For good people it is excellent to live in the world; and even for such men as me, it is sometimes good. In Nature, in the air, in everything, is hope, future--an attractive future.... Sometimes one deceives oneself and thinks that happiness and a future await not only Nature but oneself also, and then one feels happy. I am now in such a state, and with characteristic egotism hasten to write to you of things that interest only me. When I review things sanely, I know very well that I am an old, frozen little potato, and one already boiled with sauce; but spring so acts on me that I sometimes catch myself in the full blaze of imagining myself a plant which with others has only now blossomed, and which will peacefully, simply and joyfully grow in God's world. The result is that at this time of year, such an internal clearing-out goes on in me, such a cleansing and ordering, as only those who have experienced this feeling can imagine. All the old--away! All worldly conventions, all idleness, all egotism, all vices, all confused indefinite attachments, all regrets, even repentances--away with you all!... Make room for the wonderful little flowers whose buds are swelling and growing with the spring!... After much more he concludes: Farewell, dear Grandma, do not be angry with me for this nonsense, but answer with a word of wisdom, imbued with kindness, Christian kindness! I have long wished to say that for you it is pleasanter to write French, and I understand feminine thoughts better in French. In April he was again at Yásnaya where, in spite of repeated visits to Moscow, he spent most of the summer. There was at this time no railway from Moscow southward to Toúla; and the serfs' belief concerning the new telegraph posts which stood by the side of the highroad, was that when the wire had been completed, 'Freedom' would be sent along it from Petersburg. Even Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky did not understand these new-fangled things, and, when driving along the road one day, asked Tolstoy to explain how letters were written by telegraph. He told her as simply as he could how the telegraphic apparatus works, and received the reply: '_Oui, oui, je comprends, mon cher!_' How much she had really understood was however shown half an hour later when, after keeping her eye on the wire all that time, she inquired: 'But how is it, _mon cher Léon_, that during a whole half-hour I have not seen a single letter go along the telegraph?'