When I think of all those bright, happy days I spent in Paris I regret often that I cannot live them over again. I had hoped to be allowed to end my days on the banks of the Seine, in the gay city which has always proved so attractive to Russians. St. Petersburg did not interest me any longer. Its climate is far too severe for my old lungs and my everlasting rheumatism, and all the persons who were my friends in the old days have either died or disappeared from the social horizon. Fate ruled it otherwise, and my seventy-five years have not been allowed to remain in Paris where they believed they had found a home. An Imperial order removes me to another place where very probably I shall miss the attractions of Paris, and the resources which it offers to a bookworm like myself. Before going away I have read over again the reminiscences that in my idle moments I have scribbled for the benefit of those who care to read them when I am gone, and I have found a melancholy pleasure in doing so. It has been such a happy time, even for a misanthrope like myself. Each time I have left Paris it has been a joy to return, and to look once more on the familiar haunts where I used to walk in company with friends who, alas! have already gone. Would that I could follow them on that journey whence no one returns, before leaving Paris for ever; because at my age one cannot hope for anything that the morrow may bring along with it—this wonderful Paris, where is so much of what constituted my former pleasures, will remain buried. Russia can only increase my melancholy, it is so different from what it was when I was young, and when the sadness of the snow which covered its ground found no echo in my young heart.

Count Vassili’s wish was realised. He died just before his intended departure from the Paris he had loved so well.