On the following day lessons were renewed, and life fell back in
its ordinary rut.

A week flew by in this way. Nejdanov's thoughts and experiences
during that time may be best gathered from an extract of a letter
he wrote to a certain Silin, an old school chum and his best
friend. Silin did not live in St. Petersburg, but in a distant
provincial town, with an old relative on whom he was entirely
dependent. His position was such that he could hardly dream of
ever getting away from there. He was a man of very poor health,
timid, of limited capacity, but of an extraordinarily pure
nature. He did not interest himself in politics, but read
anything that came in his way, played on the flute as a resource
against boredom, and was afraid of young ladies. Silin was
passionately fond of Nejdanov--he had an affectionate heart in
general. Nejdanov did not express himself to anyone as freely as
he did to Vladimir Silin; when writing to him he felt as if he
were communicating to some dear and intimate soul, dwelling in
another world, or to his own conscience. Nejdanov could not for a
moment conceive of the idea of living together again with Silin, as
comrades in the same town. He would probably have lost interest
in him, as there was little in common between them, but he wrote
him long letters gladly with the fullest confidence. With others,
on paper at any rate, he was not himself, but this never happened
when writing to Silin. The latter was not a master in the art of
writing, and responded only in short clumsy sentences, but
Nejdanov had no need of lengthy replies; he knew quite well that
his friend swallowed every word of his, as the dust in the road
swallows each drop of rain, that he would keep his secrets