“I have already said that your silence often tortures me. I thank you for the money you sent. In your next letter (even if it’s ‘_official_,’ for I don’t know yet whether it is possible for me to correspond with you)--in your next, write as fully as you can of all your affairs, of Emilie Fyodorovna, the children, all relations and acquaintances; also of those in Moscow--who is alive and who is dead; and of your business; tell me what capital you started with, whether it is lucrative, whether you are in funds, finally, whether you will help me financially, and how much you will send me a year. But send no money with the official letter--particularly if I don’t find a covering address. For the present, give Michael Petrovitch as the consignor of all packets (you understand, don’t you?). For the time, I have some money, but I have no books. If you can, send me the magazines for this year, or at any rate the _O.Z._ “But what I urgently need are the following: I need (very necessary!) ancient historians (in French translation), modern historians: Guizot, Thierry, Thiers, Ranke, and so forth; national studies, and the Fathers of the Church. Choose the cheapest and most compact editions. Send them by return. “People try to console me: ‘They’re quite simple sort of fellows there.’ But I dread simple men more than complex ones. For that matter, men everywhere are just--men. Even among the robber-murderers in the prison, I came to know some men in those four years. Believe me, there were among them deep, strong, beautiful natures, and it often gave me great joy to find gold under a rough exterior. And not in a single case, or even two, but in several cases. Some inspired respect, others were downright fine. I taught the Russian language to a young Circassian--he had been transported to Siberia for robbery with murder. How grateful he was to me! Another convict wept when I said good-bye to him. Certainly I had often given him money, but it was so little, and his gratitude so boundless! My character, though, was deteriorating; in my relations with others I was ill-tempered and impatient. They accounted for it by my mental condition, and bore all without grumbling. Apropos, what a number of national types and characters I became familiar with in prison! I lived _into_ their lives, and so I believe I know them really well. Many tramps’ and thieves’ careers were laid bare to me, and above all, the whole wretched existence of the common people. Decidedly I have not spent my time there in vain. I have learnt to know the Russian people as only a few know them. I am a little vain of it. I hope that such vanity is pardonable....