‘My betrothed went away yesterday; we shall never see each other again.... I do not know even for certain where she is going to live. With her, she takes all that till now seemed precious and desirable to me; all my previous ideas, my plans, my intentions, have gone with her; my labours even are wasted, my work of years ends in nothing, all my pursuits have no meaning, no applicability; all that is dead; myself, my old self, is dead and buried since yesterday. I feel, I see, I know this clearly ... far am I from regretting this. Not to lament of it, have I begun upon this to you.... As though I could complain when you love me, Irina! I wanted only to tell you that, of all this dead past, all those hopes and efforts, turned to smoke and ashes, there is only one thing left living, invincible, my love for you. Except that love, nothing is left for me; to say it is the sole thing precious to me, would be too little; I live wholly in that love; that love is my whole being; in it are my future, my career, my vocation, my country! You know me, Irina; you know that fine talk of any sort is foreign to my nature, hateful to me, and however strong the words in which I try to express my feelings, you will have no doubts of their sincerity, you will not suppose them exaggerated. I’m not a boy, in the impulse of momentary ecstasy, lisping unreflecting vows to you, but a man of matured age--simply and plainly, almost with terror, telling you what he has recognised for unmistakable truth. Yes, your love has replaced everything for me--everything, everything! Judge for yourself: can I leave this my _all_ in the hands of another? can I let him dispose of you? You--you will belong to him, my whole being, my heart’s blood will belong to him--while I myself ... where am I? what am I? An outsider--an onlooker ... looking on at my own life! No, that’s impossible, impossible! To share, to share in secret that without which it’s useless, impossible to live ... that’s deceit and death. I know how great a sacrifice I am asking of you, without any sort of right to it; indeed, what can give one a right to sacrifice? But I am not acting thus from egoism: an egoist would find it easier and smoother not to raise this question at all. Yes, my demands are difficult, and I am not surprised that they alarm you. The people among whom you have to live are hateful to you, you are sick of society, but are you strong enough to throw up that society? to trample on the success it has crowned you with? to rouse public opinion against you--the opinion of these hateful people? Ask yourself, Irina, don’t take a burden upon you greater than you can bear. I don’t want to reproach you; but remember: once already you could not hold out against temptation. I can give you so little in return for all you are losing. Hear my last word: if you don’t feel capable to-morrow, to-day even, of leaving all and following me--you see how boldly I speak, how little I