Chapter 2

April 8th

MY BELOVED MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH,--Do you know, must quarrel with
you. Yes, good Makar Alexievitch, I really cannot accept your
presents, for I know what they must have cost you--I know to what
privations and self-denial they must have led. How many times
have I not told you that I stand in need of NOTHING, of
absolutely NOTHING, as well as that I shall never be in a
position to recompense you for all the kindly acts with which you
have loaded me? Why, for instance, have you sent me geraniums? A
little sprig of balsam would not have mattered so much-- but
geraniums! Only have I to let fall an unguarded word--for
example, about geraniums--and at once you buy me some! How much
they must have cost you! Yet what a charm there is in them, with
their flaming petals! Wherever did you get these beautiful
plants? I have set them in my window as the most conspicuous
place possible, while on the floor I have placed a bench for my
other flowers to stand on (since you are good enough to enrich me
with such presents). Unfortunately, Thedora, who, with her
sweeping and polishing, makes a perfect sanctuary of my room, is
not over-pleased at the arrangement. But why have you sent me
also bonbons? Your letter tells me that something special is
afoot with you, for I find in it so much about paradise and
spring and sweet odours and the songs of birds. Surely, thought I
to myself when I received it, this is as good as poetry! Indeed,
verses are the only thing that your letter lacks, Makar
Alexievitch. And what tender feelings I can read in it--what
roseate-coloured fancies! To the curtain, however, I had never
given a thought. The fact is that when I moved the flower-pots,
it LOOPED ITSELF up. There now!

Ah, Makar Alexievitch, you neither speak of nor give any account
of what you have spent upon me. You hope thereby to deceive me,
to make it seem as though the cost always falls upon you alone,
and that there is nothing to conceal. Yet I KNOW that for my sake
you deny yourself necessaries. For instance, what has made you go
and take the room which you have done, where you will be worried
and disturbed, and where you have neither elbow-space nor
comfort--you who love solitude, and never like to have any one
near you? To judge from your salary, I should think that you
might well live in greater ease than that. Also, Thedora tells me
that your circumstances used to be much more affluent than they
are at present. Do you wish, then, to persuade me that your whole
existence has been passed in loneliness and want and gloom, with
never a cheering word to help you, nor a seat in a friend's
chimney-corner? Ah, kind comrade, how my heart aches for you! But
do not overtask your health, Makar Alexievitch.