And of course the month and date.”

“How can I send a letter like this?” said Alexander. “‘Write to me a little less often’? How could I say something like this to someone who went out of his way to travel 150 versts just to say a last farewell to me! And giving him all this advice… I’m no cleverer than him; he graduated second in his class.”

“It doesn’t matter, send it to him anyway, maybe he’ll be the wiser for it, and it will help him think about things differently. As for you, you may have completed your studies, but your true education is only beginning.”

“Uncle, I don’t think I can bring myself…”

“I never interfere in other people’s business, but you yourself asked for my help; and here am I trying to give you a push in the right direction, and making your first step easier, while you are resisting. Well, do as you wish, I’m just giving you my opinion, and I won’t put any pressure on you – I’m not your nanny.”

“Sorry, Uncle, I’m ready to take your advice,” said Alexander, sealing the letter as he spoke.

Having sealed the first letter, he started looking for the other one to Sofia. He looked on the table – no, not there. He looked under the table, not there either – nor any sign of it in the drawer.

“What are you looking for?” said his uncle.

“I’m looking for the other letter – the one to Sofia.”

His uncle started looking too.

“Where can it be?” said Pyotr Ivanych. “I couldn’t have thrown it out of the window…”

“Uncle, what have you gone and done? You used it to light your cigar!” Alexander said dejectedly, and picked up the charred remains of the letter.

“Did I really?” exclaimed his uncle. “But how could I have done? I just didn’t notice; and now I seem to have burnt something precious… but come to think of it… you know what, maybe it’s not such a bad thing from one point of view…”

“But, Uncle, I swear to God, it’s not good from any point of view,” Alexander said in despair.

“No, it really is a good thing. You won’t have time to rewrite it in time for the next post – and later on, you’ll have thought better of it, and you’ll be busy with your work and you won’t have time, and that way you will have done one less foolish thing.”

“But what is she going to think of me?”

“Whatever she chooses to. As a matter of fact, it will even be useful to her. I mean, you’re not going to marry her, are you? She’s going to think that you’ve forgotten her, and she’ll end up forgetting you too, and will have one less reason to blush when she’s with her future fiancé, and is telling him that she has never loved anyone else but him.”

“You are an extraordinary man, Uncle! For you there’s no such thing as constancy, no such thing as a sacred promise… Life is great, blissful, unending delights… it’s like a smooth, placid and beautiful lake…”

“And don’t forget those yellow flowers growing in it, of course!” his uncle interrupted him to say.

“…like a lake,” continued Alexander, “full of mystery and allure, with so much hidden inside it.”

“Like slime, my dear fellow.”

“Why throw in slime, Uncle? Why are you so anxious to destroy and stamp out all joy, hope and everything that’s good – and always looking on the dark side?”

“Actually, I look on the realistic side – and I urge you to do the same; that way you won’t end up feeling a fool. With your outlook, life is good where you come from in the provinces, where people don’t know what life is like – although they’re not really people: more like angels. Take Zayezzhalov, the holy man, your auntie – such an exalted, sensitive soul – and Sofia, I imagine, is just as big a fool as the aunt, not to mention…”

“Please stop, Uncle!” Alexander was enraged.

“…not to mention dreamers like yourself always sniffing the wind for a whiff of eternal love and friendship whichever direction it may be coming from… I’m telling you for the hundredth time – you should never have come!”

“Will she really be telling her intended that she never loved anyone else!” said Alexander almost to himself.

“There you go again!”

“No, I’m sure that she will simply and with high-minded honesty hand over my letters to him and…”

“And the keepsakes,” said Pyotr Ivanych.

“Yes, and the tokens of our relationship… and she will say, ‘So this is the one who first stirred my heartstrings, and this is the name they responded to for the first time.’”

His uncle started to raise his eyebrows and widen his eyes. Alexander said nothing.

“So are you telling me that you’ve stopped playing on your own heartstrings? Well, my dear boy, that Sofia of yours is really stupid if she would do something like that. I can only hope that she has a mother or someone else who would be able to stop her.”

“Uncle, if you can bring yourself to describe as stupidity such a profoundly moral impulse, such a spontaneous and noble gesture, what are we to think of you?”

“Suit yourself. God knows what she would make her fiancé suspect; the wedding might even be called off, and why? Because back then you once picked yellow flowers together… No, no, that’s not the way things are done. Anyway, since you can write Russian, tomorrow we’ll go to the ministry; I’ve already mentioned you to a department head, an old colleague of mine. He told me that there’s a vacancy, so there’s no time to be wasted… what’s that folder you’ve produced?”

“It’s my university notes. Here, you might like to read a few pages of Ivan Semyonych’s lectures on Greek art.”

So saying, he was already beginning to leaf rapidly through his notes.

“Oh no! Do me a favour and spare me that!” Pyotr Ivanych responded with a frown. “And what’s that?”

“These are the papers I have written which I would like to show to my supervisor. There’s one in particular, the draft of a project I’ve worked on…”

“Yes, one of those projects which were completed a thousand years ago, or which cannot be completed and nobody needs.”

“How can you say that, Uncle? It’s a proposal that has already been presented to an important person, a supporter of enlightenment, and on the strength of it he invited me to dine with the rector. Here is the beginning of another project.”

“Come and have dinner with me twice, only don’t finish that other project.”

“But, why not?”

“Because you won’t be writing anything worthwhile now, and time is passing.”

“What do you mean?… After all those lectures I attended…”

“They may serve some purpose in time, but for now the thing is to observe, learn and do what they tell you to do.”

“But how will my supervisor know what my abilities are?”

“He’ll recognize them in a flash, he’s an expert at that. Anyway, what kind of position are you looking for?”

“I don’t know, Uncle, whatever would…”

“Well, there are ministerial posts, ministers’ assistants, directors, deputy directors, department heads, office managers, assistant office managers, special assignments – is that enough for you?”

Alexander pondered the matter, but was at a loss to come up with an answer.

“Well, perhaps, for a start, office manager would be a good idea,” he said.

“Very well then,” Pyotr Ivanych agreed.

“Then after I’ve had a chance to get my bearings, perhaps after a month or two it could be department head…”

His uncle was taken aback. “Of course, what else!” he responded. “Then after three months you’ll be a director, and in a year a minister – is that your idea?”

Alexander blushed and fell silent, and then asked, “I expect the department head told you what vacancies there were?”

“No,” his uncle replied, “he didn’t. Better leave it to him, we would have trouble deciding, and he’s the one who knows best where to place you. Don’t you say anything to him about finding it difficult to choose – and also, not a word about your projects. Furthermore, he’ll be offended to think we don’t trust him, and he can be quite intimidating. I would also advise you to avoid mentioning anything about ‘material tokens’ to the girls around here; they won’t understand – and how could they anyway? It would be over their heads. In fact I had trouble understanding myself, but they would just make faces.”

While his uncle was talking, Alexander was turning a package over in his hand.

“What is that you’re holding now?”

Alexander had been anxiously awaiting that question.

“It’s something I’ve been wanting to show you for a long time… some poems; you had asked about them…”

“I don’t seem to remember; I don’t think I asked about them…”

“The thing is, Uncle, I think office work is flat and uninspiring; it doesn’t engage the soul, and the soul thirsts to give expression to its overflowing feelings and thoughts, and to share them with those closest to oneself…”

“And what of it?” his uncle asked impatiently.

“I feel I am a creative artist by vocation…”

“That is to say you want to do something else outside your work, like translation, for example.