himself on people in no way to blame.  He remembered, also, how he had torn up his dissertation and all the articles he had written during his illness, and how he had thrown them out of window, and the bits of paper had fluttered in the wind and caught on the trees and flowers.  In every line of them he saw strange, utterly groundless pretension, shallow defiance, arrogance, megalomania; and they made him feel as though he were reading a description of his vices.  But when the last manuscript had been torn up and sent flying out of window, he felt, for some reason, suddenly bitter and angry; he went to his wife and said a great many unpleasant things to her.  My God, how he had tormented her!  One day, wanting to cause her pain, he told her that her father had played a very unattractive part in their romance, that he had asked him to marry her.  Yegor Semyonitch accidentally overheard this, ran into the room, and, in his despair, could not utter a word, could only stamp and make a strange, bellowing sound as though he had lost the power of speech, and Tanya, looking at her father, had uttered a heart-rending shriek and had fallen into a swoon.  It was hideous.

All this came back into his memory as he looked at the familiar writing.  Kovrin went out on to the balcony; it was still warm weather and there was a smell of the sea.  The wonderful bay reflected the moonshine and the lights, and was of a colour for which it was difficult to find a name.  It was a soft and tender blending of dark blue and green; in places the water was like blue vitriol, and in places it seemed as though the moonlight were liquefied and filling the bay instead of water.  And what harmony of colours, what an atmosphere of peace, calm, and sublimity!

In the lower storey under the balcony the windows were probably open, for women’s voices and laughter could be heard distinctly.  Apparently there was an evening party.

Kovrin made an effort, tore open the envelope, and, going back into his room, read: 

“My father is just dead.  I owe that to you, for you have killed him.  Our garden is being ruined; strangers are managing it already —­that is, the very thing is happening that poor father dreaded.  That, too, I owe to you.  I hate you with my whole soul, and I hope you may soon perish.  Oh, how wretched I am!  Insufferable anguish is burning my soul. . . .  My curses on you.  I took you for an extraordinary man, a genius; I loved you, and you have turned out a madman. . . .”

Kovrin could read no more, he tore up the letter and threw it away.  He was overcome by an uneasiness that was akin to terror.  Varvara Nikolaevna was asleep behind the screen, and he could hear her breathing.  From the lower storey came the sounds of laughter and women’s voices, but he felt as though in the whole hotel there were no living soul but him.  Because Tanya, unhappy, broken by sorrow, had cursed him in her letter and hoped for his perdition, he felt eerie and kept glancing hurriedly at the door, as though he were afraid that the uncomprehended force which two years before had wrought such havoc in his life and in the life of those near him might come into the room and master him once more.