still further removed, so that you may get over this folly.

"Upon hearing of your duel and wound your mother fell ill with sorrow,
and she is still confined to her bed.

"What will become of you? I pray God may correct you, though I scarcely
dare trust in His goodness.

"Your father,

"A.G."

The perusal of this letter aroused in me a medley of feelings. The
harsh expressions which my father had not scrupled to make use of hurt
me deeply; the contempt which he cast on Marya Ivánofna appeared to me
as unjust as it was unseemly; while, finally, the idea of being sent
away from Fort Bélogorsk dismayed me. But I was, above all, grieved at
my mother's illness.

I was disgusted with Savéliitch, never doubting that it was he who had
made known my duel to my parents. After walking up and down awhile in my
little room, I suddenly stopped short before him, and said to him,
angrily--

"It seems that it did not satisfy you that, thanks to you, I've been
wounded and at death's door, but that you must also want to kill my
mother as well."

Savéliitch remained motionless, as it struck by a thunderbolt.