And Ivan Alexeyitch remembers that he went back again.  Urging himself on with his memories, forcing himself to picture Vera, he strode rapidly towards the garden.  There was no mist by then along the road or in the garden, and the bright moon looked down from the sky as though it had just been washed; only the eastern sky was dark and misty. . . .  Ognev remembers his cautious steps, the dark windows, the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette.  His old friend Karo, wagging his tail amicably, came up to him and sniffed his hand.  This was the one living creature who saw him walk two or three times round the house, stand near Vera’s dark window, and with a deep sigh and a wave of his hand walk out of the garden.

An hour later he was in the town, and, worn out and exhausted, leaned his body and hot face against the gatepost of the inn as he knocked at the gate.  Somewhere in the town a dog barked sleepily, and as though in response to his knock, someone clanged the hour on an iron plate near the church.

“You prowl about at night,” grumbled his host, the Old Believer, opening the door to him, in a long nightgown like a woman’s.  “You had better be saying your prayers instead of prowling about.”

When Ivan Alexeyitch reached his room he sank on the bed and gazed a long, long time at the light.  Then he tossed his head and began packing.

MY LIFE

THE STORY OF A PROVINCIAL

I

The Superintendent said to me:  “I only keep you out of regard for your worthy father; but for that you would have been sent flying long ago.”  I replied to him:  “You flatter me too much, your Excellency, in assuming that I am capable of flying.”  And then I heard him say:  “Take that gentleman away; he gets upon my nerves.”

Two days later I was dismissed.  And in this way I have, during the years I have been regarded as grown up, lost nine situations, to the great mortification of my father, the architect of our town.  I have served in various departments, but all these nine jobs have been as alike as one drop of water is to another:  I had to sit, write, listen to rude or stupid observations, and go on doing so till I was dismissed.

When I came in to my father he was sitting buried in a low arm-chair with his eyes closed.  His dry, emaciated face, with a shade of dark blue where it was shaved (he looked like an old Catholic organist), expressed meekness and resignation.  Without responding to my greeting or opening his eyes, he said: 

“If my dear wife and your mother were living, your life would have been a source of continual distress to her.  I see the Divine Providence in her premature death.  I beg you, unhappy boy,” he continued, opening his eyes, “tell me:  what am I to do with you?”