It was not for nothing, they say, that Ermolov declared: “Anyone serving in the Caucasus for ten years either becomes a confirmed drunkard or marries a loose woman.” How terrible! Indeed it won’t do for me to ruin myself when I might have the great happiness of even becoming the Countess B — — ‘s husband, or a Court chamberlain, or a Marechal de noblesse of my district. Oh, how repulsive and pitiable you all seem to me!

You do not know what happiness is and what life is! One must taste life once in all its natural beauty, must see and understand what I see every day before me — those eternally unapproachable snowy peaks, and a majestic woman in that primitive beauty in which the first woman must have come from her creator’s hands — and then it becomes clear who is