XV
The next day my friend arrived. . . . I mentioned the brigadier, and my visits to him. . . 'Oh yes! of course! I know his story,' answered my friend; 'I know Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor's widow, by whose favour he obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be preserved here his letter to the privy councillor's widow; it was on the strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.' My friend rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier's letter. Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter bears the stamp of his age without them.
'Honoured Madam, Raïssa Pavlovna!—
On the decease of my friend, and your aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on the first of June, the second on the sixth of July, of the year 1815, while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth deserving of commisera-
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