beggar-girl were constantly ringing in her ears, and she fancied that
she was being called. . . .

The years passed and passed; swiftly and noiselessly, like waters
running under the snow, Elena's youth glided by, outwardly uneventful,
inwardly in conflict and emotion. She had no friend; she did not get
on with any one of all the girls who visited the Stahovs' house. Her
parents' authority had never weighed heavily on Elena, and from her
sixteenth year she became absolutely independent; she began to live a
life of her own, but it was a life of solitude. Her soul glowed, and
the fire died away again in solitude; she struggled like a bird in a
cage, and cage there was none; no one oppressed her, no one restrained
her, while she was torn, and fretted within. Sometimes she did not
understand herself, was even frightened of herself. Everything that
surrounded her seemed to her half-senseless, half-incomprehensible.
'How live without love? and there's no one to love!' she thought; and
she felt terror again at these thoughts, these sensations. At
eighteen, she nearly died of malignant fever; her whole
constitution--naturally healthy and vigorous--was seriously affected,
and it was long before it could perfectly recover; the last traces of
the illness disappeared at last, but Elena Nikolaevna's father was
never tired of talking with some spitefulness of her 'nerves.'
Sometimes she fancied that she wanted something which no one wanted,
of which no one in all Russia dreamed. Then she would grow calmer, and
even laugh at herself, and pass day after day unconcernedly; but
suddenly some over-mastering, nameless force would surge up within
her, and seem to clamour for an outlet. The storm passed over, and the
wings of her soul drooped without flight; but these tempests of
feeling cost her much. However she might strive not to betray what was
passing within her, the suffering of the tormented spirit was