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A BIOGRAPHY
253
I feel so depressed that I cannot write more to-day. The only
thing that is pleasant is to think of our "fairy dream" and of
" Væ Victis."
This alludes to the plan we had formed in the spring
of uniting the works together. The " fairy dream " was
mine, and was to be called " When Death Shall Be No
More." When I mentioned the idea to Sönya she seized
upon it so vehemently, and worked it out in her
imagination so fully, that she was a partner in its
production. " Væ Victis " was her creation, and was
to be a novel. Its idea and plot were very
characteristic of her, but she did not think she could write
it alone. She wrote to me:
You tell me I am of some importance in your life—and yet
you have so much more than ever I had. Think, then, what
you must be to me, who am so lonely, and who feel myself poor
in affection and friendship.
Still later she wrote:
Have you never noticed that there are periods when
everything in life, both for one’s self and one’s friends, seems to be
covered as with a black veilf One hardly recognizes one’s
dearest and nearest. The sweetest strawberries turn to dust in
your mouth. The wood-fairy says that this always happens to
little children who pay him for truant visits to his haunts.
Perhaps we two had no permission to spend this summer together
— and yet we had worked so hard during last winter! I try,
however, to make use of every moment I can spare. I think
out my mathematical problem, and muse deeply upon Poincaré’8
treatises, which are full of genius. I am too depressed, and
have no energy to do literary work. Everything seems so faded
and uninteresting. At such moments mathematics are a relief.
It is such a comfort to feel that there is another world outside
one’s self. One really does want to talk of something besides
one’s self; only you, my dear and precious friend, are always
the same — and always dear. I can scarcely express in words
how much I long for you. You are the dearest thing I possess,
and our friendship must at least last all my life. I do not know
what I should do without it.
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