.."_

"Enough, Stepan Trofimovitch. Leave me in peace. I'm worn out. We
shall have time to talk to our heart's content, especially of what's
unpleasant. You've begun to splutter when you laugh, it's a sign of
senility! And what a strange way of laughing you've taken to!... Good
Heavens, what a lot of bad habits you've fallen into! Karmazinov won't
come and see you! And people are only too glad to make the most of
anything as it is.... You've betrayed yourself completely now. Well,
come, that's enough, that's enough, I'm tired. You really might have
mercy upon one!"

Stepan Trofimovitch "had mercy," but he withdrew in great perturbation.

V

Our friend certainly had fallen into not a few bad habits, especially of
late. He had obviously and rapidly deteriorated; and it was true that
he had become slovenly. He drank more and had become more tearful and
nervous; and had grown too impressionable on the artistic side. His
face had acquired a strange facility for changing with extraordinary
quickness, from the most solemn expression, for instance, to the most
absurd, and even foolish. He could not endure solitude, and was always
craving for amusement. One had always to repeat to him some gossip, some
local anecdote, and every day a new one. If no one came to see him for
a long time he wandered disconsolately about the rooms, walked to the
window, puckering up his lips, heaved deep sighs, and almost fell to
whimpering at last. He was always full of forebodings, was afraid of
something unexpected and inevitable; he had become timorous; he began to
pay great attention to his dreams.

He spent all that day and evening in great depression, he sent for me,
was very much agitated, talked a long while, gave me a long account of
things, but all rather disconnected. Varvara Petrovna had known for a
long time that he concealed nothing from me. It seemed to me at last
that he was worried about something particular, and was perhaps unable
to form a definite idea of it himself. As a rule when we met _tete-a-tete_
and he began making long complaints to me, a bottle was almost always
brought in after a little time, and things became much more comfortable.
This time there was no wine, and he was evidently struggling all the
while against the desire to send for it.

"And why is she always so cross?" he complained every minute, like a
child. _"Tous les hommes de genie et de progres en Russie etaient,
sont, et seront toujours des_ gamble