"How different she was in the old days when we used to talk together....

Do you know that she could talk in those days! Can you believe that she had ideas in those days, original ideas! Now, everything has changed! She says all that's only old-fashioned twaddle.
She despises the past....

Now she's like some shopman or cashier, she has grown hard-hearted, and she's always cross...." "Why is she cross now if you are carrying out her orders ?" I answered.
He looked at me subtly.
"_Cher ami_; if I had not agreed she would have been dreadfully angry, dread-ful-ly! But yet less than now that I have consented." He was pleased with this saying of his, and we emptied a bottle between us that evening.

But that was only for a moment, next day he was worse and more ill-humoured than ever.
But what I was most vexed with him for was that he could not bring himself to call on the Drozdovs, as he should have done on their arrival, to renew the acquaintance of which, so we heard they were themselves desirous, since they kept asking about him.

It was a source of daily distress to him.