Note 2 — Chapter 20 The Forlorn Child
Constance Garnett translation
Among my papers are several letters of Sasha’s written between 1835 and 1836. Sasha was left behind in Moscow while her friend was in the country with the princess. I cannot read this simple and passionate whisper of the heart without deep feeling. ‘Can it be true,’ she writes, ‘that you are coming? Ah, if you really did come, I don’t know what would happen to me. You would not believe how often I am thinking of you, almost all my desires, all my thoughts, all, all, all are with you.... Ah, Natalya Alexandrovna, how splendid you are, how sweet, how noble!—but I cannot express it. Truly, these are not studied words, they are straight from the heart....’
In another letter she thanks Natalie for writing so often. ‘It is really too good, but there, that’s you, you,’ and she ends the letter with the words: ‘They keep interrupting me, I embrace you, my angel, with true immeasurable love. Give me your blessing!’