I did tell you that I had great affection for the B. girls, and it was true. But did I ever tell you that they had the same for me? You are mistaken in thinking that I did not like Ludmilla Fédorovitch at first. I was not in love with her but we were very good friends, and whilst I did not consider her as my feminine ideal, I was sure of her absolutely honest, loyal, and kindly disposition. The very fact that I knew Ludmilla for a long time before I thought of marrying her, should prove to you that there is some chance of my being neither blind nor partial.
Her love for me is beyond doubt, as you will see when you know her.
I also am very fond of her, and that is a solid basis for future happiness.
Yet I will not answer for it that we shall spend our life like a pair of turtledoves. A rosy, boundless beatitude forms no part of my conception of the distant future.
Yet I do not see the necessity of waiting till I become a thorough misanthrope, and I am already inclined that way.
Please do not believe that, if I do not dream of a rosy happiness it is that I feel none at all; that is not the case; I am in a happy medium.
I like Ludmilla and I feel comfortable with her; but at the same time I preserve the faculty of feeling every trouble and worry in life. I do not at all think that it is enough to love in order to be happy. Therefore I have begun to take steps to obtain a Professor’s chair, and I am very desirous of being successful in that financial operation.
Soon after that, he wrote the following letter to his mother:
Dear Mother—In my last letter I had already spoken to you of Ludmilla Fédorovitch. I can now give you information about her which will surely interest you.
She is not bad-looking, but that is all. She has fine hair; her complexion is not pretty. We are about the same age, she is a little over 23. She was born at Orenburg; then she lived for a long time with her family at Kiahta (Siberia), after which she was abroad for nearly two years and finally settled in Moscow. Ludmilla, or Lussia, was, as you remember, a very zealous intermediary between me and the B. girls to whom I was so attached.