-like place off the
living-room, a cheerless enough abode with a little high barred window
in it as in a prison-cell, cardboard-boxes piled high with feminine
garments, a sewing-machine, old dusty books, and a broken-down
perambulator occupying most of the space. I never could understand why
the perambulator was there, as the Markovitches had no children. Nicolai
Leontievitch sat at a table under the little window, and his favourite
position was to sit with the chair perched on one leg and so, rocking in
this insecure position, he brooded over his bottles and glasses and
trays. This room was so dark even in the middle of the day that he was
often compelled to use a lamp. There he hovered, with his ragged beard,
his ink-stained fingers and his red-rimmed eyes, making strange noises
to himself and envolving from his materials continual little explosions
that caused him infinite satisfaction. He did not mind interruptions,
nor did he ever complain of the noise in the other room, terrific though
it often was. He would be absorbed, in a trance, lost in another world,
and surely amiable and harmless enough. And yet not entirely amiable.
His eyes would close to little spots of dull, lifeless colour--the only
thing alive about him seemed to be his hands that moved and stirred as
though they did not belong to his body at all, but had an independent
existence of their own--and his heels protruding from under his chair
were like horrid little animals waiting, malevolently, on guard.

His inventions were, of course, never successful, and he contributed,
therefore, nothing to the maintenance of his household. Vera Michailovna
had means of her own, and there were also the paying guests. But he
suffered from no sense of distress at his impecuniosity. I discovered
very quickly that Vera Michailovna kept the family purse, and one of
the earliest sources of family trouble was, I fancy, his constant
demands for money. Before the war he had, I believe, been drunk whenever
it was possible. Because drink was difficult to obtain, and in a flood
of patriotism roused by the enthusiasm of the early days of the war, he
declared himself a teetotaller, and marvellously he kept his vows. This
abstinence was now one of his greatest prides, and he liked to tell you
about it. Nevertheless he needed money as badly as ever, and he borrowed
whenever he could. One of the first things that Vera Michailovna told me
was that I was on no account to open my purs