‘But I bore it all,’ Harlov went on again; ‘bitterness, bitterness was in my heart, let me tell you, and shame.… I could not bear to look upon the light of day! That was why I was unwilling to come and see you, ma’am, from this same feeling, from shame for my disgrace! I have tried everything, my good friend; kindness, affection, and threats, and I reasoned with them, and more besides! I bowed down before them … like this.’ (Harlov showed how he had bowed down.) ‘And all in vain. And all of it I bore! At the beginning, at first, I’d very different thoughts; I’ll up, I thought, and kill them. I’ll crush them all, so that not a trace remains of them!… I’ll let them know! Well, but after, I submitted! It’s a cross, I thought, laid upon me; it’s to bid me make ready for death. And all at once, to-day, driven out, like a cur! And by whom? Volodka! And you asked about my daughters; they’ve no will of their own at all. They’re Volodka’s slaves! Yes!’ My mother wondered. ‘In Anna’s case I can understand that; she’s a wife.… But how comes it your second.…’ ‘Evlampia? She’s worse than Anna! She’s altogether given herself up into Volodka’s hands. That’s the reason she refused your soldier, too. At his, at Volodka’s bidding. Anna, to be sure, ought to resent it, and she can’t bear her sister, but she submits! He’s bewitched them, the cursed scoundrel! Though she, Anna, I daresay, is pleased to think that Evlampia, who was always so proud,--and now see what she’s come to!… O … alas … alas! God, my God!’ My mother looked uneasily towards me. I moved a little away as a precautionary measure, for fear I should be sent away altogether.… ‘I am very sorry indeed, Martin Petrovitch,’ she began, ‘that my former protégé has caused you so much sorrow, and has turned out so badly. But I, too, was mistaken in him.… Who could have expected this of him?’ ‘Madam,’ Harlov moaned out, and he struck himself a blow on the chest, ‘I cannot bear the ingratitude of my daughters! I cannot, madam! You know I gave them everything, everything! And besides, my conscience has been tormenting me. Many things … alas! many things I have thought over, sitting by the pond, fishing. “If you’d only done good to any one in your life!” was what I pondered upon, “succoured the poor, set the peasants free, or something, to atone for having wrung their lives out of them. You must answer for them before God! Now their tears are revenged.” And what sort of life have they now? It was a deep pit even in my time--why disguise my sins?--but now there’s no seeing the bottom! All these sins I have taken upon my soul; I have sacrificed my conscience for my children, and for this I’m laughed to scorn! Kicked out of the house, like a cur!’ ‘Don’t think about that, Martin Petrovitch,’ observed my mother.