recounted the story with additions. Or perhaps he has spread it
abroad in his own department, and thence, it has crept and
crawled into ours. Everyone here knows it, down to the last
detail, for I have seen them point at you with their fingers
through the window. Oh yes, I have seen them do it. Yesterday,
when I stepped across to dine with you, the whole crew were
hanging out of the window to watch me, and the landlady exclaimed
that the devil was in young people, and called you certain
unbecoming names. But this is as nothing compared with
Rataziaev's foul intention to place us in his books, and to
describe us in a satire. He himself has declared that he is going
to do so, and other people say the same. In fact, I know not what
to think, nor what to decide. It is no use concealing the fact
that you and I have sinned against the Lord God.... You were
going to send me a book of some sort, to divert my mind--were you
not, dearest? What book, though, could now divert me? Only such
books as have never existed on earth. Novels are rubbish, and
written for fools and for the idle. Believe me, dearest, I know
it through long experience. Even should they vaunt Shakespeare to
you, I tell you that Shakespeare is rubbish, and proper only for
lampoons--Your own,

MAKAR DIEVUSHKIN.



August 2nd.

MY DEAREST MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH,--Do not disquiet yourself. God will
grant that all shall turn out well. Thedora has obtained a