Letter to Anna Ulyanova, November 22, 1898

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22 November, 1898

A.I.,

It is quite a while since I wrote “home”, as I put it. Today, as usual, I am going to chatter about this and that, only I don’t know where to begin, I have forgotten what I wrote last time. The most outstanding event in our life recently was, of course, the arrival of Studies and Essays. We waited and waited and then gave it up; the day before the post came Volodya asked pessimistically what in particular we could hope for in the post. Then one grey morning we saw a boy from the volost centre clambering ever our fence with a huge bundle of something; it turned out to be tremendous numbers of the Studies wrapped in the volest sheepskin …. Our mood soon changed. In his joy Volodya almost agreed to go to a wedding at the Matovs’ (local Jewish shopkeepers for whom Volodya has a special antipathy because of their importunate ways) …. But that was all a long time ago. Volodya has now buried himself resolutely and irrevocably in his “markets”, grudges time for anything else, we have not been to the Prominskys for several months, he asks me to wake him at 8 o’clock in the morning, or at half past seven, but my efforts are usually fruitless, he gives a couple of grunts, pulls the clothes over his head and goes to sleep again. Last night he argued in his sleep about some Mr.N. -on and natural economy …. The other thing that keeps him busy, apart from the “markets”, is the skating rink. On the mitiativo of Volodya and Oscar a skating rink has been cleared on the river near our house; the schoolmaster and some other locals helped.

Yours,

Nadya