For a whole week I stayed away from the Dolzhikovs’. I sold my woollen suit. There was no painting work about and once again I was half-starving, earning ten to twelve copecks a day where I could by doing heavy, nasty work. Wallowing up to my knees in cold mud and using all my strength, I tried to suppress any memories, as if taking revenge on myself for all those cheeses and tinned delicacies the engineer had treated me to. But no sooner did I climb into bed, hungry and wet, than my sinful imagination began to conjure up wonderful, seductive pictures and to my amazement I realized that I was in love, passionately so, and I would drop into a sound, healthy sleep, feeling that all the penal servitude was only making my body stronger.