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Home of Viktor Mironov.
September 21, 1888.
Anna Viktorovna Mironova.
Dear Anna Viktorovna,
I am in receipt of your recent letter in which you request several things of me - to forget a misunderstanding between us, to refrain from explaining myself (related, I believe, to the aforementioned misunderstanding), and to refrain from calling on you. I, of course, will oblige your request to abstain from contacting you, exclusive of this written response, as it is your wish, and as I have the deepest respect for you, as well as considerable affection. It grieves me to know that my actions, or at least the circumstances surrounding my recent past, have caused you distress. For that I am sorry.
I apologize again, immediately, for I will fail to honor your second request. Almost from the beginning of our association, Anna Viktorovna, you have made inquiries into my recent romantic relationship with Miss Neginskaya, and thereby I have provided you with her name, the woman in my past, as you have often referred to her. I would be a poor chief investigator indeed, if I did not understand these questions to intimate more than mere curiosity.
As you have not provided specific reasons for your requests, I am obliged to draw my own conclusions, and in so doing, I will attempt to explain myself, disregarding your wishes. The obvious reason for your desire to end our association, coming immediately after the revelation that the woman from my past is not only still in communication with me, but intends to visit Zatonsk, is that I have misled you as to the current status of my relationship with Miss Neginskaya. I will confess that the telegram of which Korobeinikov spoke was not the first piece of correspondence that I have received from the lady since I left St. Petersburg. Several letters have arrived at the precinct. These communications did not come at my request, nor do I plan to reply to them, Anna Viktorovna.
You will remember my answer to a question you asked some weeks ago, wherein you asked if I had left my relationship behind. My answer was vague, which I imagine has supplied you with ample reason to question my intentions. The truth there is complicated and not altogether clear. You will likely find this disingenuous, but I avow that I am sincere. While I have quit my relationship with Miss Neginskaya, without reservation, the circumstances that contributed to that ending still, at times, occupy my thoughts.
As to forgetting the misunderstanding, as you have deemed it, I must regretfully deny you this request as well. To remove from my memory our engaging conversations, companionable walks, or even our disagreements, few though they were, would refuse me the most pleasant moments of my time thus far in Zatonsk. And, I cannot pretend that our recent intimate moment was unwelcome. For you know full well the response your affection received, Anna Viktorovna. That tender moment I will not relinquish.
Very truly yours,
Yakov Platonovich Shtolman.