Written: 18 March, 1913. Letter sent from Krakow to Saratov
Published: 1930 in the journal Proletarshaya Revolyfsiya No. 4 Printed from the original..
Source: Lenin
Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 37, pages 615-616.
Translated/Edited: George H. Hanna and Robert Daglish.
Transcription/Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2008. You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as the source/editing/transcription/markup information noted above.
March 18
Dear Maria Alexandrovna,
It is an eternity since we had a letter from you or from Anya and we are very worried, riot knowing what the matter is. Perhaps a letter has gone astray, or perhaps one of you is ill. It’s so easy to catch cold in spring! Here the grass is already green and dandelions and daisies have appeared, but there is a most annoying wind. Mother has managed to catch cold and has been wheezing heavily for abouta week. It is a pity she cannot go out. And so we have been thinking that the climate is worse in Saratov and someone may have caught cold. What does Mark Timofeyevich write? Where is he now?
Life here goes on like clockwork and actually there is nothing to write about. We live as we did in Shushenskoye, from one post to the next. Until eleven we fill in the time somehow; at eleven the first postman comes, and then we impatiently await the six o’clock post.
The letters we have been receiving recently are all rather gloomy and so our mood fails into line with them. We live a sort of reflected life.
Still, I am glad spring has come because the las winter seemed a very long one. People are already renting placec for the summer, but things are very uncertain with us. Mother will go first to St. Petersburg if she is strong enough.
The amnesty turned out to be an absolute myth. I do not know how it will affect Manyasha, but sh will get a one-third reduction in any case.[See Letter No. 234 and Note No. 316.—Editor.]
We have not had a letter from Manyasha for a long time and do not know how she is getting on.
I embrace you and Anya fondly and wish you good health above all else. I hope her hand is better and that she will manage to write to us, Volodya, I suppose, will write himself,[See Letter No. 234.—Editor.] Mother asks me to send regards.
In a week or less it will be Easter here—so early[Catholic Poland used the Gregorian Calendar and Easter usually came earlier than in Orthodox Russia which used the Yulian Calendar—Editor.]
Many kisses,
Yours,
Nadya