“Towards evening I again felt the fear, but incomparably more intense. Of course I could deny all knowledge, but might be given the lie. Penal servitude glimmered for me in the distance. I had never felt fear, and all my life, except in this one case, I never before nor after was afraid of anything—particularly of Siberia, although I might have been deported there more than once. But this time I was frightened and really felt fear, I don’t know why, for the first time in my life—a very tormenting sensation. Besides, that evening in my rooms, I got to hate her to such an extent that I decided to kill her. My chief hatred was at the recollection of her smile. I began to feel contempt and immense loathing for her having, after the whole thing was over, rushed off to the corner and covered her face with her hands; an inexplicable rage seized me, and then cold shivering, and, when towards the morning I began to feel feverish, I was again seized with fear, but such an intense fear that I never knew any torment more violent. Yet I no longer hated the little girl—at any rate it did not reach such a paroxysm as on the previous evening. I realized that intense fear completely drives away hatred and the feeling of revenge. “I woke about mid-day, feeling well and surprised even at the force of yesterday’s sensations. Yet I was in a bad humour and was again compelled to go to Gorokhovaya Street, in spite of all my aversion. I remember that I wished intensely at that minute to pick a quarrel on the way with any one, so long as it was a violent quarrel. But when I reached Gorokhovaya Street, I suddenly found Nina Savelevna, the maid, in my room, where she had been waiting for an hour already. I did not like the girl altogether, so that she had come half afraid that I should be angry with her for coming unasked. But I suddenly felt very glad to see her. She was not bad-looking, but unassuming, with those manners of which common people are very fond, so that my landlady had for long sung her praises to me. I found them both drinking coffee together, and the landlady highly pleased with the polite conversation. In the corner of their room I saw Matryosha. She stood looking at her mother and at the visitor without stirring. When I came in she did not hide as before and did not run away. It only appeared to me that she had grown very thin and was in a fever. I was cordial to Nina, and locked my door against the landlady, which I had not done for a long time, so that Nina left perfectly delighted. We left together and for two days I did not return to Gorokhovaya Street. I was already bored with it. I resolved to put an end to it all, to give up my rooms and leave Petersburg.