Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to remain in it. ‘Why so?’ ‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and doesn’t speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the first day.... I’m in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I didn’t know what to say to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out, after inviting him. He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round; Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not ‘uncle’ now). ‘What do you want?’ ‘Let me go ... at once!’ ‘Why?’ ‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me have some money, however little!’ ‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’ ‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!’ ‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean--you can’t live without drink....’ ‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your respectable, loathsome species!’ I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, ‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched up the note and ran away. An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a long and warm embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ... there’s no saving me!’ He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia I found afterwards in tears.