NICE,
December 15, 1897.
... In one of your letters you expressed a desire that I should send you an
international story, taking for my subject something from the life here.
Such a story I can write only in Russia from reminiscences. I can only
write from reminiscences, and I have never written directly from Nature. I
have let my memory sift the subject, so that only what is important or
typical is left in it as in a filter....