Arina Petrovna had not the slightest idea of how Simple Simon spent his time. The casual glimmer of feeling which had appeared for a moment during the conversation with the Bloodsucker vanished so precipitately that she was unconscious of its ever having appeared. It was not a premeditated course of action on her part, but sheer oblivion. She completely forgot that in the counting-house, in close proximity to her, there lived a human being bound to her by ties of blood, who perhaps was pining away in the yearning for life. Once having cut out a certain channel in life and filling it almost mechanically with the same things, she thought others ought to do likewise, it never occurring to her that the very character of the things life holds vary among people according to a multitude of circumstances in different combinations, and that these things may be dear to some, herself among these some, while they are an abomination and a tyranny to others. Therefore when the bailiff repeatedly reported that "something was the matter" with Stepan Vladimirych, the words slipped by her ears, leaving no impression on her mind. Indeed, she scarcely ever even replied, and when she did, then only with the stereotyped reply: "Oh, well, he'll be all right. I bet he'll outlive you and me. Nothing is the matter with the shambling colt. Coughing, you say! Well, some people cough thirty years on end and they don't feel it." Nevertheless, one morning when they came and told her that Stepan Vladimirych had disappeared during the night, she was aroused. Immediately she sent out all the available men in search of him, and herself started an investigation beginning with the room in which Stepan had lived. The first thing that struck her was a bottle standing on the table, with a bit of vodka in it. "What's this?" she asked, pretending not to understand. "Why, I guess--the young master indulged," stammered the bailiff. "Who supplied----?" she began, flaring up. But she restrained herself, and continued her investigation, hiding her rage.