Poor Yezhov has been to see me; he sat near the table crying: his young wife is in consumption. He must take her at once to the south. To my question whether he had money he answered that he had.... It’s vile catch-cold weather; the sky itself is sneezing. I can’t bear to look at it.... I have already begun writing of Sahalin. I have written five pages. It reads all right, as though written with intelligence and authority ... I quote foreign authors second-hand, but minutely and in a tone as though I could speak every foreign language perfectly. It’s regular swindling.
Yezhov has upset me with his tears. He reminded me of something, and I was sorry for him too.
Don’t forget us sinners.
TO N. M. LINTVARYOV.
MOSCOW, March 5, 1890.
... As for me, I have a cough too, but I am alive and I believe I’m well. I shan’t be with you this summer, as I am going in April, on affairs of my own, to the island of Sahalin, and shall not be back till December. I am going across Siberia (eleven thousand versts) and shall come back by sea. I believe Misha wrote to you as though someone were commissioning me to go, but that’s nonsense. I am commissioning myself to go, on my own account. There are lots of bears and escaped convicts in Sahalin, so that in case messieurs the wild beasts dine off me or some tramp cuts my throat, I beg you not to remember evil against me.
Of course if I have the time and the skill to write what I want to about Sahalin, I shall send you the book immediately that it comes into the world; it will be dull, a specialist’s book consisting of nothing but figures, but let me count upon your indulgence: you will suppress your yawns as you read it....