VI I am in Kharkov. Since it would be useless to fight against my present mood, and I have no power to do it, I made up my mind that the last days of my life shall be irreproachable, on the formal side. If I am not right with my family, which I certainly admit, I will try at least to do as it wishes. Besides I am lately become so indifferent that it’s positively all the same, to me whether I go to Kharkov, or Paris, or Berditshev. I arrived here at noon and put up at a hotel not far from the cathedral. The train made me giddy, the draughts blew through me, and now I am sitting on the bed with my head in my hands waiting for the tic. I ought to go to my professor friends to-day, but I have neither the will nor the strength. The old hall-porter comes in to ask whether I have brought my own bed-clothes. I keep him about five minutes asking him questions about Gnekker, on whose account I came here. The porter happens to be Kharkov-born, and knows the town inside out; but he doesn’t remember any family with the name of Gnekker. I inquire about the estate. The answer is the same. The clock in the passage strikes one,... two,... three.... The last months of my life, while I wait for death, seem to me far longer than my whole life. Never before could I reconcile myself to the slowness of time as I can now. Before, when I had to wait for a train at the station, or to sit at an examination, a quarter of an hour would seem an eternity. Now I can sit motionless in bed the whole night long, quite calmly thinking that there will be the same long, colourless night to-morrow, and the next day.... In the passage the clock strikes five, six, seven.... It grows dark. There is dull pain in my cheek--the beginning of the tic. To occupy myself with thoughts, I return to my old point of view, when I was not indifferent, and ask: Why do I, a famous man, a privy councillor, sit in this little room, on this bed with a strange grey blanket? Why do I look at this cheap tin washstand and listen to the wretched clock jarring in the passage? Is all this worthy of my fame and my high position among people? And I answer these questions with a smile. My _naïveté_ seems funny to me--the _naïveté_ with which as a young man I exaggerated the value of fame and of the exclusive position which famous men enjoy. I am famous, my name is spoken with reverence. My portrait has appeared in “Niva” and in “The Universal Illustration.” I’ve even read my biography in a German paper, but what of that? I sit lonely, by myself, in a strange city, on a strange bed, rubbing my aching cheek with my palm....