“Yes. I tell you all this in almost a cheerful tone. But I was far from cheerful then. Add to my torture of hunger the stinging shame of failure; the near prospect of being the laughing-stock of my regimental companions; the charming amiability of the official on whom depended my cursed ‘dismissal’.... I tell you frankly, in those days I was face to face all the time with the thought of suicide.
“Next day my hunger again seemed unbearable. I went along to Alexandra Ivanovna. As soon as Stepan saw me he went into an ecstasy. He cried out, jumped about me, and licked my coat-sleeve. When at length I sat down he placed himself near me on the floor and pressed up against my legs. Alexandra Ivanovna was obliged to send him away by force.
“It was very unpleasant to have to ask a loan from this poor woman, who herself found life so difficult, but I resolved I must do so.
“‘Alexandra Ivanovna,’ said I. ‘I’ve nothing to eat. Lend me what money you can, please.’
“She wrung her hands.
“‘My dear boy, I haven’t a copeck. Yesterday I pawned my brooch.... To-day I was able to buy something in the market, but to-morrow I don’t know what I shall do.’
“‘Can’t you borrow a little from your sister?’ I suggested.
“Alexandra Ivanovna looked round with a frightened air, and whispered, almost in terror:
“‘What are you saying? What! Don’t you know I live here on her charity? No, we’d better think of some other way of getting it.’
“But the more we thought the more difficult it appeared. After a while we became silent. Evening came on, and the room was filled with a heavy wearisome gloom. Despair and hate and hunger tortured me. I felt as if I were abandoned on the edge of the world, alone and humiliated.