Letter to Grigori Shklovsky, End of April 1914

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Dear Friend,

Yesterday I received a Worrying letter from Samoilov.[1] He is worse. He can’t sleep. He is bored.

Chlenov advised cold (!?) baths. After four baths Samoilov felt even worse.

This is terribly unpleasant, because we undertook, so to speak, to get him cured. I am sending him today a letter of recommendation from Landau, the local nerve specialist, to Dr. De Montet at the “Mon Repos” sanatorium in Vevey.

Evidently Samoilov should be taken to the best nerve specialist and transferred to a sanatorium, with regular treatment and care.

Do this, please. Feel free to spend on telephones and travelling: we shall cover all this if need be, because we must get Samoilov on his feet again by the autumn at all costs.

If necessary, go and see Sali once more. But evidently this calls for a nerve specialist. I hope you will find the best one in Switzerland, and take Samoilov to him. I am writing about the same matter to Rivlin: please come to an arrangement with him to act together and share the burden.

They say boredom is very harmful for neurasthenics. But what is to be done? Should we take Samoilov along with us to Poronin (we are going there on May 1) or to Zakopane? We could do that, but it rains there all the summer.

Write to me about the result of your visit to the doctor and about your decisions. We might now try the “Mon Repos” sanatorium.

Regards to your family. Nadezhda Konstantinovna sends hers too.

Yours,

Lenin

  1. ↑ F. N. Samoilov—a Bolshevik deputy of the Fourth Duma; in February 1914 went abroad on the advice of his doctors; in the spring and summer of 1914, received treatment in Switzerland.