Dearest Evgeny.

Dearest Evgeny, I write to you, it is all I can do. And now I know it is in your power to punish my presuming heart. Yet if you have one drop of pity, you'll not abandon me to my unhappy fate. I am in love with you and I must tell you this or my heart, my heart which belongs to you, will surely break. I would never have revealed my shame to you, if just once a week I might see you. Exchange a word or two and then think day and night of one thing alone til our next meeting. But you're unsociable, they say, that the country bores you. Is it true? Does the country bore you? Sometimes I wonder that you ever visited us. Why, I'd never have known you or known this agony and fever. I know that all my life's been leading me to this union with you. I recognised you at first sight and knew with certainty. I said to myself, It's him, he has come. Help me, resolve my doubts. Perhaps all this is nonsence, emptiness, a delusion and quite another fate awaits me. Imagine it, I'm here alone half out of my mind. I dread to read this over, my secret longing. I know that I can trust your honour, though I feel faint from shame and fear, Tatyana