nightmare would give way to
a sound, healthy sleep.

"Is the post ready?" came a dull voice from a distance.

"Ready," answered a loud, bass voice almost by the very window.

It was the second or third station from Spirov.

Time passed quickly, seemed to gallop along, and there would be no end
to the bells, whistles, and stops. In despair Klimov pressed his face
into the corner of the cushion, held his head in his hands, and again
began to think of his sister Katy and his orderly Pavel; but his sister
and his orderly got mixed up with the looming figures and whirled about
and disappeared. His breath, thrown back from the cushion, burned his
face, and his legs ached and a draught from the window poured into his
back, but, painful though it was, he refused to change his position....
A heavy, drugging torpor crept over him and chained his limbs.

When at length he raised his head, the car was quite light. The
passengers were putting on their overcoats and moving about. The train
stopped. Porters in white aprons and number-plates bustled about the
passengers and seized their boxes. Klimov put on his greatcoat
mechanically and left the train, and he felt as though it were not
himself walking, but some one else, a stranger, and he felt that he was
accompanied by the heat of the train, his thirst, and the ominous,
lowering figures which all night long had prevented his sleeping.
Mechanically he got his luggage and took a cab. The cabman charged him
one rouble and twenty-five copecks for driving him to Povarska Street,
but he did not haggle and submissively took his seat in the sledge. He
could still grasp the difference in numbers, but money had no value to
him whatever.

At home Klimov was met by his aunt and his sister Katy, a girl of
eighteen. Katy had a copy-book and a pencil in her hands as she greeted
him, and he remembered that she was preparing for a teacher's
examination. He took no notice of their greetings and questions, but
gasped from the heat, and walked aimlessly through the rooms until he
reached his own, and then he fell prone on the bed. The Finn, the red
cap, the lady with the white teeth, the smell of roast meat, the
shifting spot in the lamp, filled his mind and he lost consciousness
and did not hear the frightened voices near him.

When he came to himself he found himself in bed, undressed, and noticed
the water-bottle and Pavel, but it did not make him any more comfortable
nor easy. His legs and