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236
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
pleased Sönya as much as it did me, had she had
spiritual freedom to join in it.
I had several times noticed the following trait in
her: she might be engaged in the most lively
conversation at a picnic or party, and apparently be entirely
occupied by her surroundings, when suddenly a silence
would fall upon her. Her look at such times became
distant, and her replies, when addressed, wandering.
She would suddenly say farewell, and no persuasions,
no previous plans or arrangements, no consideration
for other people, could detain her. Go home and
work she must. I have a note from her, written in
the spring of the year, which is characteristic of her in
this connection.
We had arranged a driving-expedition in the
neighborhood of Stockholm with a few other friends, when
she repented at the last moment, and sent me the
following note:1
Dear Anna Carlotta : This morning I awoke with the
desire to amuse myself, when suddenly my mother’s father, the
German pedant (that is to say, the astronomer), appeared before
me. He pointed menacingly at all the learned treatises and
dissertations which I had intended studying in the Easter holidays,
and reproached me most seriously with my unworthy waste of
time. His severe words have also at other times put to flight in
me my grandmother the gipsy. Now I sit at my writing-table in
dressing-gown and slippers, deeply immersed in mathematical
speculations, and I have not the slightest desire to join your
picnic. You are so merry that you can amuse yourselves just
as well without me, so I hope you will enjoy yourselves and
pardon my ignoble desertion.
Yours affectionately,
sönya.
There had been an arrangement that we should
meet again in Jämtland later in the summer, where
1 This note is written in Swedish, as are all the other letters
which follow and are not otherwise indicated.
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