It turned out that he, too, belonged to the “horde of savages.”  Later on, from certain hints, I gathered that there had been an attempt at suicide.  I believe Katya tried to poison herself.  I imagine that she must have been seriously ill afterwards, as the next letter I got was from Yalta, where she had most probably been sent by the doctors.  Her last letter contained a request to send her a thousand roubles to Yalta as quickly as possible, and ended with these words: 

“Excuse the gloominess of this letter; yesterday I buried my child.”  After spending about a year in the Crimea, she returned home.

She had been about four years on her travels, and during those four years, I must confess, I had played a rather strange and unenviable part in regard to her.  When in earlier days she had told me she was going on the stage, and then wrote to me of her love; when she was periodically overcome by extravagance, and I continually had to send her first one and then two thousand roubles; when she wrote to me of her intention of suicide, and then of the death of her baby, every time I lost my head, and all my sympathy for her sufferings found no expression except that, after prolonged reflection, I wrote long, boring letters which I might just as well not have written.  And yet I took a father’s place with her and loved her like a daughter!

Now Katya is living less than half a mile off.  She has taken a flat of five rooms, and has installed herself fairly comfortably and in the taste of the day.  If any one were to undertake to describe her surroundings, the most characteristic note in the picture would be indolence.  For the indolent body there are soft lounges, soft stools; for indolent feet soft rugs; for indolent eyes faded, dingy, or flat colours; for the indolent soul the walls are hung with a number of cheap fans and trivial pictures, in which the originality of the execution is more conspicuous than the subject; and the room contains a multitude of little tables and shelves filled with utterly useless articles of no value, and shapeless rags in place of curtains....  All this, together with the dread of bright colours, of symmetry, and of empty space, bears witness not only to spiritual indolence, but also to a corruption of natural taste.  For days together Katya lies on the lounge reading, principally novels and stories.  She only goes out of the house once a day, in the afternoon, to see me.

I go on working while Katya sits silent not far from me on the sofa, wrapping herself in her shawl, as though she were cold.  Either because I find her sympathetic or because I was used to her frequent visits when she was a little girl, her presence does not prevent me from concentrating my attention.  From time to time I mechanically ask her some question; she gives very brief replies; or, to rest for a minute, I turn round and watch her as she looks dreamily at some medical journal or review.  And at such moments