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“Or hast thou grown melancholy again?”–To this he made no reply.

On the following day my aunt ran into my study in a state of great excitement, and declared that she and her niece would leave my house if Misha were to remain in it.

“Why so?”

“Why, we feel afraid of him…. He is not a man,–he is a wolf, a regular wolf. He stalks and stalks about, saying never a word, and has such a wild look…. He all but gnashes his teeth. My Katya is such a nervous girl, as thou knowest…. She took a great interest in him the first day…. I am afraid for her and for myself….”

I did not know what reply to make to my aunt. But I could not expel Misha, whom I had invited in.

He himself extricated me from this dilemma.

That very day–before I had even left my study–I suddenly heard a dull and vicious voice behind me.

“Nikolai Nikolaitch, hey there, Nikolai Nikolaitch!”

I looked round. In the doorway stood Misha, with a terrible, lowering, distorted visage.

“Nikolai Nikolaitch,” he repeated … (it was no longer “dear uncle”).

“What dost thou want?”

“Let me go … this very moment!”

“What?”

“Let me go, or I shall commit a crime,–set the house on fire or cut some one’s throat.”–Misha suddenly fell to shaking.–“Order them to restore my garments, and give me a cart to carry me to the highway, and give me a trifling sum of money!”

“But art thou dissatisfied with anything?” I began.

“I cannot live thus!” he roared at the top of his voice.–“I cannot live in your lordly, thrice-damned house! I hate, I am ashamed to live so tranquilly!… How do you manage to endure it?!”

“In other words,” I interposed, “thou wishest to say that thou canst not live without liquor….”

“Well, yes! well, yes!” he yelled again.–“Only let me go to my brethren, to my friends, to the beggars!… Away from your noble, decorous, repulsive race!”

I wanted to remind him of his promise on oath, but the criminal expression of Misha’s face, his unrestrained voice, the convulsive trembling of all his limbs–all this was so frightful that I made haste to get rid of him. I informed him that he should receive his clothing at once, that a cart should be harnessed for him; and taking from a casket a twenty-ruble bank-note, I laid it on the table. Misha was already beginning to advance threateningly upon me, but now he suddenly stopped short, his face instantaneously became distorted, and flushed up; he smote his breast, tears gushed from his eyes, and he stammered, –“Uncle!–Angel! I am a lost man, you see!—Thanks! Thanks!”–He seized the bank-note and rushed out of the room.

An hour later he was already seated in a cart, again clad in his Circassian coat, again rosy and jolly; and when the horses started off he uttered a yell, tore off his tall kazak cap, and waving it above his head, he made bow after bow. Immediately before his departure he embraced me long and warmly, stammering:–“Benefactor, benefactor!… It was impossible to save me!” He even ran in to see the ladies, and kissed their hands over and over again, went down on his knees, appealed to God, and begged forgiveness! I found Katya in tears later on.

But the coachman who had driven Misha reported to me, on his return, that he had taken him to the first drinking establishment on the highway, and that there he “had got stranded,” had begun to stand treat to every one without distinction, and had soon arrived at a state of inebriation.

Since that time I have never met Misha, but I learned his final fate in the following manner.

VIII

Three years later I again found myself in the country; suddenly a servant entered and announced that Madame Polteff was inquiring for me. I knew no Madame Polteff, and the servant who made the announcement was grinning in a sarcastic sort of way, for some reason or other. In reply to my questioning glance he said that the lady who was asking for me was young, poorly clad, and had arrived in a peasant-cart drawn by one horse which she was driving herself! I ordered that Madame Polteff should be requested to do me the favour to step into my study.