“It did not seem possible that such a time could come.  Many cruel things have happened to me, as to scores of others, but this is the most cruel of all.  Against my wish and against my knowledge, you have crept into my life as a necessity, and now I have to give you up.  You are better, God bless you, and you go back to a fuller life, and to carry on your work, and to put to account those talents which no one realises more than I do; and as for myself, God help me, I am left to wither away.

“You little one, you dear little one, I never wished to love you.  I had never loved any one, never drawn near to any one.  I have lived lonely all my young life; for I am only a young man yet.  I said to myself time after time:  ’I will not love her.  It will not do me any good, nor her any good.’  And then in my state of health, what right had I to think of marriage, and making a home for myself?  Of course that was out of the question.  And then I thought, that because I was a doomed man, cut off from the pleasures which make a lovely thing of life, it did not follow that I might not love you in my own quiet way, hugging my secret to myself, until the love became all the greater because it was my secret.  I reasoned about it too:  it could not harm you that I loved you.  No one could be the worse for being loved.  So little by little I yielded myself this luxury; and my heart once so dried up, began to flower again; yes, little one, you will smile when I tell you that my heart broke out into flower.

“When I think of it all now, I am not sorry that I let myself go.  At least I have learnt what I knew nothing of before:  now I understand what people mean when they say that love adds a dignity to life which nothing else can give.  That dignity is mine now, nothing can take it from me; it is my own.  You are my very own; I love everything about you.  From the beginning I recognized that you were clever and capable.  Though I often made fun of what you said, that was simply a way I had; and when I saw you did not mind, I continued in that way, hoping always to vex you; your good temper provoked me, because I knew that you made allowances for me being a Petershof invalid.  You would never have suffered a strong man to criticize you as I did; you would have flown at him, for you are a feverish little child:  not a quiet woolly lamb.  At first I was wild that you should make allowances for me.  And then I gave in, as weak men are obliged.  When you came, I saw that your troubles and sufferings would make you bitter.  Do you know who helped to cure you? It was I.  I have seen that often before.  That is the one little bit of good I have done in the world:  I have helped to cure cynicism.  You were shocked at the things I said, and you were saved.  I did not save you intentionally, so I am not posing as a philanthropist.  I merely mention that you came here hard, and you went back tender.  That was partly because you have lived in the City of Suffering.  Some people live there