MY BELOVED MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH,--So eager am I to do something that
will please and divert you in return for your care, for your ceaseless
efforts on my behalf--in short, for your love for me--that I have
decided to beguile a leisure hour for you by delving into my locker, and
extracting thence the manuscript which I send you herewith. I began it
during the happier period of my life, and have continued it at intervals
since. So often have you asked me about my former existence--about my
mother, about Pokrovski, about my sojourn with Anna Thedorovna, about my
more recent misfortunes; so often have you expressed an earnest desire
to read the manuscript in which (God knows why) I have recorded certain
incidents of my life, that I feel no doubt but that the sending of it
will give you sincere pleasure. Yet somehow I feel depressed when I read
it, for I seem now to have grown twice as old as I was when I penned
its concluding lines. Ah, Makar Alexievitch, how weary I am--how this
insomnia tortures me! Convalescence is indeed a hard thing to bear!