was under Agafya Mikhailovna's management, with
some boy or other to help her, usually one as clumsy and stupid
as could be found.

There are many interesting recollections bound up with the
memory of this intelligent and original woman. Most of them are
associated in my mind with my father's stories about her. He
could always catch and unravel any interesting psychological
trait, and these traits, which he would mention incidentally,
stuck firmly in my mind. He used to tell, for instance, how
Agafya Mikhailovna complained to him of
sleeplessness.

"Ever since I can remember her, she has suffered from 'a
birch-tree growing inside me from my belly up; it presses against
my chest, and prevents my breathing.'

"She complains of her sleeplessness and the birch-tree and
says: 'There I lay all alone and all quiet, only the clock
ticking on the wall: "Who are you? What are you? Who are you?
What are you?" And I began to think: "Who am I? What am I?" and
so I spent the whole night thinking about it.'

"Why, imagine this is Socrates! 'Know thyself,'" said my
father, telling the story with great enthusiasm.

In the summer-time my mother's brother, Styopa
(Stephen Behrs), who was studying at the time in the school of
jurisprudence, used to come and stay with us. In the autumn he
used to go wolf-hunting with my father and us, with the