I do not cease congratulating myself on the thought which made me leave Paris and come to pass the spring here, though I have thereby deserved your reproach for inconstancy. Truly I am happy, and begin to feel the advantage of having been born with a caul.
There is some charming Russian society here: les Poúshkins, the Karamzíns and the Mestchérskys; and they have all, Heaven knows why, taken to liking me; I feel it, and the month I have spent here I have been so nice and good and cosy, that I am sad at the thought of leaving.
[37] I am again all alone, and I confess that very often the solitude is painful to me, for the acquaintanceships one makes in hotels and on the railways are not a resource. But there is at least this much good in this loneliness—it prompts me to work. I am working a little, but it goes badly, as usual in summer.
[38] God, who is goodness itself, cannot desire our pain.
[39] To make my mouth water.
[40] Included in the World's Classics.
[41] To work like a peasant. The origin of this word is given on p. 179.
[42] Who is that singular person?—inquired my visitors in astonishment.
Why, it is Leo Tolstoy!
Ah, good heavens! Why did you not tell us who it was? After reading his admirable writings, we were dying to see him.—said they, reproachfully.