I don’t know what he said, but he explained that Vera would always be unhappy now, always, longing and waiting and hoping....  “Keep him here in Russia!” he whispered to me.  “She will get tired of him then—­they will tire of one another; but if you send him away....”  Oh! he is a devil, Ivan Andreievitch, and why has he persecuted me so?  What have I ever done to him?  Nothing... but for weeks now he has pursued me and destroyed my inventions, and flung Russia in my face and made Nina, dear Nina, laugh at me, and now, when the other things are finished, he shows me that Vera will be unhappy so long as I am alive.  What have I ever done, Ivan Andreievitch?  I am so unimportant, why has he taken such a trouble?  To-day I gave him his last chance... or last night... it is four in the morning now, and the bells are already ringing for the early Mass.  I said to him: 

“Will you go away?  Leave us all for ever?  Will you promise never to return?”

He said in that dreadful quiet sure way of his:  “No, I will never go away until you make me.”

Vera hates him.  I cannot leave her alone with him, can I?  I (here there are three lines of illegible writing)... so I will think again and again of that last time when we sat together and all the good things that she said.  What greatness of soul, what goodness, what splendour!  And perhaps after all I am a fortunate man to be allowed to be faithful to so fine a grandeur!  Many men have poor ambitions, and God bestows His gifts with strange blindness, I often think.  But I am tired, and you too will be tired.  Perhaps you have not got so far.  I must thank you for your friendship to me.  I am very grateful for it.  And you, if afterwards you ever think of me, think that I always wished to... no, why should you think of me at all?  But think of Russia!  That is why I write this.  You love Russia, and I believe that you will continue to love Russia whatever she will do.  Never forget that it is because she cares so passionately for the good of the world that she makes so many mistakes.  She sees farther than other countries, and she cares more.  But she is also more ignorant.  She has never been allowed to learn anything or to try to do anything for herself.

You are all too impatient, too strongly aware of your own conditions, too ignorant of hers!  Of course there are wicked men here and many idle men, but every country has such.  You must not judge her by that nor by all the talk you hear.  We talk like blind men on a dark road....  Do you believe that there are no patriots here?  Ah! how bitterly I have been disappointed during these last weeks!  It has broken my heart... but do not let your heart be broken.  You can wait.  You are young.  Believe in Russian patriotism, believe in Russian future, believe in Russian soul....  Try to be patient and understand that she is blindfolded, ignorant, stumbling... but the glory will come; I can see it shining far away!...  It is not for me, but for you—­and for Vera... for Vera...  Vera....