“I knew it would end like that,” the artist said frowning. “We ought not to have gone with this fool and ass! You imagine you have grand notions in your head now, ideas, don’t you? No, it’s the devil knows what, but not ideas. You are looking at me now with hatred and repulsion, but I tell you it’s better you should set up twenty more houses like those than look like that. There’s more vice in your expression than in the whole street! Come along, Volodya, let him go to the devil! He’s a fool and an ass, and that’s all.⁠ ⁠…”

“We human beings do murder each other,” said the medical student. “It’s immoral, of course, but philosophizing doesn’t help it. Goodbye!”

At Trubnoy Square the friends said goodbye and parted. When he was left alone, Vassilyev strode rapidly along the boulevard. He felt frightened of the darkness, of the snow which was falling in heavy flakes on the ground, and seemed as though it would cover up the whole world; he felt frightened of the street lamps shining with pale light through the clouds of snow. His soul was possessed by an unaccountable, fainthearted terror. Passersby came towards him from time to time, but he timidly moved to one side; it seemed to him that women, none but women, were coming from all sides and staring at him.⁠ ⁠…

“It’s beginning,” he thought, “I am going to have a breakdown.”