'You may laugh! I came here because I'm at my wits' end, because I
am devoured by despair, anger, jealousy.'

'Jealousy? of whom?'

'Of you and him and every one. I'm tortured by the thought that if I
had understood her sooner, if I had set to work cleverly--But what's
the use of talking! It must end by my always laughing, playing the
fool, turning things into ridicule as she says, and then setting to
and strangling myself.'

'Stuff, you won't strangle yourself,' observed Bersenyev.

'On such a night, of course not; but only let me live on till the
autumn. On such a night people do die too, but only of happiness. Ah,
happiness! Every shadow that stretches across the road from every
tree seems whispering now: "I know where there is happiness . . .
shall I tell you?" I would ask you to come for a walk, only now you're
under the influence of prose. Go to sleep, and may your dreams be
visited by mathematical figures! My heart is breaking. You, worthy
gentlemen, see a man laughing, and that means to your notions he's all
right; you can prove to him that he's humbugging himself, that's to
say, he is not suffering. . . . God bless you!'

Shubin abruptly left the window. 'Annu-shka!' Bersenyev felt an
impulse to shout after him, but he restrained himself; Shubin had
really been white with emotion. Two minutes later, Bersenyev even
caught the sound of sobbing; he got up and opened the window;
everything was still, only somewhere in the distance some one--a
passing peasant, probably--was humming 'The Plain of Mozdok.'