His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid
expression of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her.
He felt sad and vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the
day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to
him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .

After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an
hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite,
a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then
they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood
and the day was over. When he returned from church, he hurriedly
said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as
possible.

It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner.
The moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining
room, probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:

"There's war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese,
my good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same
race. They were under the Turkish yoke together."

And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:

"So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to
Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . ."

And she kept on saying, "having had tea" or "having drunk tea," and
it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to