then individual words would be changed, and then whole sentences,
till in the end the proof-sheet would be reduced to a mass of
patches quite black in places, and it was quite impossible to
send it back as it stood, because no one but my mother could make
head or tail of the tangle of conventional signs, transpositions,
and erasures.

My mother would sit up all night copying the whole thing out
afresh.

In the morning there would lie the pages on her table,
neatly piled together, covered all over with her fine, clear
handwriting, and everything ready so that when
"Lyovotchka" got up he could send the proof-sheets off by
post.


My father carried them off to his study to have "just one
last look," and by the evening it would be just as bad again, the
whole thing having been rewritten and messed up.

"Sonya my dear, I am very sorry, but I've spoiled all your
work again; I promise I won't do it any more," he would say,
showing her the passages he had inked over with a guilty air.
"We'll send them off to-morrow without fail." But this to-morrow
was often put off day by day for weeks or months together.

"There's just one bit I want to look through again," my
father would say; but he would get carried away and recast the
whole thing afresh.