over him.

"A fine tutor I shall make!" flashed across his mind. "Am I cut
out for a schoolmaster?" He was ready to reproach himself for
having undertaken the duties of a tutor, and would have been
unjust in doing so. Nejdanov was sufficiently cultured, and, in
spite of his uncertain temperament, children grew readily fond of
him and he of them. His depression was due to that feeling which
takes possession of one before any change of place, a feeling
experienced by all melancholy, dreaming people and unknown to
those of energetic, sanguine temperaments, who always rejoice at
any break in the humdrum of their daily existence, and welcome a
change of abode with pleasure. Nejdanov was so lost in his
meditations that his thoughts began quite unconsciously to take
the form of words. His wandering sensations began to arrange
themselves into measured cadences.

"Damn!" he exclaimed aloud. "I'm wandering off into poetry!" He
shook himself and turned away from the window. He caught sight of
Paklin's ten-rouble note, put it in his pocket, and began pacing
up and down the room.

"I must get some money in advance," he thought to himself. "What
a good thing this gentleman suggested it. A hundred roubles . . .
a hundred from my brothers--their excellencies. . . . I want fifty
to pay my debts, fifty or seventy for the journey--and the rest
Ostrodumov can have. Then there are Paklin's ten roubles in
addition, and I dare say I can get something from Merkulov--"

In the midst of these calculations the rhythmic cadences began to