Smoothened some scenes, and what's more important, paid more attention to Vankovsky, the heroine's husband, made him more humane, as it were.
I'd like to see it printed wherever you'd like, in your almanac, in Moskvityanin, just so that it won't be wasted, I feel so sorry for it even if now I'm slightly grown out of it, I think," Pisemsky wrote to Ostrovsky on 26 December 1850.
[1] As late as March 1857 Pisemsky referred to his novel as Is She to Blame?, even if this title had been used already for a completely different novelet, published in 1855 by Sovremennik.
Apparently, having lost all hope in seeing the novel printed, Pisemsky used several of its scenes in his other work, notably The Rich Fiancee.
[4] Biblioteka Dlya Chtenya published the novel in its original form, not the 'improved' version the author informed Shevyryov about.