“He’s coming! At last I⁠ ⁠… you see, it’s very long since I’ve seen Petrusha!” Stepan Trofimovitch could not get away from this phrase. “Now I expect my poor boy to whom⁠ ⁠… to whom I have been so much to blame! That is, I mean to say, when I left him in Petersburg, I⁠ ⁠… in short, I looked on him as a nonentity, quelque chose dans ce genre . He was a very nervous boy, you know, emotional, and⁠ ⁠… very timid. When he said his prayers going to bed he used to bow down to the ground, and make the sign of the cross on his pillow that he might not die in the night.⁠ ⁠… Je m’en souviens. Enfin , no artistic feeling whatever, not a sign of anything higher, of anything fundamental, no embryo of a future ideal⁠ ⁠… c’était comme un petit idiot , but I’m afraid I am incoherent; excuse me⁠ ⁠… you came upon me⁠ ⁠…”

“You say seriously that he crossed his pillow?” the engineer asked suddenly with marked curiosity.

“Yes, he used to⁠ ⁠…”