'Yes, but I did not give him any peace. I always reproached him, though
you know it is a disease! He could not refrain from it. I now remember
how I tried to prevent his having it, and the frightful scenes we had!'

And she looked at Kasatsky with beautiful eyes, suffering from the
remembrance.

Kasatsky remembered how he had been told that Pashenka's husband used
to beat her, and now, looking at her thin withered neck with prominent
veins behind her ears, and her scanty coil of hair, half grey half
auburn, he seemed to see just how it had occurred.

'Then I was left with two children and no means at all.'

'But you had an estate!'

'Oh, we sold that while Vasya was still alive, and the money was all
spent. We had to live, and like all our young ladies I did not know how
to earn anything. I was particularly useless and helpless. So we spent
all we had. I taught the children and improved my own education a
little. And then Mitya fell ill when he was already in the fourth
form, and God took him. Masha fell in love with Vanya, my son-in-law.
And--well, he is well-meaning but unfortunate. He is ill.'

'Mamma!'--her daughter's voice interrupted her--'Take Mitya! I can't be
in two places at once.'

Praskovya Mikhaylovna shuddered, but rose and went out of the room,
stepping quickly in her patched shoes. She soon came back with a boy of