eved me, and would
have thought I was dreaming. Besides, what help could she be? "Eh," I
thought, "after all, what business is it of mine? I'll take off my
badge and go home _when it begins._" That was my mental phrase, "when it
begins"; I remember it.

But I had to go and listen to Karmazinov. Taking a last look round
behind the scenes, I noticed that a good number of outsiders, even women
among them, were flitting about, going in and out. "Behind the scenes"
was rather a narrow space completely screened from the audience by a
curtain and communicating with other rooms by means of a passage. Here
our readers were awaiting their turns. But I was struck at that moment
by the reader who was to follow Stepan Trofimovitch. He, too, was some
sort of professor (I don't know to this day exactly what he was) who had
voluntarily left some educational institution after a disturbance among
the students, and had arrived in the town only a few days before. He,
too, had been recommended to Yulia Mihailovna, and she had received him
with reverence. I know now that he had only spent one evening in her
company before the reading; he had not spoken all that evening, had
listened with an equivocal smile to the jests and the general tone of
the company surrounding Yulia Mihailovna, and had made an unpleasant
impression on every one by his air of haughtiness, and at the same
time almost timorous readiness to take offence. It was Yulia Mihailovna
herself who had enlisted his services. Now he was walking from corner to
corner, and, like Stepan Trofimovitch, was muttering to himself, though
he looked on the ground instead of in the looking-glass. He was not
trying on smiles, though he often smiled rapaciously. It was obvious
that it was useless to speak to him either. He looked about forty, was
short and bald, had a greyish beard, and was decently dressed. But what
was most interesting about him was that at every turn he took he threw
up his right fist, brandished it above his head and suddenly brought it
down again as though crushing an antagonist to atoms. He went--through
this by-play every moment. It made me uncomfortable. I hastened away to
listen to Karmazinov.

III

There was a feeling in the hall that something was wrong again. Let me
state to begin with that I have the deepest reverence for genius, but
why do our geniuses in the decline of their illustrious years behave
sometimes exactly like little boys? What though he was Karma