Oh, what have I worked myself up to! Farewell for the present! What are you about in Petersburg? By the way; Savely, my country cook, wishes to send his duty to you. He too is older, but not very much so, he is grown rather corpulent, stouter all over. He is as good as ever at chicken-soup, with stewed onions, cheesecakes with goffered edges, and peagoose--peagoose is the famous dish of the steppes, which makes your tongue white and rough for twenty-four hours after. On the other hand, he roasts the meat as he always did, so that you can hammer on the plate with it--hard as a board. But I must really say, good-bye! Yours, P. B. SECOND LETTER From the SAME to the SAME M---- VILLAGE, _June 12, 1850_. I have rather an important piece of news to tell you, my dear friend. Listen! Yesterday I felt disposed for a walk before dinner--only not in the garden; I walked along the road towards the town. Walking rapidly, quite aimlessly, along a straight, long road is very pleasant. You feel as if you’re doing something, hurrying somewhere. I look up; a coach is coming towards me. Surely not some one to see me, I wondered with secret terror.… No: there was a gentleman with moustaches in the carriage, a stranger to me. I felt reassured. But all of a sudden, when he got abreast with me, this gentleman told the coachman to stop the horses, politely raised his cap, and still more politely asked me, ‘was not I …’ mentioning my name. I too came to a standstill, and with the fortitude of a prisoner brought up for trial, replied that I was myself; while I stared like a sheep at the gentleman with the moustaches and said to myself--‘I do believe I’ve seen him somewhere!’ ‘You don’t recognise me?’ he observed, as he got out of the coach. ‘No, I don’t.’ ‘But I knew you directly.’ Explanations followed; it appeared that it was Priemkov--do you remember?--a fellow we used to know at the university. ‘Why, is that an important piece of news?’ you are asking yourself at this instant, my dear Semyon Nikolaitch. ‘Priemkov, to the best of my recollection, was rather a dull chap; no harm in him though, and not a fool.’ Just so, my dear boy; but hear the rest of our conversation. ‘I was delighted,’ says he, ‘when I heard you had come to your country-place, into our neighbourhood. But I was not alone in that feeling.’ ‘Allow me to ask,’ I questioned: ‘who was so kind.…’ ‘My wife.’ ‘Your wife!’ ‘Yes, my wife; she is an old acquaintance of yours.’ ‘May I ask what was your wife’s name?’ ‘Vera Nikolaevna; she was an Eltsov.…’ ‘Vera Nikolaevna!’ I could not help exclaiming.… This it is, which is the important piece of news I spoke of at the beginning of my letter. But perhaps you don’t see anything important even in this.… I shall have to tell you something of my past … long past, life.