I began to think too much about women, and I had already revolved in my own mind the question: Shall I go on the next holiday where all the others go? This was no physical desire. I was both healthy and fastidious, but at times I was almost mad with a desire to embrace some one tender, intelligent, and frankly, unrestrainedly, as to a mother, speak to her of the disturbances of my soul.
I envied Pavl when he told me at night of his affair with a maidservant in the opposite house.
"It is a funny thing, brother! A month ago I was throwing snowballs at her because I did not like her, and now I sit on a bench and hug her. She is dearer to me than any one!"
"What do you talk about?"
"About everything, of course! She talks to me about herself, and I talk to her about myself. And then we kiss—only she is honest. In fact, brother, she is so good that it is almost a misfortune! Why, you smoke like an old soldier!"
I smoked a lot; tobacco intoxicated me, dulled my restless thoughts, my agitated feelings. As for vodka, it only aroused in me a repulsion toward my own odor and taste, but Pavl drank with a will, and when he was drunk, used to cry bitterly:
"I want to go home, I want to go home! Let me go home!"
As far as I can remember he was an orphan; his mother and father had been dead a long time. Brother and sister he had none; he had lived among strangers for eight years.
In this state of restless dissatisfaction the call of spring disturbed me still more. I made up my mind to go on a boat again, and if I could get as far as Astrakhan, to run away to Persia.
I do not remember why I selected Persia particularly. It may have been because I had taken a great fancy to the Persian merchants on the Nijigorodski market-place, sitting like stone idols, spreading their dyed beards in the sun, calmly smoking their hookas, with large, dark, omniscient eyes.