She gave up medicine, and, silent and unoccupied, as though she were a prisoner, spent the remainder of her youth in colourless apathy, with bowed head and hanging hands.  The only thing to which she was not completely indifferent, and which brought some brightness into the twilight of her life, was the presence of her brother, whom she loved.  She loved him himself and his programme, she was full of reverence for his articles; and when she was asked what her brother was doing, she would answer in a subdued voice as though afraid of waking or distracting him:  “He is writing. . . .”  Usually when he was at his work she used to sit beside him, her eyes fixed on his writing hand.  She used at such moments to look like a sick animal warming itself in the sun. . . .

One winter evening Vladimir Semyonitch was sitting at his table writing a critical article for his newspaper:  Vera Semyonovna was sitting beside him, staring as usual at his writing hand.  The critic wrote rapidly, without erasures or corrections.  The pen scratched and squeaked.  On the table near the writing hand there lay open a freshly-cut volume of a thick magazine, containing a story of peasant life, signed with two initials.  Vladimir Semyonitch was enthusiastic; he thought the author was admirable in his handling of the subject, suggested Turgenev in his descriptions of nature, was truthful, and had an excellent knowledge of the life of the peasantry.  The critic himself knew nothing of peasant life except from books and hearsay, but his feelings and his inner convictions forced him to believe the story.  He foretold a brilliant future for the author, assured him he should await the conclusion of the story with great impatience, and so on.

“Fine story!” he said, flinging himself back in his chair and closing his eyes with pleasure.  “The tone is extremely good.”

Vera Semyonovna looked at him, yawned aloud, and suddenly asked an unexpected question.  In the evening she had a habit of yawning nervously and asking short, abrupt questions, not always relevant.

“Volodya,” she asked, “what is the meaning of non-resistance to evil?”

“Non-resistance to evil!” repeated her brother, opening his eyes.

“Yes.  What do you understand by it?”

“You see, my dear, imagine that thieves or brigands attack you, and you, instead of . . .”

“No, give me a logical definition.

“A logical definition?  Um!  Well.”  Vladimir Semyonitch pondered.  “Non-resistance to evil means an attitude of non-interference with regard to all that in the sphere of mortality is called evil.”

Saying this, Vladimir Semyonitch bent over the table and took up a novel.  This novel, written by a woman, dealt with the painfulness of the irregular position of a society lady who was living under the same roof with her lover and her illegitimate child.  Vladimir Semyonitch was pleased with the excellent tendency of the story, the plot and the presentation of it.  Making a brief summary of the novel, he selected the best passages and added to them in his account:  “How true to reality, how living, how picturesque!  The author is not merely an artist; he is also a subtle psychologist who can see into the hearts of his characters.  Take, for example, this vivid description of the emotions of the heroine on meeting her husband,” and so on.