reluctance without speaking or noticing my presence; then with his
head wet with washing, smelling of fresh scent, he used to go into
the dining-room to drink his coffee. He used to sit at the table,
sipping his coffee and glancing through the newspapers, while the
maid Polya and I stood respectfully at the door gazing at him. Two
grown-up persons had to stand watching with the gravest attention
a third drinking coffee and munching rusks. It was probably ludicrous
and grotesque, but I saw nothing humiliating in having to stand
near the door, though I was quite as well born and well educated
as Orlov himself.

I was in the first stage of consumption, and was suffering from
something else, possibly even more serious than consumption. I don't
know whether it was the effect of my illness or of an incipient
change in my philosophy of life of which I was not conscious at the
time, but I was, day by day, more possessed by a passionate,
irritating longing for ordinary everyday life. I yearned for mental
tranquillity, health, fresh air, good food. I was becoming a dreamer,
and, like a dreamer, I did not know exactly what I wanted. Sometimes
I felt inclined to go into a monastery, to sit there for days
together by the window and gaze at the trees and the fields; sometimes
I fancied I would buy fifteen acres of land and settle down as a
country gentleman; sometimes I inwardly vowed to take up science
and become a professor at some provincial university. I was a retired
navy lieutenant; I dreamed of the sea, of our squadron, and of the
corvette in which I had made the cruise round the world. I longed
to experience again the indescribable feeling when, walking in the
tropical forest or looking at the sunset in the Bay of Bengal, one
is thrilled with ecstasy and at the same time homesick. I dreamed
of mountains, women, music, and, with the curiosity of a child, I