The second thing is, that we are moving our residence to the upper storey of the house of B.K.--the man who gave you milk to drink and forgot to give you strawberries. We will let you know the day we move in due time. Come to smell the flowers, to walk, to fish, and to blubber. Ah, lovely Lika! When you bedewed my right shoulder with your tears (I have taken out the spots with benzine), and when slice after slice you ate our bread and meat, we greedily devoured your face and head with our eyes. Ah, Lika, Lika, diabolical beauty! ... When you are at the Alhambra with Trofimov I hope you may accidentally jab out his eye with your fork. TO A. S. SUVORIN. ALEXIN, May 18, 1891. ... I get up at five o’clock in the morning; evidently when I am old I shall get up at four. My forefathers all got up very early, before the cock. And I notice people who get up very early are horribly fussy. So I suppose I shall be a fussy, restless old man.... BOGIMOVO, May 20. ... The carp bite capitally. I forgot all my sorrows yesterday; first I sat by the pond and caught carp, and then by the old mill and caught perch. ... The last two proclamations--about the Siberian railway and the exiles--pleased me very much. The Siberian railway is called a national concern, and the tone of the proclamation guarantees its speedy completion; and convicts who have completed such and such terms as settlers are allowed to return to Russia without the right to live in the provinces of Petersburg and Moscow. The newspapers have let this pass unnoticed, and yet it is something which has never been in Russia before--it is the first step towards abolishing the life sentence which has so long weighed on the public conscience as unjust and cruel in the extreme.... BOGIMOVO, May 27, 4 o’clock in the Morning. The mongoose has run away into the woods and has not come back. It is cold. I have no money. But nevertheless, I don’t envy you. One cannot live in town now, it is both dreary and unwholesome. I should like you to be sitting from morning till dinner-time in this verandah, drinking tea and writing something artistic, a play or something; and after dinner till evening, fishing and thinking peaceful thoughts. You have long ago earned the right which is denied you now by all sorts of chance circumstances, and it seems to me shameful and unjust that I should live more peacefully than you. Is it possible that you will stay all June in town? It’s really terrible....