[Illustration: _Goethe_] FAUST A STORY IN NINE LETTERS _Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren_ (FAUST, PART I.) FIRST LETTER FROM PAVEL ALEXANDROVITCH B.… TO SEMYON NIKOLAEVITCH V.… M---- VILLAGE, _6th June 1850_. I have been here for three days, my dear fellow, and, as I promised, I take up my pen to write to you. It has been drizzling with fine rain ever since the morning; I can’t go out; and I want a little chat with you, too. Here I am again in my old home, where--it’s a dreadful thing to say--I have not been for nine long years. Really, as you may fancy, I have become quite a different man. Yes, utterly different, indeed; do you remember, in the drawing-room, the little tarnished looking-glass of my great-grandmother’s, with the queer little curly scrolls in the corners--you always used to be speculating on what it had seen a hundred years ago--directly I arrived, I went up to it, and I could not help feeling disconcerted. I suddenly saw how old and changed I had become in these last years. But I am not alone in that respect. My little house, which was old and tottering long ago, will hardly hold together now, it is all on the slant, and seems sunk into the ground. My dear Vassilievna, the housekeeper (you can’t have forgotten her; she used to regale you with such capital jam), is quite shrivelled up and bent; when she saw me, she could not call out, and did not start crying, but only moaned and choked, sank helplessly into a chair, and waved her hand. Old Terenty has some spirit left in him still; he holds himself up as much as ever, and turns out his feet as he walks. He still wears the same yellow nankeen breeches, and the same creaking goatskin slippers, with high heels and ribbons, which touched you so much sometimes, … but, mercy on us!--how the breeches flap about his thin legs nowadays! how white his hair has grown! and his face has shrunk up into a sort of little fist. When he speaks to me, when he begins directing the servants, and giving orders in the next room, it makes me laugh and feel sorry for him. All his teeth are gone, and he mumbles with a whistling, hissing sound. On the other hand, the garden has got on wonderfully. The modest little plants of lilac, acacia, and honeysuckle (do you remember, we planted them together?) have grown into splendid, thick bushes. The birches, the maples--all that has spread out and grown tall; the avenues of lime-trees are particularly fine. I love those avenues, I love the tender grey, green colour, and the delicate fragrance of the air under their arching boughs; I love the changing net-work of rings of light on the dark earth--there is no sand here, you know. My favourite oak sapling has grown into a young oak tree. Yesterday I spent more than an hour in the middle of the day on a garden bench in its shade. I felt very happy. All about me the grass was deliciously luxuriant; a rich, soft, golden light lay upon