Uncle's Dream — CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XV.

If fate makes up its mind to visit anyone with misfortune, there is no end to its malice!

This fact has often been remarked by thinkers; and, as if the ignominy of last night were not enough, the same malicious destiny had prepared for this family more, yea, and worse—evils to come!

By ten o’clock in the morning a strange and almost incredible rumour was in full swing all over the town: it was received by society, of course, with full measure of spiteful joy, just as we all love to receive delightfully scandalous stories of anyone about us.

“To lose one’s sense of shame to such an extent!

” people said one to another.

“To humiliate oneself so, and to neglect the first rules of propriety!

To loose the bands of decency altogether like this, really!

” etc. , etc. But here is what had happened.

Early in the morning, something after six o’clock, a poor piteous-looking old woman came hurriedly to the door of Maria Alexandrovna’s house, and begged the maid to wake Miss Zina up as quickly, as possible,—_only_ Miss Zina, and very quietly, so that her mother should not hear of it, if possible.

Zina, pale and miserable, ran out to the old woman immediately.

The latter fell at Zina’s feet and kissed them and begged her with tears to come with her at once to see poor Vaísia, her son, who had been so bad, _so_ bad all night that she did not think he could live another day.

The old woman told Zina that Vaísia had sent to beg her to come and bid him farewell in this his death hour: he conjured her to come by all the blessed angels, and by all their past—otherwise he must die in despair.

Zina at once decided to go, in spite of the fact that, by so doing, she would be justifying all the scandal and slanders disseminated about her in former days, as to the intercepted letter, her visits to him, and so on.

Without a word to her mother, then, she donned her cloak and started off with the old woman, passing through the whole length of the town, into one of the poorest slums of Mordasof—and stopped at a little low wretched house, with small miserable windows, and snow piled round the basement for warmth.

In this house, in a tiny room, more than half of which was occupied by an enormous stove, on a wretched bed, and covered with a miserably thin quilt, lay a young man, pale and haggard: his eyes were ablaze with the fire of fever, his hands were dry and thin, and he was breathing with difficulty and very hoarsely.

He looked as though he might have been handsome once, but disease had put its finger on his features and made them dreadful to look upon and sad withal, as are so many dying consumptive patients’ faces.

His old mother who had fed herself for a year past with the conviction that her son would recover, now saw at last that Vaísia was not to live.

She stood over him, bowed down with her grief—tearless, and looked and looked, and could not look enough; and felt, but could not realize, that this dear son of hers must in a few days be buried in the miserable Mordasof churchyard, far down beneath the snow and frozen earth!

But Vaísia was not looking at her at this moment!

His poor suffering face was at rest now, and happy; for he saw before him the dear image which he had thought of, dreamed of, and loved through all the long sad nights of his illness, for the last year and a half!

He realised that she forgave him, and had come, like an angel of God, to tell him of her forgiveness, here, on his deathbed.

She pressed his hands, wept over him, stood and smiled over him, looked at him once more with those wonderful eyes of hers, and all the past, the undying ever-present past rose up before the mind’s eye of the dying man.

The spark of life flashed up again in his soul, as though to show, now that it was about to die out for ever on this earth, how hard, how hard it was to see so sweet a light fade away.

“Zina, Zina!

” he said, “my Zina, do not weep; don’t grieve, Zina, don’t remind me that I must die!

Let me gaze at you, so—so,—and feel that our two souls have come together once more—that you have forgiven me!

Let me kiss your dear hands again, as I used, and so let me die without noticing the approach of death.

“How thin you have grown, Zina!

and how sweetly you are looking at me now, my Zina!

Do you remember how you used to laugh, in bygone days?

Oh, Zina, my angel, I shall not ask you to forgive me,—I will not remember anything about—that, you know what!

for if you _do_ forgive me, I can never forgive myself!

“All the long, long nights, Zina, I have lain here and thought, and thought; and I have long since decided that I had better die, Zina; for I am not fit to live!

” Zina wept, and silently pressed his hands, as though she would stop him talking so.

“Why do you cry so?

” continued the sick man.

“Is it because I am dying?

but all the past is long since dead and buried, Zina, my angel!

You are wiser than I am, you know I am a bad, wicked man; surely you cannot love me still?

Do you know what it has cost me to realise that I am a bad man?

I, who have always prided myself before the world—and what on?

Purity of heart, generosity of aim!

Yes, Zina, so I did, while we read Shakespeare;

and in theory I was pure and generous.

Yet, how did I prove these qualities in practice?

” “Oh, don’t!

don’t!

” sobbed Zina, “you are not fair to yourself: don’t talk like this, please don’t!

” “Don’t stop me, Zina!

You forgave me, my angel; I know you forgave me long ago, but you must have judged me, and you know what sort of man I really am; and that is what tortures me so!

I am unworthy of your love, Zina!

And you were good and true, not only in theory, but in practice too!

You told your mother you would marry me, and no one else, and you would have kept your word!

Do you know, Zina, I never realized before what you would sacrifice in marrying me!

I could not even see that you might die of hunger if you did so!

All I thought of was that you would be the bride of a great poet (in the future), and I could not understand your reasons for wishing to delay our union!

So I reproached you and bullied you, and despised you and suspected you, and at last I committed the crime of showing your letter!

I was not even a scoundrel at that moment!

I was simply a worm-man.

Ah!

how you must have despised me!

No, it is well that I am dying; it is well that you did not marry me!

I should not have understood your sacrifice, and I should have worried you, and perhaps, in time, have learned to hate you, and ...

but now it is good, it is best so!

my bitter tears can at least cleanse my heart before I die.

Ah!

Zina!

Zina!

love me, love me as you did before for a little, little while!

just for the last hour of my life.

I know I am not worthy of it, but—oh, my angel, my Zina!

” Throughout this speech Zina, sobbing herself, had several times tried to stop the speaker; but he would not listen.

He felt that he must unburden his soul by speaking out, and continued to talk—though with difficulty, panting, and with choking and husky utterance.

“Oh, if only you had never seen me and never loved me,” said Zina, “you would have lived on now!

Ah, _why_ did we ever meet?

” “No, no, darling, don’t blame yourself because I am dying!

think of all my self-love, my romanticism!

I am to blame for all, myself!

Did they ever tell you my story in full?

Do you remember, three years ago, there was a criminal here sentenced to death?

This man heard that a criminal was never executed whilst ill!

so he got hold of some wine, mixed tobacco in it, and drank it.

The effect was to make him so dreadfully sick, with blood-spitting, that his lungs became affected; he was taken to a hospital, and a few weeks after he died of virulent consumption!

Well, on that day, you know, after the letter, it struck me that I would do the same; and why do you think I chose consumption?

Because I was afraid of any more sudden death?

Perhaps.

But, oh, Zina!

believe me, a romantic nonsense played a great part in it; at all events, I had an idea that it would be striking and grand for me to be lying here, dying of consumption, and you standing and wringing your hands for woe that _love_ should have brought me to this!

You should come, I thought, and beg my pardon on your knees, and I should forgive you and die in your arms!

” “Oh, don’t!

don’t!

” said Zina, “don’t talk of it now, dear!

you are not really like that.

Think of our happy days together, think of something else—not that, not that!

” “Oh, but it’s so bitter to me, darling; and that’s why I must speak of it.

I havn’t seen you for a year and a half, you know, and all that time I have been alone; and I don’t think there was one single minute of all that time when I have not thought of you, my angel, Zina!

And, oh!

how I longed to do something to earn a better opinion from you!

Up to these very last days I have never believed that I should really die; it has not killed me all at once, you know.

I have long walked about with my lungs affected.

For instance, I have longed to become a great poet suddenly, to publish a poem such as has never appeared before on this earth; I intended to pour my whole soul and being into it, so that wherever I was, or wherever _you_ were, I should always be with you and remind you of myself in my poems!

And my greatest longing of all was that you should think it all over and say to yourself at last some day, ’No, he is not such a wretch as I thought, after all!

’ It was stupid of me, Zina, stupid—stupid—wasn’t it, darling?

” “No, no, Vaísia—no!

” cried Zina.

She fell on his breast and kissed his poor hot, dry hands.

“And, oh!

how jealous I have been of you all this time, Zina!

I think I should have died if I had heard of your wedding.

I kept a watch over you, you know; I had a spy—there!

” (he nodded towards his mother).

“She used to go over and bring me news.

You never loved Mosgliakoff—now _did_ you, Zina?

Oh, my darling, my darling, will you remember me when I am dead?

Oh, I know you will; but years go by, Zina, and hearts grow cold, and yours will cool too, and you’ll forget me, Zina!

” “No, no, never!

I shall never marry.

You are my first love, and my only—only—undying love!

” “But all things die, Zina, even our memories, and our good and noble feelings die also, and in their place comes reason.

No, no, Zina, be happy, and live long.

Love another if you can, you cannot love a poor dead man for ever!

But think of me now and then, if only seldom; don’t think of my faults: forgive them!

For oh, Zina, there was good in that sweet love of ours as well as evil.

Oh, golden, golden days never to be recalled!

Listen, darling, I have always loved the sunset hour—remember me at that time, will you?

Oh no, no!

why must I die?

oh _how_ I should love to live on now.

Think of that time—oh, just think of it!

it was all spring then, the sun shone so bright, the flowers were so sweet, ah me!

and look, now—look!

” And the poor thin finger pointed to the frozen window-pane.

Then he seized Zina’s hand and pressed it tight over his eyes, and sighed bitterly—bitterly!

His sobs nearly burst his poor suffering breast....

And so he continued suffering and talking all the long day.

Zina comforted and soothed him as she best could, but she too was full of deadly grief and pain.

She told him—she promised him—never to forget; that she would never love again as she loved him; and he believed her and wept, and smiled again, and kissed her hands.

And so the day passed.

Meanwhile, Maria Alexandrovna had sent some ten times for Zina, begging her not to ruin her reputation irretrievably.

At last, at dusk, she determined to go herself; she was out of her wits with terror and grief.

Having called Zina out into the next room, she proceeded to beg and pray her, on her knees, “to spare this last dagger at her heart!

” Zina had come out from the sick-room ill: her head was on fire,—she heard, but could not comprehend, what her mother said; and Marie Alexandrovna was obliged to leave the house again in despair, for Zina had determined to sit up all night with Vaísia.

She never left his bedside, but the poor fellow grew worse and worse.

Another day came, but there was no hope that the sick man would see its close.

His old mother walked about as though she had lost all control of her actions; grief had turned her head for the time; she gave her son medicines, but he would none of them!

His death agony dragged on and on!

He could not speak now, and only hoarse inarticulate sounds proceeded from his throat.

To the very last instant he stared and stared at Zina, and never took his eyes off her; and when their light failed them he still groped with uncertain fingers for her hand, to press and fondle it in his own!

Meanwhile the short winter day was waning!

And when at even the last sunbeam gilded the frozen window-pane of the little room, the soul of the sufferer fled in pursuit of it out of the emaciated body that had kept it prisoner.

The old mother, seeing that there was nothing left her now but the lifeless body of her beloved Vaísia, wrung her hands, and with a loud cry flung herself on his dead breast.

“This is your doing, you viper, you cursed snake,” she yelled to Zina, in her despair; “it was you ruined and killed him, you wicked, wretched girl.

” But Zina heard nothing.

She stood over the dead body like one bereft of her senses.

At last she bent over him, made the sign of the Cross, kissed him, and mechanically left the room.

Her eyes were ablaze, her head whirled.

Two nights without sleep, combined with her turbulent feelings, were almost too much for her reason; she had a sort of confused consciousness that all her past had just been torn out of her heart, and that a new life was beginning for her, dark and threatening.

But she had not gone ten paces when Mosgliakoff suddenly seemed to start up from the earth at her feet.

He must have been waiting for her here.

“Zenaida Afanassievna,” he began, peering all around him in what looked like timid haste; it was still pretty light.

“Zenaida Afanassievna, of course I am an ass, or, if you please, perhaps not quite an ass, for I really think I am acting rather generously this time.

Excuse my blundering, but I am rather confused, from a variety of causes.

” Zina glanced at him almost unconsciously, and silently went on her way.

There was not much room for two on the narrow pavement, and as Zina did not make way for Paul, the latter was obliged to walk on the road at the side, which he did, never taking his eyes off her face.

“Zenaida Afanassievna,” he continued, “I have thought it all over, and if you are agreeable I am willing to renew my proposal of marriage.

I am even ready to forget all that has happened; all the ignominy of the last two days, and to forgive it—but on one condition: that while we are still here our engagement is to remain a strict secret.

You will depart from this place as soon as ever you can, and I shall quietly follow you.

We will be married secretly, somewhere, so that nobody shall know anything about it;

and then we’ll be off to St. Petersburg by express post—don’t take more than a small bag—eh?

What say you, Zenaida Afanassievna; tell me quick, please, I can’t stay here.

We might be seen together, you know.

” Zina did not answer a word; she only looked at Mosgliakoff; but it was such a look that he understood all instantly, bowed, and disappeared down the next lane.

“Dear me,” he said to himself, “what’s the meaning of this?

The day before yesterday she became so jolly humble, and blamed herself all round.

I’ve come on the wrong day, evidently!

” Meanwhile event followed event in Mordasof.

A very tragical circumstance occurred.

The old prince, who moved over to the hotel with Mosgliakoff, fell very ill that same night, dangerously ill.

All Mordasof knew of it in the morning; the doctor never left his side.

That evening a consultation of all the local medical talent was held over the old man (the invitations to which were issued in Latin); but in spite of the Latin and all they could do for him, the poor prince was quite off his head; he raved and asked his doctor to sing him some ballad or other; raved about wigs, and occasionally cried out as though frightened.

The Mordasof doctors decided that the hospitality of the town had given the prince inflammation of the stomach, which had somehow “gone to the head.

” There might be some subordinate moral causes to account for the attack;

but at all events he ought to have died long ago; and so he would certainly die now.

In this last conclusion they were not far wrong; for the poor old prince breathed his last three days after, at the hotel.

This event impressed the Mordasof folk considerably.

No one had expected such a tragical turn of affairs.

They went in troops to the hotel to view the poor old body, and there they wagged their heads wisely and ended by passing severe judgment upon “the murderers of the unfortunate Prince,”—meaning thereby, of course, Maria Alexandrovna and her daughter.

They predicted that this matter would go further.

Mosgliakoff was in a dreadful state of perturbation: he did not know what to do with the body.

Should he take it back to Donchanof!

or what?

Perhaps he would be held responsible for the old man’s death, as he had brought him here?

He did not like the look of things.

The Mordasof people were less than useless for advice, they were all far too frightened to hazard a word.

But suddenly the scene changed.

One fine evening a visitor arrived—no less a person than the eminent Prince Shepetiloff, a young man of thirty-five, with colonel’s epaulettes, a relative of the dead man.

His arrival created a great stir among all classes at Mordasof.

It appeared that this gentleman had lately left St. Petersburg, and had called in at Donchanof.

Finding no one there, he had followed the prince to Mordasof, where the news and circumstances of the old man’s death fell upon him like a thunder-clap!

Even the governor felt a little guilty while detailing the story of the prince’s death: all Mordasof felt and looked guilty.

This visitor took the matter entirely into his own hands, and Mosgliakoff made himself scarce before the presence of the prince’s real nephew, and disappeared, no one knew whither.

The body was taken to the monastery, and all the Mordasof ladies flocked thither to the funeral.

It was rumoured that Maria Alexandrovna was to be present, and that she was to go on her knees before the coffin, and loudly pray for pardon; and that all this was in conformity with the laws of the country.

Of course this was all nonsense, and Maria Alexandrovna never went near the place!

I forgot to state that the latter had carried off Zina to the country house, not deeming it possible to continue to live in the town.

There she sat, and trembled over all the second-hand news she could get hold of as to events occurring at Mordasof.

The funeral procession passed within half a mile of her country house; so that Maria Alexandrovna could get a good view of the long train of carriages looking black against the white snow roads; but she could not bear the sight, and left the window.

Before the week was out, she and her daughter moved to Moscow, taking Afanassy Matveyevitch with them; and, within a month, the country house and town house were both for sale.

And so Mordasof lost its most eminent inhabitant for ever!

Afanassy Matveyevitch was said to be for sale with the country house.

A year—two years went by, and Mordasof had quite forgotten Maria Alexandrovna, or nearly so!

Alas!

so wags the world!

It was said that she had bought another estate, and had moved over to some other provincial capital; where, of course, she had everybody under her thumb; that Zina was not yet married; and that Afanassy Matveyevitch—but why repeat all this nonsense?

None of it was true; it was but rumour!

—— ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ It is three years since I wrote the last words of the above chronicles of Mordasof, and whoever would have believed that I should have to unfold my MS.

, and add another piece of news to my narrative?

Well, to business!

— Let’s begin with Paul Mosgliakoff.

—After leaving Mordasof, he went straight to St. Petersburg, where he very soon obtained the clerkship he had applied for.

He then promptly forgot all about Mordasof, and the events enacted there.

He enjoyed life, went into society, fell in love, made another offer of marriage, and had to swallow another snub; became disgusted with Petersburg life, and joined an expedition to one of the remote quarters of our vast empire.

This expedition passed through its perils of land and water, and arrived in due course at the capital of the remote province which was its destination.

There the members were well received by the governor, and a ball was arranged for their entertainment.

Mosgliakoff was delighted.

He donned his best Petersburg uniform, and proceeded to the large ball-room with the full intention of producing a great and startling effect.

His first duty was to make his bow to the governor-general’s lady, of whom it was rumoured that she was young, and very lovely.

He advanced then, with some little “swagger,” but was suddenly rooted to the spot with amazement.

Before him stood Zina, beautifully dressed, proud and haughty, and sparkling with diamonds!

She did not recognize him; her eyes rested a moment on his face, and then passed on to glance at some other person.

Paul immediately departed to a safe and quiet corner, and there button-holed a young civilian whom he questioned, and from whom he learned certain most interesting facts.

He learned that the governor-general had married a very rich and very lovely lady in Moscow, two years since; that his wife was certainly very beautiful, but, at the same time, excessively proud and haughty, and danced with none but generals.

That the governor’s lady had a mother, a lady of rank and fashion, who had followed them from Moscow; that this lady was very clever and wise, but that even she was quite under the thumb of her daughter; as for the general (the governor), he doted on his wife.

Mosgliakoff inquired after our old friend Afanassy; but in their “remote province” nothing was known of that gentleman.

Feeling a little more at home presently, Paul began to walk about the room, and shortly espied Maria Alexandrovna herself.

She was wonderfully dressed, and was surrounded by a bevy of ladies who evidently dwelt in the glory of her patronage: she appeared to be exceedingly amiable to them—wonderfully so!

Paul plucked up courage and introduced himself.

Maria Alexandrovna seemed to give a shudder at first sight of him, but in an instant she was herself again.

She was kind enough to recognise Paul, and to ask him all sorts of questions as to his Petersburg experiences, and so on.

She never said a word about Mordasof, however.

She behaved as though no such place existed.

After a minute or so, and having dropped a question as to some Petersburg prince whom Paul had never so much as heard of, she turned to speak to another young gentleman standing by, and in a second or two was entirely oblivious of Mosgliakoff.

With a sarcastic smile our friend passed on into the large hall.

Feeling offended—though he knew not why—he decided not to dance.

So he leant his back against one of the pillars, and for a couple of hours did nothing but follow Zina about with his eyes.

But alas!

all the grace of his figure and attitude, and all the fascinations of his general appearance were lost upon her, she never looked at him.

At last, with legs stiff from standing, tired, hungry, and feeling miserable generally, he went home.

Here he tossed about half the night thinking of the past, and next morning, having the chance of joining a branch party of his expedition, he accepted the opportunity with delight, and left the town at once.

The bells tinkled, the horses trotted gaily along, kicking up snowballs as they went.

Paul Mosgliakoff fell to thinking, then he fell to snoring, and so he continued until the third station from the start; there he awoke fresh and jolly, and with the new scenery came newer, and healthier, and pleasanter thoughts.

THE END OF “UNCLE’S DREAM.

” THE PERMANENT HUSBAND.

CHAPTER I.

Summer had come, and Velchaninoff, contrary to his expectations, was still in St. Petersburg.

His trip to the south of Russia had fallen through, and there seemed no end to the business which had detained him.

This business—which was a lawsuit as to certain property—had taken a very disagreeable aspect.

Three months ago the thing had appeared to be by no means complicated—in fact, there had seemed to be scarcely any question as to the rights and wrongs of the matter, but all seemed to change suddenly.

“Everything else seems to have changed for the worse, too!

” said Velchaninoff to himself, over and over again.

He was employing a clever lawyer—an eminent man, and an expensive one, too; but in his impatience and suspicion he began to interfere in the matter himself.

He read and wrote papers—all of which the lawyer put into his waste-paper basket—_holus bolus_; called in continually at the courts and offices, made inquiries, and confused and worried everybody concerned in the matter; so at least the lawyer declared, and begged him for mercy’s sake to go away to the country somewhere.

But he could not make up his mind to do so.

He stayed in town and enjoyed the dust, and the hot nights, and the closeness of the air of St. Petersburg, things which are enough to destroy anyone’s nerves.

His lodgings were somewhere near the Great Theatre; he had lately taken them, and did not like them.

Nothing went well with him; his hypochondria increased with each day, and he had long been a victim to that disorder.

Velchaninoff was a man who had seen a great deal of the world; he was not quite young, thirty-eight years old—perhaps thirty-nine, or so; and all this “old age,” as he called it, had “fallen upon him quite unawares.

” However, as he himself well understood, he had aged more in the _quality_ than in the number of the years of his life; and if his infirmities were really creeping upon him, they must have come from within and not from outside causes.

He looked young enough still.

He was a tall, stout man, with light-brown thick hair, without a suspicion of white about it, and a light beard that reached half way down his chest.

At first sight you might have supposed him to be of a lax, careless disposition or character, but on studying him more closely you would have found that, on the contrary, the man was decidedly a stickler for the proprieties of this world, and withal brought up in the ways and graces of the very best society.

His manners were very good—free but graceful—in spite of this lately-acquired habit of grumbling and reviling things in general.

He was still full of the most perfect, aristocratic self-confidence: probably he did not himself suspect to how great an extent this was so, though he was a most decidedly intelligent, I may say clever, even talented man.

His open, healthy-looking face was distinguished by an almost feminine refinement, which quality gained him much attention from the fair sex.

He had large blue eyes—eyes which ten years ago had known well how to persuade and attract; such clear, merry, careless eyes they had been, that they invariably brought over to his side any person he wished to gain.

Now, when he was nearly forty years old, their ancient, kind, frank expression had died out of them, and a certain cynicism—a cunning—an irony very often, and yet another variety of expression, of late—an expression of melancholy or pain, undefined but keen, had taken the place of the earlier attractive qualities of his eyes.

This expression of melancholy especially showed itself when he was alone; and it was a strange fact that the gay, careless, happy fellow of a couple of years ago, the man who could tell a funny story so inimitably, should now love nothing so well as to be all alone.

He intended to throw up most of his friends—a quite unnecessary step, in spite of his present financial difficulties.

Probably his vanity was to blame for this intention: he could not bear to see his old friends in his present position; with his vain suspicious character it would be most unpalatable to him.

But his vanity began to change its nature in solitude.

It did not grow less, on the contrary; but it seemed to develop into a special type of vanity which was unlike its old self.

This new vanity suffered from entirely different causes, “_higher_ causes, if I may so express it,” he said, “and if there really be higher and lower motives in this world.

” He defined these “higher things” as matters which he could not laugh at, or turn to ridicule when happening in his own individual experience.

Of course it would be quite another thing with the same subjects in society;

by _himself_ he could not ridicule then; but put him among other people, and he would be the first to tear himself from all of those secret resolutions of his conscience made in solitude, and laugh them to scorn.

Very often, on rising from his bed in the morning, he would feel ashamed of the thoughts and feelings which had animated him during the long sleepless night—and his nights of late had been sleepless.

He seemed suspicious of everything and everybody, great and small, and grew mistrustful of himself.

One fact stood out clearly, and that was that during those sleepless nights his thoughts and opinions took huge leaps and bounds, sometimes changing entirely from the thoughts and opinions of the daytime.

This fact struck him very forcibly; and he took occasion to consult an eminent medical friend.

He spoke in fun, but the doctor informed him that the fact of feelings and opinions changing during meditations at night, and during sleeplessness, was one long recognised by science; and that that was especially the case with persons of strong thinking power, and of acute feelings.

He stated further that very often the beliefs of a whole life are uprooted under the melancholy influence of night and inability to sleep, and that often the most fateful resolutions are made under the same influence; that sometimes this impressionability to the mystic influence of the dark hours amounted to a malady, in which case measures must be taken, the radical manner of living should be changed, diet considered, a journey undertaken if possible, etc. , etc. Velchaninoff listened no further, but he was sure that in his own case there was decided malady.

Very soon his morning meditations began to partake of the nature of those of the night, but they were more bitter.

Certain events of his life now began to recur to his memory more and more vividly; they would strike him suddenly, and without apparent reason: things which had been forgotten for ten or fifteen years—some so long ago that he thought it miraculous that he should have been able to recall them at all.

But that was not all—for, after all, what man who has seen any life has not hundreds of such recollections of the past?

The principal point was that all this past came back to him now with an absolutely new light thrown upon it, and he seemed to look at it from an entirely new and unexpected point of view.

Why did some of his acts appear to him now to be nothing better than crimes?

It was not merely in the judgment of his intellect that these things appeared so to him now—had it been only his poor sick mind, he would not have trusted it; but his whole being seemed to condemn him; he would curse and even weep over these recollections of the past!

If anyone had told him a couple of years since that he would _weep_ over anything, he would have laughed the idea to scorn.

At first he recalled the unpleasant experiences of his life: certain failures in society, humiliations; he remembered how some designing person had so successfully blackened his character that he was requested to cease his visits to a certain house; how once, and not so very long ago, he had been publicly insulted, and had not challenged the offender; how once an epigram had been fastened to his name by some witty person, in the midst of a party of pretty women and he had not found a reply; he remembered several unpaid debts, and how he had most stupidly run through two very respectable fortunes.