"I am regenerated now!" he assured me.—"Well, God grant it!" I thought to myself…. But this regeneration did not last long.
During the early days he was very loquacious and jolly. But beginning with the third day he quieted down, somehow, although, as before, he kept close to the ladies and amused them. A half-sad, half-thoughtful expression began to flit across his face, and the face itself grew pale and thin.
"Art thou ill?" I asked him.
"Yes," he answered;—"my head aches a little."
On the fourth day he became perfectly silent; he sat in a corner most of the time, with dejectedly drooping head; and by his downcast aspect evoked a feeling of compassion in the two ladies, who now, in their turn, tried to divert him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and rolled bread-balls. On the fifth day the feeling of pity in the ladies began to be replaced by another—by distrust and even fear. Mísha had grown wild, he avoided people and kept walking along the wall, as though creeping stealthily, and suddenly darting glances around him, as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy complexion? It seemed to be covered with earth.
"Art thou still ill?" I asked him.
"No; I am well," he answered abruptly.
"Art thou bored?"
"Why should I be bored?"—But he turned away and would not look me in the eye.
"Or hast thou grown melancholy again?"—To this he made no reply.