've been thinking it all
over, and I see clearly that I'm not fit for it at all. I know how to
dress, and I could receive guests, perhaps. There's nothing much in
asking people to have a cup of tea, especially when there are footmen.
But what will people say though? I saw a great deal that Sunday morning
in that house. That pretty young lady looked at me all the time,
especially after you came in. It was you came in, wasn't it? Her
mother's simply an absurd worldly old woman. My Lebyadkin distinguished
himself too. I kept looking at the ceiling to keep from laughing; the
ceiling there is finely painted. His mother ought to be an abbess. I'm
afraid of her, though she did give me a black shawl. Of course, they
must all have come to strange conclusions about me. I wasn't vexed,
but I sat there, thinking what relation am I to them? Of course, from
a countess one doesn't expect any but spiritual qualities; for the
domestic ones she's got plenty of footmen; and also a little worldly
coquetry, so as to be able to entertain foreign travellers. But yet that
Sunday they did look upon me as hopeless. Only Dasha's an angel. I'm
awfully afraid they may wound _him_ by some careless allusion to me."

"Don't be afraid, and don't be uneasy," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch,
making a wry face.

"However, that doesn't matter to me, if he is a little ashamed of me,
for there will always be more pity than shame, though it differs with
people, of course. He knows, to be sure, that I ought rather to pity
them than they me."

"You seem to be very much offended with them, Marya Timofyevna?"

"I? Oh, no," she smiled with simple-hearted mirth. "Not at all. I looked
at you all, then. You were all angry, you were all quarrelling. They
meet together, and they don't know how to laugh from their hearts. So
much wealth and so little gaiety. It all disgusts me. Though I feel for
no one now except myself."

"I've heard that you've had a hard life with your brother without me?"

"Who told you that? It's nonsense. It's much worse now. Now my dreams
are not good, and my dreams are bad, because you've come. What have you
come for, I'd like to know. Tell me please?"

"Wouldn't you like to go back into the nunnery?"

"I knew they'd suggest the nunnery again. Your nunnery is a fine marvel
for me! And why should I go to it? What should I go for now? I'm all
alone in the world now. It's too late for me to begin a third life."

"You seem very angry about so