_P.S._--I think you will not see my sister; she is still staying at my aunt's. I fancy (but this is between ourselves) she is going to marry a very agreeable young man--an officer. Why did you send me that letter from Naples? Life here cannot help seeming dingy and poor in contrast with that luxuriance and splendour. But Mademoiselle Ninetta is wrong; flowers grow and smell sweet--with us too.
FROM MARYA ALEXANDROVNA TO ALEXEY PETROVITCH
I have written to you several times, Alexey Petrovitch ... you have not answered. Are you living? Or perhaps you are tired of our correspondence; perhaps you have found yourself some diversion more agreeable than what can be afforded for you by the letters of a provincial young lady. You remembered me, it is easy to see, simply from want of anything better to do. If that's so, I wish you all happiness. If you do not even now answer me, I will not trouble you further. It only remains for me to regret my indiscretion in having allowed myself to be agitated for nothing, in having held out a hand to a friend, and having come for one minute out of my lonely corner. I must remain in it for ever, must lock myself up--that is my apportioned lot, the lot of all old maids. I ought to accustom myself to this idea. It's useless to come out into the light of day, needless to wish for fresh air, when the lungs cannot bear it. By the way, we are now hemmed in all round by deadly drifts of snow. For the future I will be wiser.... People don't die of dreariness; but of misery, perhaps, one might perish. If I am wrong, prove it to me. But I fancy I am not wrong. In any case, good-bye. I wish you all happiness.
FROM ALEXEY PETROVITCH TO MARYA ALEXANDROVNA
I am writing to you, my dear Marya Alexandrovna, and I am writing only because I do not want to die without saying good-bye to you, without recalling myself to your memory. I am given up by the doctors ... and I feel myself that my life is ebbing away. On my table stands a rose: before it withers, I shall be no more. This comparison is not, however, altogether an apt one. A rose is far more interesting than I.
I am, as you see, abroad. It is now six months since I have been in Dresden. I received your last letters--I am ashamed to confess--more than a year ago. I lost some of them and never answered them.... I will tell you directly why. But it seems you were always dear to me; to no one but you have I any wish to say good-bye, and perhaps I have no one else to take leave of.