strong cigar, and told the footman to bring him some wine. But the
cigar left a bitter and disgusting taste in his mouth, and the wine
had not the same flavour as it had the year before. And so great
is the effect of giving up a habit, the cigar and the two gulps of
wine made him giddy, and brought on palpitations of the heart, so
that he was obliged to take bromide.

Before going to bed, Tanya said to him:

"Father adores you. You are cross with him about something, and it
is killing him. Look at him; he is ageing, not from day to day, but
from hour to hour. I entreat you, Andryusha, for God's sake, for
the sake of your dead father, for the sake of my peace of mind, be
affectionate to him."

"I can't, I don't want to."

"But why?" asked Tanya, beginning to tremble all over. "Explain
why."

"Because he is antipathetic to me, that's all," said Kovrin carelessly;
and he shrugged his shoulders. "But we won't talk about him: he is
your father."

"I can't understand, I can't," said Tanya, pressing her hands to
her temples and staring at a fixed point. "Something incomprehensible,
awful, is going on in the house. You have changed, grown unlike
yourself. . . . You, clever, extraordinary man as you are, are
irritated over trifles, meddle in paltry nonsense. . . . Such trivial
things excite you, that sometimes one is simply amazed and can't