Transcribe Gorloff, Valentin A. Letter to Ward, Henry A. (1877-05-11)

Since fourteen years I have not seen my country you may imagine [illegible?] how I long to be there.
Though I lived so much in France, there is a certain thing in the French that I don’t like and that makes me feel a stranger with them, while with the Russians I feel myself at home. I never felt so well what a punishment it is to have a bad health so now, that I am forced to sit here while I ought to be to the war. I feel that I am not better than an old woman and it is very hard.
We thought to return to Paris by Genoa, Florence