The Eternal Husband

Summer had come, and Velchaninoff, contrary to his expectations, was still in St. Petersburg. His trip to the south of Russia had fallen through, and there seemed no end to the business which had detained him. This business-which was a lawsuit as to certain property-had taken a very disagreeable aspect. Three months ago the thing had appeared to be by no means complicated-in fact, there had seemed to be scarcely any question as to the rights and wrongs of the matter, but all seemed to change suddenly. "Everything else seems to have changed for the worse, too!" said Velchaninoff to himself, over and over again. He was employing a clever lawyer-an eminent man, and an expensive one, too; but in his impatience and suspicion he began to interfere in the matter himself. He read and wrote papers-all of which the lawyer put into his waste-paper basket-holus bolus; called in continually at the courts and offices, made inquiries, and confused and worried everybody concerned in the matter; so at least the lawyer declared, and begged him for mercy's sake to go away to the country somewhere. But he could not make up his mind to do so. He stayed in town and enjoyed the dust, and the hot nights, and the closeness of the air of St. Petersburg, things which are enough to destroy anyone's nerves. His lodgings were somewhere near the Great Theatre; he had lately taken them, and did not like them. Nothing went well with him; his hypochondria increased with each day, and he had long been a victim to that disorder. Velchaninoff was a man who had seen a great deal of the world; he was not quite young, thirty-eight years old-perhaps thirty-nine, or so; and all this "old age," as he called it, had "fallen upon him quite unawares." However, as he himself well understood, he had aged more in the quality than in the number of the years of his life; and if his infirmities were really creeping upon him, they must have come from within and not from outside causes. He looked young enough still. - Taken from "The Eternal Husband" written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky