The tea was really like beer, but I drank a glass of it. 277 Just then the guard entered. Pózdnyshev followed him with angry eyes, and only began to speak after he had left.
“Well then, I’ll tell you. But do you really want to hear it?”
I repeated that I wished it very much. He paused, rubbed his face with his hands, and began:
“If I am to tell it, I must tell everything from the beginning: I must tell how and why I married, and the kind of man I was before my marriage.