ad it,
he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance. Probably
circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his conduct is good,
and he has received no reprimands, he has never been rebuked." My dear
little angel, I turned hot and burned as though in the fires of the
bad place! I was on the point of fainting. "Well," says his Excellency
in a loud voice, "the document must be copied again as quickly as
possible; come here, Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and
listen to me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them
divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were all gone,
his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and from it drew a
hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this is all I can afford,
and I am happy to help to that extent; reckon it as you please, take
it,"--and he thrust it into my hand. I trembled, my angel, my whole
soul was in a flutter; I didn't know what was the matter with me; I
tried to catch his hand and kiss it. But he turned very red in the
face, my darling, and--I am not deviating from the truth by so much as
a hair's-breadth--he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he
did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank with his
own, as though it belonged to a General like himself. "Go," says he;
"I am glad to do what I can. Make no mistakes, but now do it as well
as you can."

Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and Feodor--and
if I had children I would lay my commands upon them--to pray to God
for him; though they should not pray for their own father, that they
should pray daily and forever, for his Excellency! One thing more I
will say, my dearest, and I say it solemnly,--heed me well, my
dear,--I swear that, no matter in what degree I may be reduced to
spiritual anguish in the cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you
and your poverty, on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,--in
spite of all this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so
precious to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to
press my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby he
restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life again my
spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and I am firmly
convinced that, however sinful I may be in the sight of the Almighty,
yet my prayer for the happiness and prosperity of his Excellency will
reach his throne!

My dearest, I am at present i