From that time on he never spoke a single word. All day long he walked up and down his room, his brows knit and his lips moving, apparently never growing tired. At times he halted as if wishing to say something, but he could not find the words. He had not lost the capacity for thinking, but impressions left so slight a trace on his brain that he could not hold them for any appreciable length of time. Consequently his failure to find the necessary words did not even make him impatient. Arina Petrovna, for her part, thought he would surely set the house on fire. "He does not say a word all day long," she repeated. "Still he must be thinking of something, the blockhead! I am sure he'll set the house on fire one of these days." But the blockhead did not think of anything at all. He was deeply immersed in absolute darkness, in which there was no room either for reality or the illusory world of imagination. His brain did work, but in a void, disconnected from either the past, the present, or the future. It was as though he was completely wrapt up in a black cloud and all he did was to scan it, to watch its imaginary fluctuations, and, at times, to make a feeble attempt at resisting its sinister sway. The whole physical and spiritual world dwindled down to that enigmatic cloud. In December of the same year, Porfiry Vladimirych received the following letter from his mother: "Yesterday morning God visited us with a new ordeal. My son and your brother, Stepan, breathed his last. The very evening before he had been quite well and even took his supper, but in the morning he was found dead in bed. Such is the brevity of this earthly life! And what is most grievous to a mother's heart is that he left this world of vanity for the realm of the unknown without the last communion. "May this be a warning to us all. He who sets at naught the ties of kinship must always await such an end. Failures in this life, untimely death, and everlasting torments in the life to come, all these evils spring from the one source. For, however learned and exalted we may be, if we do not honor our parents, our learning and eminence will be turned into nothingness. Such are the precepts which every one inhabiting this world must commit to his mind. Besides, slaves should revere their masters. "Notwithstanding this, all honors were duly given to him who had departed into life eternal, as becomes my son. The pall was ordered from Moscow, and the burial ceremonies were solemnly presided over by the Father archimandrite. And according to the Christian custom, I am having memorial services performed daily. I mourn the loss of my son, but I do not complain, nor do I advise you, my children, to do so. For who knows? We may be mourning and complaining here while his soul may be rejoicing in Heaven." BOOK II AS BECOMES GOOD KINSFOLK CHAPTER I