ill haunted by
the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. He was ashamed. As
he undressed he looked at his long, sinewy, elderly legs, and
remembered that in the district they called him the "toad," and
after every long conversation he always felt ashamed. Somehow or
other, by some fatality, it always happened that he began mildly,
amicably, with good intentions, calling himself an old student, an
idealist, a Quixote, but without being himself aware of it, gradually
passed into abuse and slander, and what was most surprising, with
perfect sincerity criticized science, art and morals, though he had
not read a book for the last twenty years, had been nowhere farther
than their provincial town, and did not really know what was going
on in the world. If he sat down to write anything, if it were only
a letter of congratulation, there would somehow be abuse in the
letter. And all this was strange, because in reality he was a man
of feeling, given to tears, Could he be possessed by some devil
which hated and slandered in him, apart from his own will?

"It's bad," he sighed, as he lay down under the quilt. "It's bad."

His daughters did not sleep either. There was a sound of laughter
and screaming, as though someone was being pursued; it was Genya
in hysterics. A little later Iraida was sobbing too. A maidservant
ran barefoot up and down the passage several times. . . .

"What a business! Good Lord! . . ." muttered Rashevitch, sighing
and tossing from side to side. "It's bad."

He had a nightmare. He dreamt he was standing naked, as tall as a
giraffe, in the middle of the room, and saying, as he flicked his
finger before him:

"In his ugly face! his ugly face! his ugly face!"

He woke up in a fright, and first of all remembered that a
misunderstanding had happened in the evening, and that Meier would
certainly not come again. He remembered, too, that he had to pay
the interest at the bank, to find husbands for his daughters, that
one must have food and drink, and close at hand were illness, old
age, unpleasantnesses, that soon it would be winter, and that there
was no wood. . . .

It was past nine o'clock in the morning. Rashevitch slowly dressed,
drank his tea and ate two hunks of bread and butter. His daughters
did not come down to breakfast; they did not want to meet him, and
that wounded him. He lay down on his sofa in his study, then sat
down to his table and began writing a letter to his daughters. His
hand s