the time, with dejectedly drooping head; and by his downcast aspect
evoked a feeling of compassion in the two ladies, who now, in their
turn, tried to divert him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his
plate, and rolled bread-balls. On the fifth day the feeling of pity in
the ladies began to be replaced by another--by distrust and even fear.
Mísha had grown wild, he avoided people and kept walking along the wall,
as though creeping stealthily, and suddenly darting glances around him,
as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy
complexion? It seemed to be covered with earth.

"Art thou still ill?" I asked him.

"No; I am well," he answered abruptly.

"Art thou bored?"

"Why should I be bored?"--But he turned away and would not look me in
the eye.

"Or hast thou grown melancholy again?"--To this he made no reply.

On the following day my aunt ran into my study in a state of great
excitement, and declared that she and her niece would leave my house if
Mísha were to remain in it.

"Why so?"

"Why, we feel afraid of him.... He is not a man,--he is a wolf, a
regular wolf. He stalks and stalks about, saying never a word, and has
such a wild look.... He all but gnashes his teeth. My Kátya is such a