this sash over a branch.' This seemed so feasible and so easy that
he felt horrified. As usual at moments of despair he felt the need of
prayer. But there was no one to pray to. There was no God. He lay down
resting on his arm, and suddenly such a longing for sleep overcame him
that he could no longer support his head on his hand, but stretched out
his arm, laid his head upon it, and fell asleep. But that sleep lasted
only for a moment. He woke up immediately and began not to dream but to
remember.

He saw himself as a child in his mother's home in the country. A
carriage drives up, and out of it steps Uncle Nicholas Sergeevich,
with his long, spade-shaped, black beard, and with him Pashenka, a thin
little girl with large mild eyes and a timid pathetic face. And into
their company of boys Pashenka is brought and they have to play with
her, but it is dull. She is silly, and it ends by their making fun of
her and forcing her to show how she can swim. She lies down on the floor
and shows them, and they all laugh and make a fool of her. She sees this
and blushes red in patches and becomes more pitiable than before,
so pitiable that he feels ashamed and can never forget that crooked,
kindly, submissive smile. And Sergius remembered having seen her since
then. Long after, just before he became a monk, she had married a
landowner who squandered all her fortune and was in the habit of beating
her. She had had two children, a son and a daughter, but the son had
died while still young. And Sergius remembered having seen her very
wretched. Then again he had seen her in the monastery when she was a
widow. She had been still the same, not exactly stupid, but insipid,
insignificant, and pitiable. She had come with her daughter and her
daughter's fiance. They were already poor at that time and later on he
had heard that she was living in a small provincial town and was very
poor.