don't want to complain and slander people for nothing. I'm not wretched at all here; that's to say, I'm not oppressed in any way; my aunt's tiny pin-pricks are really nothing to me. . . . I'm absolutely free.'
Nezhdanov looked in bewilderment at Marianna.
'In that case . . . all you told me just now . . .'
'You are at liberty to laugh at me,' she said quickly; 'but if I am unhappy─it's not for my own unhappiness. It sometimes seems to me that I suffer for all the oppressed, the poor, the wretched in Russia.. . . No, I don't suffer, but I am indignant─I am in revolt for them . . . that I 'm ready for them . . . to lay down my life. I am unhappy because I'm a young lady─a hanger-on, because I can do nothing─am fit for nothing! When my father was in Siberia, while I was left with mother in Moscow─ah! how I longed to go to him! not that I had any great love or respect for him─but I so much wanted to know for myself, to see with my own eyes, how convicts and how prisoners live.. . . And what disgust I felt for myself and all those easy-going, prosperous, well-fed people! . . . And afterwards, when he came back, broken down, crushed, and began humiliating himself, fretting and trying to get
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