Apparently, illustrious names are created to live on their own account, apart from those that bear them.  Now my name is promenading tranquilly about Harkov; in another three months, printed in gold letters on my monument, it will shine bright as the sun itself, while I s hall be already under the moss.

A light tap at the door.  Somebody wants me.

“Who is there?  Come in.”

The door opens, and I step back surprised and hurriedly wrap my dressing-gown round me.  Before me stands Katya.

“How do you do?” she says, breathless with running upstairs.  “You didn’t expect me?  I have come here, too....  I have come, too!”

She sits down and goes on, hesitating and not looking at me.

“Why don’t you speak to me?  I have come, too... today....  I found out that you were in this hotel, and have come to you.”

“Very glad to see you,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, “but I am surprised.  You seem to have dropped from the skies.  What have you come for?”

“Oh...  I’ve simply come.”

Silence.  Suddenly she jumps up impulsively and comes to me.

“Nikolay Stepanovitch,” she says, turning pale and pressing her hands on her bosom—­“Nikolay Stepanovitch, I cannot go on living like this!  I cannot!  For God’s sake tell me quickly, this minute, what I am to do!  Tell me, what am I to do?”

“What can I tell you?” I ask in perplexity.  “I can do nothing.”

“Tell me, I beseech you,” she goes on, breathing hard and trembling all over.  “I swear that I cannot go on living like this.  It’s too much for me!”

She sinks on a chair and begins sobbing.  She flings her head back, wrings her hands, taps with her feet; her hat falls off and hangs bobbing on its elastic; her hair is ruffled.

“Help me! help me!” she implores me.  “I cannot go on!”

She takes her handkerchief out of her travelling-bag, and with it pulls out several letters, which fall from her lap to the floor.  I pick them up, and on one of them I recognize the handwriting of Mihail Fyodorovitch and accidentally read a bit of a word “passionat...”

“There is nothing I can tell you, Katya,” I say.

“Help me!” she sobs, clutching at my hand and kissing it.  “You are my father, you know, my only friend!  You are clever, educated; you have lived so long; you have been a teacher!  Tell me, what am I to do?”

“Upon my word, Katya, I don’t know....”

I am utterly at a loss and confused, touched by her sobs, and hardly able to stand.

“Let us have lunch, Katya,” I say, with a forced smile.  “Give over crying.”

And at once I add in a sinking voice: 

“I shall soon be gone, Katya....”

“Only one word, only one word!” she weeps, stretching out her hands to me.

“What am I to do?”

“You are a queer girl, really...”  I mutter.  “I don’t understand it!  So sensible, and all at once crying your eyes out....”