Where am I going, and what am I going for? What am I going for?"

And it seemed somehow strange to go away without speaking to my wife. I
felt that I was leaving her in uncertainty. Going away, I ought to have
told that she was right, that I really was a bad man.

When I turned away from the pump, I saw in the doorway the
station-master, of whom I had twice made complaints to his superiors,
turning up the collar of his coat, shrinking from the wind and the snow.
He came up to me, and putting two fingers to the peak of his cap, told
me with an expression of helpless confusion, strained respectfulness,
and hatred on his face, that the train was twenty minutes late, and
asked me would I not like to wait in the warm?

"Thank you," I answered, "but I am probably not going. Send word to my
coachman to wait; I have not made up my mind."

I walked to and fro on the platform and thought, should I go away or
not? When the train came in I decided not to go. At home I had to expect
my wife's amazement and perhaps her mockery, the dismal upper storey and
my uneasiness; but, still, at my age that was easier and as it were
more homelike than travelling for two days and nights with strangers to
Petersburg, where I should be conscious every minute that my life was of
no use to any one or to anything, and that it was approaching its end.
No, better at home whatever awaited me there.... I went out of the
station. It was awkward by daylight to return home, where every one was
so glad at my going. I might spend the rest of the day till evening at
some neighbour's, but with whom? With some of them I was on strained
relations, others I did not know at all. I considered and thought of
Ivan Ivanitch.