and his mouth worked like a toothless old man's, like Uncle Nikolay
Nikolaitch's.

"Olya," he said, wringing his hands; big tears suddenly dropping
from his eyes. "Olya, I don't care about your property qualification,
nor the Circuit Courts . . ." (he gave a sob) "nor particular views,
nor those visitors, nor your fortune. . . . I don't care about
anything! Why didn't we take care of our child? Oh, it's no good
talking!"

With a despairing gesture he went out of the bedroom.

But nothing mattered to Olga Mihalovna now, there was a mistiness
in her brain from the chloroform, an emptiness in her soul. . . .
The dull indifference to life which had overcome her when the two
doctors were performing the operation still had possession of her.


TERROR

My Friend's Story

DMITRI PETROVITCH SILIN had taken his degree and entered the
government service in Petersburg, but at thirty he gave up his post
and went in for agriculture. His farming was fairly successful, and
yet it always seemed to me that he was not in his proper place, and
that he would do well to go back to Petersburg. When sunburnt, grey
with dust, exhausted with toil, he met me near the gates or at the
entrance, and then at supper struggled with sleepiness and his wife
took him off to bed as though he were a baby; or when, overcoming