but blushed always to the point of weeping. The strangest and
most confused of thoughts kept entering my brain. One of them--
the most extravagant--was that I should dearly like to go to
Pokrovski, and to explain to him the situation, and to make full
confession, and to tell him everything without concealment, and
to assure him that I had not acted foolishly as a minx, but
honestly and of set purpose. In fact, I DID make up my mind to
take this course, but lacked the necessary courage to do it. If I
had done so, what a figure I should have cut! Even now I am
ashamed to think of it.

A few days later, my mother suddenly fell dangerously ill. For
two days past she had not left her bed, while during the third
night of her illness she became seized with fever and delirium. I
also had not closed my eyes during the previous night, but now
waited upon my mother, sat by her bed, brought her drink at
intervals, and gave her medicine at duly appointed hours. The
next night I suffered terribly. Every now and then sleep would
cause me to nod, and objects grow dim before my eyes. Also, my
head was turning dizzy, and I could have fainted for very
weariness. Yet always my mother's feeble moans recalled me to
myself as I started, momentarily awoke, and then again felt
drowsiness overcoming me. What torture it was! I do not know, I
cannot clearly remember, but I think that, during a moment when
wakefulness was thus contending with slumber, a strange dream, a
horrible vision, visited my overwrought brain, and I awoke in
terror. The room was nearly in darkness, for the candle was
flickering, and throwing stray beams of light which suddenly
illuminated the room, danced for a moment on the walls, and then
disappeared. Somehow I felt afraid--a sort of horror had come