June 1st.
MY BELOVED MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH,--So eager am I to do something that will please and divert you in return for your care, for your ceaseless efforts on my behalf--in short, for your love for me-- that I have decided to beguile a leisure hour for you by delving into my locker, and extracting thence the manuscript which I send you herewith. I began it during the happier period of my life, and have continued it at intervals since. So often have you asked me about my former existence--about my mother, about Pokrovski, about my sojourn with Anna Thedorovna, about my more recent misfortunes; so often have you expressed an earnest desire to read the manuscript in which (God knows why) I have recorded certain incidents of my life, that I feel no doubt but that the sending of it will give you sincere pleasure. Yet somehow I feel depressed when I read it, for I seem now to have grown twice as old as I was when I penned its concluding lines. Ah, Makar Alexievitch, how weary I am--how this insomnia tortures me! Convalescence is indeed a hard thing to bear!
B. D.
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