My dear good Friend:
How long it is since I last received a line from you, and how much I have needed your letters! They bring to me all the mental refreshment and all the gladness that life has for me, and at times I am sorely in need of them. Fate has dealt me another blow. My youngest daughter Katie died a month or two since of pneumonia. She had an attack of bronchitis winter before last which developed into chronic inflammation of the lungs; but in the spring of 1888 I took her into the country, where she grew better and began to run about and play. Unfortunately, however, she was exposed there to whooping-cough, took the infection, and it ended in acute pneumonia and death, She was about three years old—and such a dear lovable child! But whose child is not dear and lovable? At any rate—
No! I can't write any more about it! This is the second time within a few days that I have tried to write you of her—but I cannot—it hurts me too much! As long as I am busy and can talk or write of other things, it seems as if the wound were healed; but let my thoughts once go to her, and I feel such grief and pain that I don't know what to do with myself.
I must explain to you how I happen to be in Irkútsk. It is a very simple story. Thanks to the recommendation of some of my Irkútsk friends I was offered here a place that was suited to my tastes and abilities, and I hastened to migrate. They will always know my address here at the post-office.[1]
All of your Irkútsk friends send you their regards. I could and would write you a great deal more, but I don't want to detain this letter and will therefore postpone the rest until next time. My warmest regards to your wife. Write me!
After the receipt of this letter I wrote Mr. Volkhófski twice, but I heard from him no more. What had happened to him I could only conjecture; but as month after month
- ↑ When political offenders sentenced merely to "domestication" [na zhityó] or colonization [na poselénie] have been ten years in exile, and have behaved during that time in a manner satisfactory to the authorities, it is customary to give them more freedom of movement. They are still kept under police surveillance, but are allowed to go anywhere within the limits of certain provinces. After I returned to the United States, Mr. Volkhófski received a "ticket of leave" of this kind.
