O Barbara Alexievna, I am undone¹—we are both of us undone! Both of us are lost beyond recall! Everything is ruined—my reputation, my self-respect, all that I have in the world! And you as much as I. Never shall we retrieve² what we have lost. I—I have brought you to this pass, for I have become an outcast, my darling. Everywhere I am laughed at and despised. Even my landlady³ has taken to abusing me. Today she overwhelmed me with shrill⁴ reproaches, and abased⁵ me to the level of a hearth-brush. And last night, when I was in Rataziaev’s rooms, one of his friends began to read a scribbled⁶ note which I had written to you, and then inadvertently pulled out of my pocket. Oh beloved, what laughter there arose at the recital⁷! How those scoundrels mocked and derided⁸ you and myself! I walked up to them and accused Rataziaev of breaking faith. I said that he had played the traitor⁹. But he only replied that I had been the betrayer in the case, by indulging in various amours. “You have kept them very dark though, Mr. Lovelace!” said he—and now I am known everywhere by this name of “Lovelace.” They know EVERYTHING about us, my darling, EVERYTHING—both about you and your affairs and about myself; and when today I was for sending Phaldoni to the bakeshop for something or other, he refused to go, saying that it was not his business. “But you MUST go,” said I. “I will not,” he replied. “You have not paid my mistress what you owe her, so I am not bound to run your errands.” At such an insult from a raw peasant I lost my temper, and called him a fool; to which he retorted in a similar

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