anything. Liza and the prince became every day more devoted to each
other ... But I had absolutely lost all sense of personal dignity, and
could not tear myself away from the spectacle of my own misery. I
remember one day I tried not to go, swore to myself in the morning that
I would stay at home, and at eight o'clock in the evening (I usually
set off at seven) leaped up like a madman, put on my hat, and ran
breathless into Kirilla Matveitch's drawing-room. My position was
excessively absurd. I was obstinately silent; sometimes for whole days
together I did not utter a sound. I was, as I have said already, never
distinguished for eloquence; but now everything I had in my mind took
flight, as it were, in the presence of the prince, and I was left bare
and bereft. Besides, when I was alone, I set my wretched brain working
so hard, slowly going over everything I had noticed or surmised during
the preceding day, that when I went back to the Ozhogins' I scarcely
had energy left to observe again. They treated me considerately, as a
sick person; I saw that. Every morning I adopted some new, final
resolution, for the most part painfully hatched in the course of a
sleepless night. At one time I made up my mind to have it out with
Liza, to give her friendly advice ... but when I chanced to be alone
with her, my tongue suddenly ceased to work, froze as it were, and we
both, in great discomfort, waited for the entrance of some third
person. Another time I meant to run away, of course for ever, leaving
my beloved a letter full of reproaches, and I even one day began this
letter; but the sense of justice had not yet quite vanished in me. I
realised that I had no right to reproach any one for anything, and I
flung what I had written in the fire. Then I suddenly offered myself up
wholly as a sacrifice, gave Liza my benediction, praying for her
happiness, and smiled in meek and friendly fashion from my corner at
the prince. But the cruel-hearted lovers not only never thanked me for
my self-sacrifice, they never even noticed me, and were, apparently,