es. But
she never forgot anything, while he sometimes forgot too quickly, and
encouraged by her composure he would not infrequently, if friends came
in, laugh and make jokes over the champagne the very same day. With what
malignancy she must have looked at him at such moments, while he noticed
nothing! Perhaps in a week's time, a month's time, or even six months
later, chancing to recall some phrase in such a letter, and then the
whole letter with all its attendant circumstances, he would suddenly
grow hot with shame, and be so upset that he fell ill with one of his
attacks of "summer cholera." These attacks of a sort of "summer cholera"
were, in some cases, the regular consequence of his nervous agitations
and were an interesting peculiarity of his physical constitution.

No doubt Varvara Petrovna did very often hate him. But there was one
thing he had not discerned up to the end: that was that he had become
for her a son, her creation, even, one may say, her invention; he had
become flesh of her flesh, and she kept and supported him not simply
from "envy of his talents." And how wounded she must have been by such
suppositions! An inexhaustible love for him lay concealed in her heart
in the midst of continual hatred, jealousy, and contempt. She would not
let a speck of dust fall upon him, coddled him up for twenty-two years,
would not have slept for nights together if there were the faintest
breath against his reputation as a poet, a learned man, and a public
character. She had invented him, and had been the first to believe in
her own invention. He was, after a fashion, her day-dream.... But in
return she exacted a great deal from him, sometimes even slavishness. It
was incredible how long she harboured resentment. I have two anecdotes
to tell about that.

IV

On one occasion, just at the time when the first rumours of the
emancipation of the serfs were in the air, when all Russia was exulting
and making ready for a complete regeneration, Varvara Petrovna was
visited by a baron from Petersburg, a man of the highest connections,
and very closely associated with the new reform. Varvara Petrovna prized
such visits highly, as her connections in higher circles had grown
weaker and weaker since the death of her husband, and had at last ceased
altogether. The baron spent an hour drinking tea with her. There was no
one else present but Stepan Trofimovitch, whom Varvara Petrovna invited
and exhibited. The baron had heard