"Immediately after Tatiana's death my father took Assja home to himself. He had already expressed a wish to have her with him, but Tatiana had refused it. You can imagine what Assja must have felt when she was taken into the master's house. To this day she has not forgotten the hour when for the first time they dressed her in a silk dress and kissed her little hand. In her mother's lifetime she had been brought up with great strictness: my father left her without a single restraint. He was her instructor; except him, she saw no one. He did not spoil her; at least he did not follow her about like a nursemaid, but he loved her fondly, and refused her nothing. He was conscious of guilt toward her. Assja soon discovered that she was the principal person in the household. She knew the master was her father, but at the same time she began to understand her equivocal position. Wilfulness and distrust were developed to an extreme degree in her. Bad manners were contracted; simplicity vanished. She wished (she herself told me) to compel the whole world to forget her origin. She was ashamed of her mother, was ashamed of being ashamed, and was in turn proud of her. You see that she knew and knows still many things that should not be known at her age. But does the blame rest with her? Youth was strong in her: her blood flowed hot, and no hand near to guide her--the fullest independence in everything! Is such a fate easily borne? She would not be inferior to other girls. She rushed headlong into study. But what good could result from it? The life, lawlessly begun, seemed likely to develop lawlessly. But the heart remained true and the reason sound. "And so I found myself, a young fellow of twenty, weighted with the care of a thirteen-year old girl! In the first days after my father's death my voice caused her a feeling of feverish horror, my caresses made her sad, and only by degrees and after a long time did she become accustomed to me. And later, when she had gained security that I really considered her my sister, and that I loved her as a sister, she attached herself passionately to me: with her there is no half feeling.