‘My mother was as weak as a reed, and she would not venture in the least degree to oppose my father’s will. If he were provoked, it might happen that he would beat his wife, like an ordinary Russian, who, as you are aware, does this pretty often—so frequently, indeed, that it once happened on our estate that the wife of one of our serfs came to my mother with tears in her eyes, bewailing the fact that her husband no longer thrashed her as before. She was afraid that it was a sign that he no longer cared for her. ‘I believe that my mother was fond of Annita. It was impossible not to be. The servants also were all of them very much attached to her. On the other hand, my father seemed to be rather hard on her, and I noticed that at times there was a glance in his eye when he saw her which seemed to forbode no good. And she, on her part, was afraid of him. ‘I was again absent at Novgorod for about a year. Some little time before I was to return I got a letter from my mother, and inside it was a short note from Annita. ‘“Dear Brother,” she wrote, “come home soon. I am so terrified and frightened when you are not here. I have never before felt that you were so long away as this time. Your father has been kind to me, and has made me a present of a bracelet; but, all the same, I am afraid of him, as I always have been. How happy I shall be when you are here once more! I need not see you, but only know that you are here. I am so safe when I know that you are near me; then I can fly to you, and cling to you, as I did the first time, when you brought me here. I shall have no rest or peace until you return to your little sister, ‘“Nita.” ‘This letter thoroughly opened my eyes. I clearly saw and realized what I had expected would come about. ‘Father Gurij,’ said Ambrose, ‘you understand that I loved this young girl whom I had saved, and to whom I had been as a father and a brother. Now I could no longer think of her merely as a sister. The spark in my heart had caught fire, and was blazing forth into a strong flame. But you cannot well understand the depth of my feelings. I was, indeed, at this time a man of years, yet never before had I been in love with a woman. It was with a feeling of fear that I realized how strong my passion was, and how violent it would become, and how wretchedly unhappy I should be, if anyone deprived me of Annita, or did any harm to her. I was of a noble family, and a rich man’s only heir, and I was on intimate terms with many families of quality at Moscow. I had seen many women, and many women had smiled on me, but their smile was cold and cheerless, and nothing to that which, in my own home, beamed on me from Annita. I decided, therefore, at once to return home, and openly tell my parents that I loved Annita, and that I wished to have her for my wife, and nobody else.