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 CHAPTER XXXII

A LETTER

A Letter from Father Theodore written to his Wife from Baku.

y darling and precious katya, ‘ Every hour brings us nearer to our happi­ ness. I am writing to you from a furnished room, which I have taken after having been on my feet aU day attending to various little affairs. Baku is a very large town. I am told that there are oil wells here, but you have to go by an electric train if you want to see them, and I have no money. This picturesque town is on the edge of the Caspian Sea, which is immense. The heat is appalling. I always carry my overcoat over one arm and my short coat over the other, for it is almost too hot to breathe. My arms are always bathed in sweat and I drink lots of tea. I have hardly any money left, but that doesn’t matter, my darling, for very soon we shall have masses of money. We shall travel and then settle down in Samara near to our httle candle factory and we shall drink hqueurs. ‘ But now to business: Baku is considerably superior to Rostov, both in its geographical position and in the number of its inhabitants, but I think Kharkov is a busier town. There are many foreigners here, especially Armenians and Persians, for we are not very far from Turkey. I went to the market and found many Turkish things and some scarves. I wanted to buy you a Mussulman veil as a present, but I had no money, so I decided that when we are rich—and it is only a matter of days now—I shall buy you a veil.

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