Insulted and Humiliated

When they both walked down the street, the master in front and the dog at his heels, its nose touched the skirt of his coat as though glued to it. And their gait and their whole appearance seemed almost to cry aloud at every step: “We are old, old. Oh Lord, how old we are! ”

It is wonderful what one ray of sunshine can do for the soul of man!

I had been feeling unwell all day, and towards sunset I felt really very ill. Something like a fever set in.

What is there in his head? But does he still think of anything at all? His face is so dead that it expresses nothing at all.

though he looked at you, he walked straight at you as though there were an empty space before him.

I remember quite well that I felt an unpleasant sensation clutch at my heart, and I could not myself have told what that sensation was.

The whole street suddenly glitters, bathed in brilliant light. All the houses seem suddenly, as it were, to sparkle. Their grey, yellow, and dirty-green hues for an instant lose all their gloominess, it is as though there were a sudden clearness in one’s soul, as though one were startled, or as though someone had nudged one with his elbow.

Ever since the autumn I had been meaning to move, but I had hung on till the spring.

By the way, I always like better brooding over my works and dreaming how they should be written than actually writing them.

“Yes, I love him as though I were mad,” she answered, turning pale as though in bodily pain. “I never loved you like that, Vanya. I know I’ve gone out of my mind, and don’t love him as I ought to. I don’t love him in the right way…. Listen, Vanya, I knew beforehand, and even in our happiest moments I felt that he would bring me nothing but misery. But what is to be done if even torture from him is happiness to me now? Do you suppose I’m going to him to meet joy? Do you suppose I don’t know beforehand what’s in store for me, or what I shall have to bear from him? Why, he’s sworn to love me, made all sorts of promises; but I don’t trust one of his promises. I don’t set any value on them, and I never have, though I knew he wasn’t lying to me, and can’t lie. I told him myself, myself, that I don’t want to bind him in any way. That’s better with him; no one likes to be tied — I less than any,. And yet I’m glad to be his slave, his willing slave; to put up with anything from him, anything, so long as he is with me, so long as I can look at him! I think he might even love another woman if only I were there, if only I might be near. Isn’t it