And now his farming and work in the country recurred to his mind, and in those recollections also there was nothing to dwell on with pleasure. “Will they talk long of my departure?” came into his head; but who “they” were he did not quite know. Next came a thought that made him wince and mutter incoherently. It was the recollection of M. Cappele the tailor, and the six hundred and seventy-eight rubles he still owed him, and he recalled the words in which he had begged him to wait another year, and the look of perplexity and resignation which had appeared on the tailor’s face. “Oh, my God, my God!” he repeated, wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. “All the same and in spite of everything she loved me,” thought he of the girl they had talked about at the farewell supper. “Yes, had I married her I should not now be owing anything, and as it is I am in debt to Vasílyev.” Then he remembered the last night he had played with Vasílyev at the club (just after leaving her), and he recalled his humiliating requests for another game and the other’s cold refusal. “A year’s economizing and they will all be paid, and the devil take them!”... But despite this assurance he again began calculating his outstanding debts, their dates, and when he could hope to pay them off. “And I owe something to Morell as well as to Chevalier,” thought he, recalling the night when he had run up so large a debt. It was at a carousel at the gipsies arranged by some fellows from Petersburg: Sáshka B——, an aide-de-camp to the Tsar, Prince D——, and that pompous old——. “How is it those gentlemen are so self-satisfied?” thought he, “and by what right do they form a clique to which they think others must be highly flattered to be admitted? Can it be because they are on the Emperor’s staff? Why, it’s awful what fools and scoundrels they consider other people to be! But I showed them that I at any rate, on the contrary, do not at all want their intimacy. All the same, I fancy Andrew, the steward, would be amazed to know that I am on familiar terms with a man like Sáshka B——, a colonel and an aide-de-camp to the Tsar! Yes, and no one drank more than I did that evening, and I taught the gipsies a new song and everyone listened to it. Though I have done many foolish things, all the same I am a very good fellow,” thought he. Morning found him at the third post-stage. He drank tea, and himself helped Vanyúsha to move his bundles and trunks and sat down among them, sensible, erect, and precise, knowing where all his belongings were, how much money he had and where it was, where he had put his passport and the post-horse requisition and toll-gate papers, and it all seemed to him so well arranged that he grew quite cheerful and the long journey before him seemed an extended pleasure-trip.