sitting in her boudoir when Litvinov went in. He was conducted there by the same
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