without that that his friend drank in every word of his, as the dust in the road drinks in a drop of rain, kept his secrets as a holy thing, and, buried in a dreary solitude from which he would never emerge, simply lived in his friend's life. To no one in the world had Nezhdanov spoken of his relations with him: they were very precious to him.
'Well, dear friend─my pure Vladimir,' so he wrote to him─he always called him pure, and with good reason─'congratulate me: I have fallen into a snug berth, and can now rest and rally my forces. I am living as a tutor in the house of a rich swell, Sipyagin. I'm teaching his little son, feeding sumptuously (I have never been so well fed in my life!), sleeping soundly, walking to my heart's content in lovely country, and, what is the chief thing, I have escaped for a time from the care of my Petersburg friends; and though at first I was devoured by the most savage ennui, now I feel somehow better. Soon I must set to the work you know of (as the proverb has it: If you call yourself a mushroom you must go into the basket), and that's just what they let me come here for; but meanwhile I can lead a delicious animal existence, grow fat, and perhaps write verses, if the fit takes me. Impressions of the country, as they call it, I put off for another time. The estate seems
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