home, and my mother had few spare moments; wherefore, I found
myself forgotten.

The first morning after our arrival, when I awoke from sleep, how
sad I felt! I could see that our windows looked out upon a drab
space of wall, and that the street below was littered with filth.
Passers-by were few, and as they walked they kept muffling
themselves up against the cold.

Then there ensued days when dullness and depression reigned
supreme. Scarcely a relative or an acquaintance did we possess in
St. Petersburg, and even Anna Thedorovna and my father had come
to loggerheads with one another, owing to the fact that he owed
her money. In fact, our only visitors were business callers, and
as a rule these came but to wrangle, to argue, and to raise a
disturbance. Such visits would make my father look very
discontented, and seem out of temper. For hours and hours he
would pace the room with a frown on his face and a brooding
silence on his lips. Even my mother did not dare address him at
these times, while, for my own part, I used to sit reading
quietly and humbly in a corner--not venturing to make a movement
of any sort.

Three months after our arrival in St. Petersburg I was sent to a
boarding-school. Here I found myself thrown among strange people;
here everything was grim and uninviting, with teachers
continually shouting at me, and my fellow-pupils for ever holding
me up to derision, and myself constantly feeling awkward and
uncouth. How strict, how exacting was the system! Appointed hours
for everything, a common table, ever-insistent teachers! These