_From Márya Alexándrovna to Alexyéi Petróvitch_
VILLAGE OF ... NO, January, 1841.
I have written to you several times, Alexyéi Petróvitch.... You have not
answered me. Are you alive? Or perhaps our correspondence has begun to
bore you; perhaps you have found for yourself a more agreeable diversion
than the letters of a rustic young lady can afford you? Evidently you
called me to mind for the lack of something to do. If that is the case,
I wish you happiness. If you do not answer me this time, I shall not
trouble you again; there will be nothing left for me to do but to regret
my imprudence, that I have unnecessarily permitted myself to be roused
up, have offered my hand and emerged, if only for a moment, from my
isolated nook. I ought to remain in it forever, lock myself in--that is
my portion, the portion of all old maids. I ought to accustom myself to
that thought. There is no necessity for coming out into God’s sunlight,
no necessity for craving fresh air, when the lungs will not bear it. By
the way, we are now blocked up with dead drifts of snow. I shall be more
sensible henceforth.... People do not die of boredom, but it is possible
to perish with melancholy, I suppose. If I am mistaken, prove it to me.
But I think I am not mistaken. In any case, farewell. I wish you
happiness.