l expression of petty anxiety and alarm about daily bread, with eyes
dimmed by continual brooding over debts and money difficulties, who
can talk of nothing but expenses and who smiles at nothing but things
getting cheaper--is it possible that this woman is no other than the
slender Varya whom I fell in love with so passionately for her fine,
clear intelligence, for her pure soul, her beauty, and, as Othello his
Desdemona, for her "sympathy" for my studies? Could that woman be no
other than the Varya who had once borne me a son?

I look with strained attention into the face of this flabby, spiritless,
clumsy old woman, seeking in her my Varya, but of her past self nothing
is left but her anxiety over my health and her manner of calling my
salary "our salary," and my cap "our cap." It is painful for me to look
at her, and, to give her what little comfort I can, I let her say what
she likes, and say nothing even when she passes unjust criticisms on
other people or pitches into me for not having a private practice or not
publishing text-books.

Our conversation always ends in the same way. My wife suddenly remembers
with dismay that I have not had my tea.

"What am I thinking about, sitting here?" she says, getting up. "The
samovar has been on the table ever so long, and here I stay gossiping.
My goodness! how forgetful I am growing!"

She goes out quickly, and stops in the doorway to say:

"We owe Yegor five months' wages. Did you know it? You mustn't let the
servants' wages run on; how many times I have said it! It's much easier
to pay ten roubles a month than fifty roubles every five months!"

As she goes out, she stops to say:

"The person I am sorriest for is our Liza. The girl studies at the
Conservatoire, always mixes with people of good position, and goodness
knows how she is dressed. Her fur coat is in such a state she is ashamed
to show herself in the street. If she were somebody else's daughter
it wouldn't matter, but of course every one knows that her father is a
distinguished professor, a privy councillor."

And having reproached me with my rank and reputation, she goes away at
last. That is how my day begins. It does not improve as it goes on.

As I am drinking my tea, my Liza comes in wearing her fur coat and
her cap, with her music in her hand, already quite ready to go to the
Conservatoire. She is two-and-twenty. She looks younger, is pretty,
and rather like my wife in her young days. She kisses m