es now."

And Posdnicheff rose abruptly, took a few steps, and sat down again.

"Oh, I am afraid, I am afraid of railway carriages. Fear seizes me. I
sat down again, and I said to myself: 'I must think of something else.
For instance, of the inn keeper at whose house I took tea.' And then, in
my imagination arose the dvornik, with his long beard, and his grandson,
a little fellow of the same age as my little Basile. My little Basile!
My little Basile! He will see the musician kiss his mother! What
thoughts will pass through his poor soul! But what does that matter to
her! She loves.

"And again it all began, the circle of the same thoughts. I suffered
so much that at last I did not know what to do with myself, and an idea
passed through my head that pleased me much,--to get out upon the rails,
throw myself under the cars, and thus finish everything. One thing
prevented me from doing so. It was pity! It was pity for myself, evoking
at the same time a hatred for her, for him, but not so much for him.
Toward him I felt a strange sentiment of my humiliation and his victory,
but toward her a terrible hatred.

"'But I cannot kill myself and leave her free. She must suffer, she must
understand at least that I have suffered,' said I to myself.

"At a station I saw people drinking at the lunch counter, and directly I
went to swallow a glass of vodki. Beside me stood a Jew, drinking also.
He began to talk to me, and I, in order not to be left alone in my
compartment, went with him into his third-class, dirty, full of smoke,
and covered with peelings and sunflower seeds. There I sat down beside
the Jew, and, as it seemed, he told many anecdotes.

"First I listened to him, but I did not understand what he said. He
noticed it, and exacted my attention to his person. Then I rose and
entered my own compartment.

"'I must consider,' said I to myself, 'whether what I think is true,
whether there is any reason to torment myself.' I sat down, wishing to
reflect quietly; but directly, instead of the peaceful reflections, the
same thing began again. Instead of the reasoning, the pictures.

"'How many times have I tormented myself in this way,' I thought (I
recalled previous and similar fits of jealousy), 'and then seen it end
in nothing at all? It is the same now. Perhaps, yes, surely, I shall
find her quietly sleeping. She will awaken, she will be glad, and in her
words and looks I shall see that nothing has happened, that all this