as though he
were dragging spidery strands of nerves through my body, fitting them
all on to stiff, tight wires. He reached my chin, and then again,
sneering up into my eyes, he began to tickle. I thought once more that
I had him, but once again he was in the air. Then, after waiting until
I had almost sunk back into sleep, he did the worst thing that a fly
can do, began, very slowly, to crawl down the inside of my pince-nez
(I had been trying to read). He got between the glass and my eyelash
and moved very faintly with his damnable legs. Then my patience
went--I did what during these last days I have vowed not to do, lost
my control, jumped from my bed, and cursed with rage....

Then with my head almost bursting with heat and my legs trembling I
had an awful moment, I thought that I was really mad. I thought that I
would get the looking-glass and smash it and that then I would jump
from the window. In another moment I thought that something would
break in my head, the something with which I kept control over
myself--I seemed to hear myself praying aloud: "Oh God! let me keep my
reason! Oh God! let me keep my reason!" and I could see the Forest
like a great green hot wave rising beyond the window to a towering
height ready to leap down upon me.

Then Semyonov came in. He stood in the doorway and looked at me. He
must have thought me strange and I know that I waited, staring at him,
feeling foolish as I always do with him. But he spoke to me kindly,
with the sort of kindness that there is sometimes in his voice,
patronising and reluctant of course.

"You can't sleep, Mr.?" he said.

"No," I answered, and said something about flies.

"What have you been doing to the looking-glass?" he asked, laughing,
for there the thing was on the floor, broken into pieces. I am sure
that I never touched it.

"That's unlucky," he said. "Never mind, Mr.," he said smiling at me,
"twenty-two misfortunes, aren't you? Always dropping something," he
added quite kindly. "More, perhaps, than the rest of us.... Wash your
face in cold water. It's this infernal heat that worries us all."

I remember then that he poured the water into the blue tin basin for
me and then, taking the tin mug himself, poured it in cupfuls over my
hands and arms. I afterwards did the same for him. At that moment I
very nearly spoke to him of Marie. I wished desperately to try; but I
looked at his face, and his eyes, laughing at me as they always did,
stopped me