On January 17th I had telegrams from your mother and your brother, from
your uncle Alexandr Ivanovitch (signed Uncle Sasha), and from N. N.
Sokolovsky. Be so good as to give them my warm thanks and the expression of
my sincere feeling for them.
Why don’t you write?--what has happened? Or are you already so fascinated?
... Well, there is no help for it. God be with you!
I am told that in May you will be in Yalta. If that is settled, why
shouldn’t you make inquiries beforehand about the theatre? The theatre here
is let on lease, and you could not get hold of it without negotiating with
the tenant, Novikov the actor. If you commission me to do so I would
perhaps talk to him about it.
The 17th, my name-day and the day of my election to the Academy, passed
dingily and gloomily, as I was unwell. Now I am better, but my mother is
ailing. And these little troubles completely took away all taste and
inclination for a name-day or election to the Academy, and they, too, have
hindered me from writing to you and answering your telegram at the proper
time.
Mother is getting better now.
I see the Sredins at times. They come to see us, and I go to them very,
very rarely, but still I do go....
So, then, you are not writing to me and not intending to write very soon
either.... X. is to blame for all that. I understand you!