MOSCOW,
March 5, 1890.
... As for me, I have a cough too, but I am alive and I believe I’m well.
I shan’t be with you this summer, as I am going in April, on affairs of my
own, to the island of Sahalin, and shall not be back till December. I am
going across Siberia (eleven thousand versts) and shall come back by sea.
I believe Misha wrote to you as though someone were commissioning me to go,
but that’s nonsense. I am commissioning myself to go, on my own account.
There are lots of bears and escaped convicts in Sahalin, so that in case
_messieurs_ the wild beasts dine off me or some tramp cuts my throat,
I beg you not to remember evil against me.
Of course if I have the time and the skill to write what I want to about
Sahalin, I shall send you the book immediately that it comes into the
world; it will be dull, a specialist’s book consisting of nothing but
figures, but let me count upon your indulgence: you will suppress your
yawns as you read it....