shed by a father
of sixty can never be forgotten even in moments of the strongest
temptation.

My father observed my inward life most attentively between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, noted all my doubts and hesitations, encouraged me
in my good impulses, and often found fault with me for inconsistency.

I still have some of his letters written at that time. Here are two:

I had just written you, my dear friend Ilya, a letter that was true to
my own feelings, but, I am afraid, unjust, and I am not sending it. I
said unpleasant things in it, but I have no right to do so. I do not
know you as I should like to and as I ought to know you. That is my
fault. And I wish to remedy it. I know much in you that I do not like,
but I do not know everything. As for your proposed journey home, I think
that in your position of student, not only student of a gymnase, but
at the age of study, it is better to gad about as little as possible;
moreover, all useless expenditure of money that you can easily refrain
from is immoral, in my opinion, and in yours, too, if you only consider
it. If you come, I shall be glad for my own sake, so long as you are not
inseparable from G----.

Do as you think best. But you must work, both with your head, thinking
and reading, and with your heart; that is, find out for yourself what is
really good and what is bad, although it seems to be good. I kiss you.

L. T.

Dear Friend Ilya:

There is always somebody or something that prevents me from answering
your two letters, which are important and dear to me, especially the
last. First it was Baturlin, then bad health, insomnia, then the arrival
of D----, the friend of H---- that I wrote you about. He is sitting at
tea talking to the ladies, neither understanding the other; so I left
them, and want to write what little I can of all that I think about you.

Even supposing that S---- A---- demands too much of you, [19] there is
no harm in waiting; especially from the point of view of fortifying your
opinions, your faith. That is the one important thing. If you don't, it
is a fearful disaster to put off from one shore and not reach the other.

The one shore is an honest and good life, for your own delight and the
profit of others. But there is a bad life, too--a life so sugared, so
common to all, that if you follow it, you do not notice that it is a bad
life, and suffer only in your conscience, if