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There is a fine view from my window. Trains are continually passing. There is a bridge across the Oka. ALEXIN, May 10, 1891. Yes, you are right, my soul needs balsam. I should read now with pleasure, even with joy, something serious, not merely about myself but things in general. I pine for serious reading, and recent Russian criticism does not nourish but simply irritates me.

Altogether if it were not for being somewhat cramped I should be very very much pleased with it. I don't intend to get married. I should like to be a little bald old man sitting at a big table in a fine study.... ALEXIN, May 13, 1891. I am going to write you a Christmas story that's certain. Two, indeed, if you like. I sit and write and write ...; at last I have set to work.

Men who tie boa-constrictors round their bodies, ladies who kick up to the ceiling, flying people, lions, cafe'-chantants, dinners and lunches begin to sicken me. It is time I was home. I am longing to work. ALEXIN, May 7, 1891. The summer villa is all right. There are woods and the Oka: it is far away in the wilds, it is warm, nightingales sing, and so on.

Don't imagine that I want to become a procurator; I want these works for my Sahalin book. I am going to direct my attack chiefly against life sentences, in which I see the root of all the evils; and against the laws dealing with exiles, which are fearfully out of date and contradictory. ALEXIN, May 17, 1891. Golden, mother-of-pearl, and fil d'Ecosse Lika!

One longs to get away somewhere for instance, to America, or Norway.... Be well and happy, and may the good spirits, of whom there are so many at Babkino, have you in their keeping. ALEXIN, July, 1891.

In erotic poetry he held a high place, though not of the first rank. His Fabellae and treatise on Urbanitas, both probably poetical productions, are referred to by Quintilian, and Martial mentions him as his own precursor in treating the short epigram. From another passage of Martial, "Et Maecenati Maro cum cantaret Alexin Nota tamen Marsi fusca Melaenis erat,"

Ah, lovely Lika! Ah, Lika, Lika, diabolical beauty! ... When you are at the Alhambra with Trofimov I hope you may accidentally jab out his eye with your fork. ALEXIN, May 18, 1891. ... I get up at five o'clock in the morning; evidently when I am old I shall get up at four. My forefathers all got up very early, before the cock. And I notice people who get up very early are horribly fussy.

The K's sit every evening at the club, and no hints from me will prevail on them to move from the spot. It is hot, there are no mushrooms. Suvorin has not come yet.... Come soon for it is devilishly dull. We have just caught a frog and given it to the mongoose. It has eaten it. ALEXIN, July 20, 1891. Greetings, honoured Marya Vladimirovna.