ause of my provincialism, that it had always been so, and always
would be so, and that such must be and is the inevitable condition of
civilization. In London it is even worse. Of course there is nothing
wrong about it, and it is impossible to be displeased with it. I began
to reply to my friend, but with so much heat and ill-temper, that my wife
ran in from the adjoining room to inquire what had happened. It appears
that, without being conscious of it myself, I had been shouting, with
tears in my voice, and flourishing my hands at my friend. I shouted:
"It's impossible to live thus, impossible to live thus, impossible!" They
made me feel ashamed of my unnecessary warmth; they told me that I could
not talk quietly about any thing, that I got disagreeably excited; and
they proved to me, especially, that the existence of such unfortunates
could not possibly furnish any excuse for imbittering the lives of those
about me.

I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my peace; but in the depths
of my soul I was conscious that I was in the right, and I could not
regain my composure.

And the life of the city, which had, even before this, been so strange
and repellent to me, now disgusted me to such a degree, that all the
pleasures of a life of luxury, which had hitherto appeared to me as
pleasures, become tortures to me. And try as I would, to discover in my
own soul any justification whatever for our life, I could not, without
irritation, behold either my own or other people's drawing-rooms, nor our
tables spread in the lordly style, nor our equipages and horses, nor
shops, theatres, and assemblies. I could not behold alongside these the
hungry, cold, and down-trodden inhabitants of the Lyapinsky house. And I
could not rid myself of the thought that these two things were bound up
together, that the one arose from the other. I remember, that, as this
feeling of my own guilt presented itself to me at the first blush, so it
persisted in me, but to this feeling a second was speedily added which
overshadowed it.

When I mentioned my impressions of the Lyapinsky house to my nearest
friends and acquaintances, they all gave me the same answer as the first
friend at whom I had begun to shout; but, in addition to this, they
expressed their approbation of my kindness of heart and my sensibility,
and gave me to understand that this sight had so especially worked upon
me because I, Lyof Nikolaevitch, was very kind and good.