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SUMY, MADAME LINTVARYOV'S ESTATE, May 30, 1888. ... I am staying on the bank of the Psyol, in the lodge of an old signorial estate. I took the place without seeing it, trusting to luck, and have not regretted it so far. The river is wide and deep, with plenty of islands, of fish and of crayfish. The banks are beautiful, well-covered with grass and trees.

... You have seen the Caucasus. I believe you have seen the Georgian Military Road, too. I have never in my life seen anything like it. It is not a road, but unbroken poetry, a wonderful, fantastic story written by the Demon in love with Tamara. SUMY, August 29, 1888.

SUMY, LINTVARYOVS' ESTATE, May, 1889. ... Among other things I am reading Gontcharov and wondering. I wonder how I could have considered Gontcharov a first-rate writer. His "Oblomov" is not really good. Oblomov himself is exaggerated and is not so striking as to make it worth while to write a whole book about him.

Sedate storks live on the barn. Everything is crumbling and decrepit, but poetical, sad, and beautiful in the extreme. FEODOSIA, July, 1888. ... The journey from Sumy to Harkov is frightfully dull. Going from Harkov to Simferopol one might well die of boredom.

A blurred sun rises in the sky.... One can see the green valley of Rion and the Bay of Poti by the side of it. SUMY, August 12. ... I have been to the Crimea. I spent twelve days at Suvorin's in Feodosia, bathed, idled about; I have been to Aivazovsky's estate. From Feodosia I went by steamer to Batum.

The mob thinks it knows and understands everything; and the more stupid it is the wider it imagines its outlook to be. And if a writer whom the mob believes in has the courage to say that he does not understand anything of what he sees, that alone will be something gained in the realm of thought and a great step in advance. SUMY, June 28, 1888. ... We have been to the province of Poltava.

By day you gallop through the Caucasus, at night along the steppe of the Don; in the morning, rousing yourself from slumber, behold the province of Poltava and so for the whole thousand versts. Verhneudinsk is a nice little town. Tchita is a wretched place, in the style of Sumy. I need hardly say that we had no time to think of sleep or dinner.