have learnt how to live, so as not to be to blame? There is not one
honest man in the whole town! These houses of yours are nests of
damnation, where mothers and daughters are made away with, where
children are tortured. . . . My poor mother!" I went on in despair.
"My poor sister! One has to stupefy oneself with vodka, with cards,
with scandal; one must become a scoundrel, a hypocrite, or go on
drawing plans for years and years, so as not to notice all the
horrors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for
hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man
of service to our country--not one. You have stifled in the germ
everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers,
publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless,
unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly
sank through the earth."

"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and
he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare
come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last
time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll
get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient
children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience
and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It
has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial
with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my
sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold
till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is
for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to
remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ."

I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what