Pagina 132 di 1294

His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel

shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of

effort he began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to

stare at all the objects before him, as though looking for

something to distract his attention; but he did not succeed, and

kept dropping every moment into brooding. When with a start he

lifted his head again and looked round, he forgot at once what he

had just been thinking about and even where he was going. In this

way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on to

the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the

islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his

weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that

hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns,

no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant

sensations passed into morbid irritability.