““MY BELOVED MAKAR ALEXIEVITCH, — Do you know, must quarrel with you. Yes, good Makar Alexievitch, I really cannot accept your presents, for I know what they must have cost you — I know to what privations and self-denial they must have led. How many times have I not told you that I stand in need of NOTHING, of absolutely NOTHING, as well as that I shall never be in a position to recompense you for all the kindly acts with which you have loaded me? Why, for instance, have you sent me geraniums? A little sprig of balsam would not have mattered so much — but geraniums! Only have I to let fall an unguarded word — for example, about geraniums — and at once you buy me some! How much they must have cost you! Yet what a charm there is in them, with their flaming petals! Wherever did you get these beautiful plants?””
![“if [God] doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God?” quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/09b/fyodor-dostoyevsky-94_ethics_if-god-doesn-t-exist-man-is-the-chief-of_16023.jpg)
