. . . . But that would seem as though I took my hysterics too seriously.
I ought to take it as a joke. . . ."

He looked in the looking-glass, sat there for some time, and went
back into the drawing-room.

"Here I am," he said, smiling; he felt agonisingly ashamed, and he
felt others were ashamed in his presence. "Fancy such a thing
happening," he said, sitting down. "I was sitting here, and all of
a sudden, do you know, I felt a terrible piercing pain in my side
. . . unendurable, my nerves could not stand it, and . . . and it
led to this silly performance. This is the age of nerves; there is
no help for it."

At supper he drank some wine, and, from time to time, with an abrupt
sigh rubbed his side as though to suggest that he still felt the
pain. And no one, except Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, believed him, and
he saw that.

After nine o'clock they went for a walk on the boulevard. Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna, afraid that Kirilin would speak to her, did her best
to keep all the time beside Marya Konstantinovna and the children.
She felt weak with fear and misery, and felt she was going to be
feverish; she was exhausted and her legs would hardly move, but she
did not go home, because she felt sure that she would be followed
by Kirilin or Atchmianov or both at once. Kirilin walked behind her
with Nikodim Alexandritch, and kept humming in an undertone:

"I don't al-low people to play with me! I don't al-low it."