on the contrary,
looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look
upon it. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast!"

"There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!" I thought
admiringly, as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am an
intellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would not
have known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it and
am as jolly as ever again, and all because I am 'a cultivated and
educated man of our day.' And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to
the wine yesterday. H'm!" ... No, it was not the wine. I did not
drink anything at all between five and six when I was waiting for them.
I had lied to Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn't
ashamed now.... Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid
of it.

I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to
take it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the
letter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards
evening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy
after yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser,
my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more
different and confused. Something was not dead within me, in the depths
of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in
acute depression. For the most part I jostled my way through the most
crowded business streets, along Myeshtchansky Street, along Sadovy
Street and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked particularly sauntering
along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working
people of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faces
looking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle,
that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets
irritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong with
me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually
in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home
completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my
conscience.

The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed
queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented
me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything
else I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed it
all and was still p