The tenor belonged to Groholsky.

Groholsky saw me to the station.

“He is a despot, a tyrant,” he kept whispering to me all the way.  “He is a generous man, but a tyrant!  Neither heart nor brain are developed in him. . . .  He tortures me!  If it were not for that noble woman, I should have gone away long ago.  I am sorry to leave her.  It’s somehow easier to endure together.”

Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on: 

“She is with child. . . .  You notice it?  It is really my child. . . .  Mine. . . .  She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again.  She cannot endure him. . . .”

“You are a rag,” I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky.

“Yes, I am a man of weak character. . . .  That is quite true.  I was born so.  Do you know how I came into the world?  My late papa cruelly oppressed a certain little clerk—­it was awful how he treated him!  He poisoned his life.  Well . . . and my late mama was tender-hearted.  She came from the people, she was of the working class. . . .  She took that little clerk to her heart from pity. . . .  Well . . . and so I came into the world. . . .  The son of the ill-treated clerk.  How could I have a strong will?  Where was I to get it from?  But that’s the second bell. . . .  Good-bye.  Come and see us again, but don’t tell Ivan Petrovitch what I have said about him.”

I pressed Groholsky’s hand, and got into the train.  He bowed towards the carriage, and went to the water-barrel—­I suppose he was thirsty!

THE DOCTOR

IT was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that had flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing against the ceiling.  Olga Ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was standing by the window, looking out at the flower-beds and thinking.  Dr. Tsvyetkov, who was her doctor as well as an old friend, and had been sent for to treat her son Misha, was sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which he held in both hands, and he too was thinking.  Except them, there was not a soul in the drawing-room or in the adjoining rooms.  The sun had set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners under the furniture and on the cornices.

The silence was broken by Olga Ivanovna.

“No misfortune more terrible can be imagined,” she said, without turning from the window.  “You know that life has no value for me whatever apart from the boy.”

“Yes, I know that,” said the doctor.

“No value whatever,” said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered.  “He is everything to me.  He is my joy, my happiness, my wealth.  And if, as you say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing left of me but a shadow.  I cannot survive it.”

Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one window to the other and went on: 

“When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be compared with now?  Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you understand?  I am a mother, and that’s all I care to know.  Between the present and the past there is an impassable gulf.”