myself did not know to what they related. Anything and everything
would enter into them, for my father would say that I was an
utter dunce at the French language; that the head mistress of my
school was a stupid, common sort of women who cared nothing for
morals; that he (my father) had not yet succeeded in obtaining
another post; that Lamonde's "Grammar" was a wretched book--even
a worse one than Zapolski's; that a great deal of money had been
squandered upon me; that it was clear that I was wasting my time
in repeating dialogues and vocabularies; that I alone was at
fault, and that I must answer for everything. Yet this did not
arise from any WANT OF LOVE for me on the part of my father, but
rather from the fact that he was incapable of putting himself in
my own and my mother's place. It came of a defect of character.

All these cares and worries and disappointments tortured my poor
father until he became moody and distrustful. Next he began to
neglect his health. with the result that, catching a chill, he
died, after a short illness, so suddenly and unexpectedly that
for a few days we were almost beside ourselves with the shock --
my mother, in particular, lying for a while in such a state of
torpor that I had fears for her reason. The instant my father was
dead creditors seemed to spring up out of the ground, and to
assail us en masse. Everything that we possessed had to be
surrendered to them, including a little house which my father had
bought six months after our arrival in St. Petersburg. How
matters were finally settled I do not know, but we found
ourselves roofless, shelterless, and without a copper. My mother
was grievously ill, and of means of subsistence we had none.
Before us there loomed only ruin, sheer ruin. At the time I was
fourteen years old. Soon afterwards Anna Thedorovna came to see