rs _et des_ drunkards _qui boivent_ in
outbreaks... and I'm not such a gambler after all, and I'm not such a
drunkard. She reproaches me for not writing anything. Strange
idea!... She asks why I lie down? She says I ought to stand, 'an example
and reproach.' _Mais, entre nous soit dit,_ what is a man to do who is
destined to stand as a 'reproach,' if not to lie down? Does she
understand that?"

And at last it became clear to me what was the chief particular trouble
which was worrying him so persistently at this time. Many times that
evening he went to the looking-glass, and stood a long while before
it. At last he turned from the looking-glass to me, and with a sort
of strange despair, said: "_Mon cher, je suis un_ broken-down man." Yes,
certainly, up to that time, up to that very day there was one thing only
of which he had always felt confident in spite of the "new views," and
of the "change in Varvara Petrovna's ideas," that was, the conviction
that still he had a fascination for her feminine heart, not simply as an
exile or a celebrated man of learning, but as a handsome man. For twenty
years this soothing and flattering opinion had been rooted in his mind,
and perhaps of all his convictions this was the hardest to part with.
Had he any presentiment that evening of the colossal ordeal which was
preparing for him in the immediate future?

VI

I will now enter upon the description of that almost forgotten incident
with which my story properly speaking begins.

At last at the very end of August the Drozdovs returned. Their arrival
made a considerable sensation in local society, and took place shortly
before their relation, our new governor's wife, made her long-expected
appearance. But of all these interesting events I will speak later.
For the present I will confine myself to saying that Praskovya Ivanovna
brought Varvara Petrovna, who was expecting her so impatiently, a most
perplexing problem: Nikolay had parted from them in July, and,
meeting Count K. on the Rhine, had set off with him and his family for
Petersburg. (N.B.--The Count's three daughters were all of marriageable
age.)

"Lizaveta is so proud and obstinate that I could get nothing out of
her," Praskovya Ivanovna said in conclusion. "But I saw for myself that
something had happened between her and Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch. I don't
know the reasons, but I fancy, my dear Varvara Petrovna, that you
will have to ask your Darya Pavlovna for them. To my