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that I should gamble with them. Whether they were laughing at me or not, I don’t know; all I know is that they themselves had been playing all night, and when I went in they were still at it. I saw chalk, and cards; there was so much smoke in the room that it stung one’s eyes. I said I didn’t want to take part, and they at once observed that I was talking philosophy. After that no one talked to me at all; of which I was truly glad. I shall not go and see them now; all they do is gamble, nothing but gamble! The government clerk who works in the literary department also holds gatherings in the evenings. Yes, and they are pleasant and modest, innocent and delicate; it is all on a refined footing.
    Well, Varenka, I shall also just remark in passing that our landlady is a thoroughly unpleasant woman, a regular old witch. You have seen Teresa. Well, what would you say she is like? As thin as a plucked, sick chicken. There are only two domestic staff in the house: Teresa and Faldoni, * the landlady is manservant. I do not know, perhaps he has some other name as well, but he only answers to this one; everyone calls him by it. he is a red-haired man, some kind of Finn – crooked-figured, pug-nosed, a coarse and disgusting fellow: he is forever quarrelling with Teresa, they almost come to blows. In general, I find life here not entirely a good thing… If only everyone went to bed and slept at the same time – but that never happens. There are always people sitting up late gambling somewhere, and sometimes things happen which I should be too embarrassed to tell you about. However, I’m used to it now, though I wonder how family men can manage to live in such a Sodom. There is a whole family of poor wretches of some sort who live in a room they rent from our landlady, only it is not near the other rooms, but on the other side of the building,in a corner by itself. Humble folk! No one ever hears anything about them. They live in the one room, dividing it with a partition. he is some out-of-work government clerk, who lost his job seven years ago for some misdemeanour. His name’s Gorshkov; he’s a little, grey-haired man; he goes about in such stained, worn-out clothes that it hurts just to look at him; they’re in a much worse state than mine! He’s a pathetic, sickly looking fellow (I sometimes meet him in the corridor); his knees shake, his hands shake, his head shakes, from what illness God only knows; he’s shy, afraid of everyone, and goes about furtively; I know I’m timid occasionally, but he’s even worse. His family is made up of his wife and three children. The oldest child, a boy, looks just like his father, the same sickly type. His wife must once have been not at all bad-looking, you can see it even now; she goes around in such pitiful rags, the poor wretch. I heard that they have got themselves into debt with the landlady; she is none too friendly towards them. I also heard that Gorshkov is in some trouble or other, and that that is why he lost his job… whether he’s to be put on trial, whether he’s being prosecuted, or whether he’s being made the subject of an investigation, I really can’t tell you. One thing is certain, and that is that they’re poor – my, how they’re poor! Their room is always quiet and peaceful, as though there were no one living there. You don’t even hear their children. You never ever see the children out enjoying themselves, playing around, and that’s a bad sign. I happened to pass their door one evening; it had grown somewhat unusually quiet in the house; I could hear sobbing, then whispering, then sobbing again, as if they were crying in there, so quietly and pitifully that my heart almost broke, and afterwards all night long the thought of those poor wretches would not leave me, so that I couldn’t get to sleep properly.
    Well, goodbye, my little treasure of a friend, Varenka! I have