And thus the trace of my ... my father grew cold; thus did it vanish irrevocably in the mute gloom. My mother and I never spoke of him. Only, one day, I remember that she expressed surprise at my never having alluded before to my strange dream; and then she added: "Of course, it really ..." and did not finish her sentence. My mother was ill for a long time, and after her convalescence our former relations were not reestablished. She felt awkward in my presence until the day of her death.... Precisely that, awkward. And there was no way of helping her in her grief. Everything becomes smoothed down, the memories of the most tragic family events gradually lose their force and venom; but if a feeling of awkwardness has been set up between two closely-connected persons, it is impossible to extirpate it! I have never again had that dream which had been wont so to disturb me; I no longer "search for" my father; but it has sometimes seemed to me--and it seems so to me to this day--that in my sleep I hear distant shrieks, unintermittent, melancholy plaints; they resound somewhere behind a lofty wall, across which it is impossible to clamber; they rend my heart--and I am utterly unable to comprehend what it is: whether it is a living man groaning, or whether I hear the wild, prolonged roar of the troubled sea. And now it passes once more into that beast-like growl--and I awake with sadness and terror in my soul. FATHER ALEXYEI'S STORY (1877) Twenty years ago I was obliged--in my capacity of private inspector--to make the circuit of all my aunt's rather numerous estates. The parish priests, with whom I regarded it as my duty to make acquaintance, proved to be individuals of pretty much one pattern, and made after one model, as it were. At length, in about the last of the estates which I was inspecting, I hit upon a priest who did not resemble his brethren. He was a very aged man, almost decrepit; and had it not been for the urgent entreaties of his parishioners, who loved and respected him, he would long before have petitioned to be retired that he might rest. Two peculiarities impressed me in Father Alexyei (that was the priest's name). In the first place, he not only asked nothing for himself but announced plainly that he required nothing; and, in the second place, I have never beheld in any human face a more sorrowful, thoroughly indifferent--what is called an "overwhelmed"--expression. The features of that face were of the ordinary rustic type: a wrinkled forehead, small grey eyes, a large nose, a wedge-shaped beard, a swarthy, sunburned skin.... But the expression! ... the expression!... In that dim gaze life barely burned, and sadly at that; and his voice also was, somehow, lifeless and dim.