I've got his letters in my pocket.

But would you believe it, Varvara Petrovna, I can't make head or tail of it?
Just tell me one thing, Stepan Trofimovitch, are you to be congratulated or are you to be 'saved'?
You wouldn't believe it; in one line he's despairing and in the next he's most joyful.

To begin with he begs my forgiveness; well, of course, that's their way...

though it must be said; fancy, the man's only seen me twice in his life and then by accident.

And suddenly now, when he's going to be married for the third time, he imagines that this is a breach of some sort of parental duty to me, and entreats me a thousand miles away not to be angry and to allow him to.