Chapter I: Part III: Vladimir on the Klyazma

(1838-1839)

_Do not expect from me long accounts of my inner life of
that period.... Terrible events, troubles of all sorts, are
more easily put upon paper than quite bright and cloudless
memories.... Can happiness be described?_

_Fill in for yourselves what is lacking, divine it with the
heart—while I will tell of the external side, of the setting,
only rarely, rarely touching by hint or by word, on its holy
secrets._