ays something rapidly
in her sleep, or my wife crosses the drawing-room with a candle and
invariably drops the matchbox; or a warped cupboard creaks; or the
burner of the lamp suddenly begins to hum--and all these sounds, for
some reason, excite me.

To lie awake at night means to be at every moment conscious of being
abnormal, and so I look forward with impatience to the morning and the
day when I have a right to be awake. Many wearisome hours pass before
the cock crows in the yard. He is my first bringer of good tidings.
As soon as he crows I know that within an hour the porter will wake up
below, and, coughing angrily, will go upstairs to fetch something. And
then a pale light will begin gradually glimmering at the windows, voices
will sound in the street....

The day begins for me with the entrance of my wife. She comes in to
me in her petticoat, before she has done her hair, but after she has
washed, smelling of flower-scented eau-de-Cologne, looking as though
she had come in by chance. Every time she says exactly the same thing:
"Excuse me, I have just come in for a minute.... Have you had a bad
night again?"

Then she puts out the lamp, sits down near the table, and begins
talking. I am no prophet, but I know what she will talk about. Every
morning it is exactly the same thing. Usually, after anxious inquiries
concerning my health, she suddenly mentions our son who is an officer
serving at Warsaw. After the twentieth of each month we send him fifty
roubles, and that serves as the chief topic of our conversation.

"Of course it is difficult for us," my wife would sigh, "but until he is
completely on his own feet it is our duty to help him. The boy is among
strangers, his pay is small.... However, if you like, next month we
won't send him fifty, but forty. What do you think?"

Daily experience might have taught my wife that constantly talking
of our expenses does not reduce them, but my wife refuses to learn by
experience, and regularly every morning discusses our officer son, and
tells me that bread, thank God, is cheaper, while sugar is a halfpenny
dearer--with a tone and an air as though she were communicating
interesting news.

I listen, mechanically assent, and probably because I have had a bad
night, strange and inappropriate thoughts intrude themselves upon me. I
gaze at my wife and wonder like a child. I ask myself in perplexity,
is it possible that this old, very stout, ungainly woman, with her
dul