mmand. Bazaroff, this
fine mind, this hero, a caricature? But it seems that there is nothing
to be done in the case. Just as people accuse Louis Blanc to this day,
in spite of all his protestations, of having introduced the national
workshops, they attribute to me a wish to represent our youth as a
caricature. I have long regarded the slander with contempt: I did not
expect the feeling to be renewed on reading your letter.

Now to turn to your "elderly lady,"--that is, to current criticism, to
the public. Like every elderly person, she holds fast to preconceived
ideas, however preposterous they may be. For example, she is perpetually
asserting that since my "Annals of a Sportsman" my works are weak,
because, having lived abroad, I cannot know Russia. But this accusation
can touch only what I have written since 1863; for until then--_i.e._,
until my forty-fifth year--I lived almost uninterruptedly in Russia,
except in 1848-49, when I wrote the "Annals of a Sportsman," while
"Roudine," "A Nest of Nobles," "Ellen," and "Fathers and Sons" were
written in Russia. But all that means nothing to the "elderly person:"
_son siege est fait_.

The second weakness of the elderly one is that she persistently follows
the fashion. At present the fashion in literature is politics.
Everything non-political is for her rubbish and nonsense.

It is somewhat inconvenient to defend one's own works; but--fancy it!--I
cannot even admit that "Stuk-Stuk" is nonsense. "What is it, then?" you
will ask. It is this: it is a study of the Russian suicide epidemic,
which rarely presents anything poetic or pathetic, but almost always
results, on the contrary, from ambition, narrowness, with a mixture of
mysticism or fatalism. You will object that my study is not successful.
Possibly not; but I wished to point you to the right and fitness of
investigating purely psychological (non-political and non-social)
questions.

The elderly person reproaches me further with having no convictions. As
an answer to that, my thirty years of literary activity will suffice.
For no line which I have written have I had cause to blush, none have I
had occasion to repudiate. Let another say this of himself. However, let
the elderly person babble. I have not heeded her hitherto: I shall not
begin now.

I do not know whether I shall write my novel; and I know in advance that
it will have many defects.... But, permit me, dear A. P., why do not the
oncoming young people tak