you have one; but if you
leave it, and do not reach the real shore, you will be made miserable
by solitude and by the reproach of having deserted your fellows, and you
will be ashamed. In short, I want to say that it is out of the question
to want to be rather good; it is out of the question to jump into the
water unless you know how to swim. One must be truthful and wish to be
good with all one's might, too. Do you feel this in you? The drift of
what I say is that we all know what PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA [20] verdict
about your marriage would be: that if young people marry without a
sufficient fortune, it means children, poverty, getting tired of each
other in a year or two; in ten years, quarrels, want--hell. And in
all this PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA is perfectly right and plays the true
prophet, unless these young people who are getting married have another
purpose, their one and only one, unknown to PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA, and
that not a brainish purpose, not one recognized by the intellect, but
one that gives life its color and the attainment of which is more moving
than any other. If you have this, good; marry at once, and give the lie
to PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA. If not, it is a hundred to one that your
marriage will lead to nothing but misery. I am speaking to you from the
bottom of my heart. Receive my words into the bottom of yours, and weigh
them well. Besides love for you as a son, I have love for you also as a
man standing at the cross-ways. I kiss you and Lyolya and Noletchka and
Seryozha, if he is back. We are all alive and well.

The following letter belongs to the same period:

Your letter to Tanya has arrived, my dear friend Ilya, and I see
that you are still advancing toward that purpose which you set up for
yourself; and I want to write to you and to her--for no doubt you tell
her everything--what I think about it. Well, I think about it a great
deal, with joy and with fear mixed. This is what I think. If one marries
in order to enjoy oneself more, no good will ever come of it. To set up
as one's main object, ousting everything else, marriage, union with the
being you love, is a great mistake. And an obvious one, if you think
about it. Object, marriage. Well, you marry; and what then? If you had
no other object in life before your marriage, it will be twice as hard
to find one.

As a rule, people who are getting married completely forget this.

So many joyful events await them in the future, in w