Katy

sees that I am chagrined, and desires to soften the bad impression.

"Come. Let's come here. Here."
She leads me into a small room, very cosy, and points to the writing table.
"There. I made it for you. You'll work here. Come every day and bring
your work with you. They only disturb you there at home.... Will you work
here? Would you like to?"
In order not to hurt her by refusing, I answer that I shall work with her and
that I like the room immensely. Then we both sit down in the cosy room and
begin to talk.
The warmth, the cosy surroundings, the presence of a sympathetic being,
rouses in me now not a feeling of pleasure as it used but a strong desire to
complain and grumble. Anyhow it seems to me that if I moan and complain I
shall feel better.
"It's a bad business, my dear," I begin with a sigh. "Very bad."
"What is the matter?"
"I'll tell you what is the matter. The best and most sacred right of kings is
the right to pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this
right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned everyone
right and left. Where others protested and revolted I only advised and
persuaded. All my life I've tried to make my society tolerable to the family of
students, friends and servants. And this attitude of mine towards people, I
know, educated every one who came into contact with me. But now I am king
no more. There's something going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day
and night evil thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never
knew before have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm
exasperated, disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure,
exacting, unkind, and suspicious. Even the things which in the past gave me
the chance of making an extra pun, now bring me a feeling of oppression. My
logic has changed too. I used to despise money alone; now I cherish evil
feelings, not to money, but to the rich, as if they were guilty. I used to hate
violence and arbitrariness; now I hate the people who employ violence, as if
they alone are to blame and not all of us, who cannot educate one another.
What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and feelings come from a change
of my convictions, where could the change have come from? Has the world
grown worse and I better, or was I blind and indifferent before? But if the
change is due to the general decline of my physical and mental powers—I am
sick and losing weight every day—then I'm in a pitiable position. It means that
my new thoughts are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them
and consider them valueless...."
 "Sickness hasn't anything to do with it," Katy interrupts. "Your eyes are
opened—that's all. You've begun to notice things you didn't want to notice
before for some reason. My opinion is that you must break with your family
finally first of all and then go away."
"You're talking nonsense."
"You don't love them any more. Then, why do you behave unfairly? And is
it a family! Mere nobodies. If they died to-day, no one would notice their
absence to-morrow."
Katy despises my wife and daughter as much as they hate her. It's scarcely
possible nowadays to speak of the right of people to despise one another. But
if you accept Katy's point of view and own that such a right exists, you will
notice that she has the same right to despise my wife and Liza as they have to
hate her.
"Mere nobodies!" she repeats. "Did you have any dinner to-day? It's a
wonder they didn't forget to tell you dinner was ready. I don't know how they
still remember that you exist."
"Katy!" I say sternly. "Please be quiet."
"You don't think it's fun for me to talk about them, do you? I wish I didn't
know them at all. You listen to me, dear. Leave everything and go away: go
abroad—the quicker, the better."
"What nonsense! What about the University?"
"And the University, too. What is it to you? There's no sense in it all.
You've been lecturing for thirty years, and where are your pupils? Have you
many famous scholars? Count them up. But to increase the number of doctors
who exploit the general ignorance and make hundreds of thousands,—there's
no need to be a good and gifted man. You aren't wanted."
"My God, how bitter you are!" I get terrified. "How bitter you are. Be
quiet, or I'll go away. I can't reply to the bitter things you say."
The maid enters and calls us to tea. Thank God, our conversation changes
round the samovar. I have made my moan, and now I want to indulge another
senile weakness—reminiscences. I tell Katy about my past, to my great
surprise with details that I never suspected I had kept safe in my memory. And
she listens to me with emotion, with pride, holding her breath. I like
particularly to tell how I once was a student at a seminary and how I dreamed
of entering the University.
"I used to walk in the seminary garden," I tell her, "and the wind would
bring the sound of a song and the thrumming of an accordion from a distant
tavern, or a troika with bells would pass quickly by the seminary fence. That