hurriedly, dress, and cautiously, that my family may not notice, slip out into the street. Where am I to go?

The answer to that question has long been ready in my brain. To Katya.

III

As a rule she is lying on the sofa or in a lounge-chair, reading. Seeing me, she raises her head languidly, sits up, and shakes hands.

‘You are always lying down,’ I say, after pausing and taking breath. ‘That’s not good for you. You ought to occupy yourself with something.’

‘What?’

‘I say you ought to occupy yourself in some way.’

‘With what? A woman can be nothing but a simple workwoman or an actress.’

‘Well, if you can’t be a workwoman, be an actress.’

She says nothing.

‘You ought to get married,’ I say, half in jest.

‘There is no one to marry. There’s no reason to, either.’

‘You can’t live like this.’

‘Without a husband? Much that matters; I could have as many men as I like if I wanted to.’

‘That’s ugly, Katya.’

‘What is ugly?’

‘Why, what you have just said.’

Noticing that I am hurt and wishing to efface the disagreeable impression, Katya says:

‘Let us go; come this way.’

She takes me into a very snug little room, and says, pointing to the writing-table:

‘Look…I have got that ready for you. You shall work here. Come here every day and bring your work with you. They only hinder you there at home. Will you work here? Will you like to?’

Not to wound her by refusing, I answer that I will work here, and that I like the room very much. Then we both sit down in the snug little room and begin talking.

The warm, snug surroundings and the presence of a sympathetic person does not, as in old days, arouse in me a feeling of pleasure, but an intense impulse to complain and grumble. I feel for some reason that if I lament and complain I shall feel better.

‘Things are in a bad way with me, my dear—very bad.…’

‘What is it?’