His appearance interested me. He was an extremely pale and thin man, not yet old, about thirty-five, small and frail. He was always dressed quite neatly, European style. When you talked to him, he would look at you very fixedly and attentively, listen to your every word with strict politeness, as if pondering it, as if by asking him a question you were setting him a task or trying to worm some secret out of him, and in the end he would answer clearly and briefly, but weighing every word of his answer so much that you would suddenly feel awkward for some reason and would finally be glad yourself that the conversation was over. I asked Ivan Ivanovich about him right then and learned that Goryanchikov led an irreproachable and moral life, and that otherwise Ivan Ivanovich would not have invited him for his daughters, but that he was terribly unsociable, hid himself from everyone, was extremely learned, read a great deal, but spoke very little, and that generally it was rather difficult to get into conversation with him. Some insisted that he was positively mad, though they also found that essentially that was not such an important failing, that many of the respected members of the town were ready to show Alexander Petrovich every kindness, that he could even be of use in writing petitions, and so on. It was supposed that he must have many relations in Russia, maybe even not among the least of people, but it was known that since his exile he had resolutely broken off all connections with them—in short, he only harmed himself. Besides, we all knew his story, knew that he had killed his wife in the first year of their marriage, had killed her out of jealousy and then turned himself in (which had lightened his punishment considerably). Such crimes are always considered a misfortune and are looked upon with pity. But despite all that, the odd fellow stubbornly shunned everyone and appeared among people only to give lessons.

At first I paid no special attention to him, but, I don’t know why myself, he gradually came to interest me. There was something enigmatic about him. To get into conversation with him was quite impossible. Of course, he always answered my questions and even looked as if he considered it his foremost obligation; but after his answers, I found it hard to ask him anything more; besides, after such conversations, his face always showed some sort of suffering and fatigue. I remember walking home with him from Ivan Ivanych’s once on a beautiful summer evening. It suddenly occurred to me to invite him to my place for a moment to have a cigarette. I cannot describe the look of horror that came to his face; he was completely at a loss, started to mutter something incoherent, and suddenly, casting an angry glance at me, rushed off in the opposite direction. I was even surprised. From then on, whenever we met, he looked at me as if with some sort of fright. But I did not let up; something drew me to him, and a month later, for no reason at all, I went to see Goryanchikov myself. Of course, it was a stupid and indelicate thing to do. He lodged on the outskirts of town, with an old tradeswoman who had a consumptive daughter, who in turn had an illegitimate daughter, a child of about ten, a pretty and cheerful little girl. Alexander Petrovich was sitting with her and teaching her to read when I came in. Seeing me, he became as confused as if I had caught him at some crime. He was completely taken aback, jumped up from his chair, and stared at me all eyes. We finally sat down; he followed my every glance intently, as if he suspected each of them of having some special, hidden meaning. I realized that he was suspicious to the point of madness. He looked at me with hatred, all but asking: “Will you leave soon?” I began talking to him about our little town, about the current news; he kept silent and smiled angrily; it turned out that he not only did not know the most ordinary town news known to everyone, but was not even interested in knowing it. After that I talked about our region, its needs; he listened to me silently and looked into my eyes so strangely that I finally began to be ashamed of our conversation. However, I almost managed to tease him out with new books and magazines; I had them with me, just arrived in the mail, and offered them to him still uncut. He cast a greedy glance at them, but changed his mind at once and declined the offer for lack of time.