Six months ago he had simply lived in his ideas—sometimes working at them, sometimes, when temporarily weary, founding upon them (so young was he) airy hopes. The work upon which he had been engaged had been a History of the Church. With what burning fanaticism he had sketched its outline! But now he merely re-read his rough notes, corrected them, and then made a few researches. Finally he ended by abandoning his project altogether, without founding anything new upon its ruins. A sort of mysticism, of occult fatalism, had enveloped his soul. He could only suffer, and beseech God to end his sufferings. His landlord’s servant—a devout old Russian dame—used to narrate with great gusto how her lodger would go to church and say his prayers, and then remain prone for hours, like a dead man, on the floor of the sacred building.

Ordynov never confided his trouble to any living soul; but often, at dusk, when the church bells were recalling to his memory that unforgettable moment when he had been kneeling near Katerina in God’s house, and listening to the beating of the girl’s heart, and baptising with tears of joy the hope which had newly sprung into his life—at such times there would arise in his murdered soul a veritable tempest, and his spirit would burst forth anew, and all the tortures of love would begin for him again. He suffered—oh, how he suffered! And he would feel that his love only increased with his suffering. Whole hours would pass while he sat motionless in his chair, forgetful of everything—forgetful of the world, of his grey existence, and of himself, now sad and lonely. Sometimes he would weep softly; at other times he would find himself whispering, “O Katerina, my only sister!”

To these tortures one terrible thought gave added poignancy. That thought clung to him, and grew from day to day, until it became an actual probability, an actual reality. It seemed to him (and he ended by believing it) that Katerina’s mind had, throughout, been sane, but that Murin had had some secret purpose in dubbing her a “feeble soul.” He believed that some undivulgeable mystery must have bound her to the old man, but that, inasmuch as it was not upon her conscience that the crime lay, she had innocently yielded to Murin’s infamous domination. For what were they to one another? Ordynov’s heart beat with impotent rage at the thought of the tyranny which was oppressing the poor young creature. His soul, thus enlightened, would follow with horrified eyes the gradual downfall which was being so cleverly, yet so traitorously, prepared for her. How that “feeble soul” was being tortured—how the girl was having Scripture quoted at her, how she was being blinded, how she was having her naturally ardent temperament exploited! Thus, little by little, the wings of that once free soul were being clipped until it should have become powerless to face the battle of life alone!