“What’s this? Am I going out of my mind?” he said to himself. “Perhaps. What makes men go out of their minds; what makes men shoot themselves?” he answered himself, and opening his eyes, he saw with wonder an embroidered cushion beside him, worked by Varya, his brother’s wife. He touched the tassel of the cushion, and tried to think of Varya, of when he had seen her last. But to think of anything extraneous was an agonizing effort. “No, I must sleep!” He moved the cushion up, and pressed his head into it, but he had to make an effort to keep his eyes shut. He jumped up and sat down. “That’s all over for me,” he said to himself. “I must think what to do. What is left?” His mind rapidly ran through his life apart from his love of Anna.

“Ambition? Serpuhovskoy? Society? The court?” He could not come to a pause anywhere. All of it had had meaning before, but now there was no reality in it. He got up from the sofa, took off his coat, undid his belt, and uncovering his hairy chest to breathe more freely, walked up and down the room. “This is how people go mad,” he repeated, “and how they shoot themselves⁠ ⁠… to escape humiliation,” he added slowly.