Be well and happy and don’t forget us. I have just received your letter, it is filled from top to bottom with such charming expressions as: “The devil choke you!” “The devil flay you!” “Anathema!” “A good smack,” “rabble,” “overeaten myself.” Your friends—such as Trophim—with their cabmen’s talk certainly have an improving influence on you.
You may bathe and go for evening walks. That’s all nonsense. All my inside is full of coughs, wet and dry, but I bathe and walk about, and yet I am alive....
TO L. S. MIZINOV.
(Enclosing a photograph of a young man inscribed “To Lida from Petya.”)
PRECIOUS LIDA!
Why these reproaches! I send you my portrait. To-morrow we shall meet. Do not forget your Petya. A thousand kisses!!!
I have bought Chekhov’s stories. How delightful! Mind you buy them. Remember me to Masha Chekhov. What a darling you are!