Towards nightfall he passed by Cassel. With the darkness intolerable anguish pounced like a hawk upon him, and he wept, burying himself in the corner of the carriage. For a long time his tears flowed, not easing his heart, but torturing him with a sort of gnawing bitterness; while at the same time, in one of the hotels of Cassel, Tatyana was lying in bed feverishly ill. Kapitolina Markovna was sitting beside her. ‘Tanya,’ she was saying, ‘for God’s sake, let me send a telegram to Grigory Mihalitch, do let me, Tanya!’ ‘No, aunt,’ she answered; ‘you mustn’t; don’t be frightened, give me some water; it will soon pass.’ And a week later she did, in fact, recover, and the two friends continued their journey. XXVII Stopping neither at Petersburg nor at Moscow, Litvinov went back to his estate. He was dismayed when he saw his father; the latter was so weak and failing. The old man rejoiced to have his son, as far as a man can rejoice who is just at the close of life; he at once gave over to him the management of everything, which was in great disorder, and lingering on a few weeks longer, he departed from this earthly sphere. Litvinov was left alone in his ancient little manor-house, and with a heavy heart, without hope, without zeal, and without money, he began to work the land. Working the land is a cheerless business, as many know too well; we will not enlarge on how distasteful it seemed to Litvinov. As for reforms and innovations, there was, of course, no question even of them; the practical application of the information he had gathered abroad was put off for an indefinite period; poverty forced him to make shift from day to day, to consent to all sorts of compromises--both material and moral. The new had ‘begun ill,’ the old had lost all power; ignorance jostled up against dishonesty; the whole agrarian organisation was shaken and unstable as quagmire bog, and only one great word, ‘freedom,’ was wafted like the breath of God over the waters. Patience was needed before all things, and a patience not passive, but active, persistent, not without tact and cunning at times.... For Litvinov, in his frame of mind, it was doubly hard. He had but little will to live left in him.... Where was he to get the will to labour and take trouble?