without an attempt to clutch them?
It was so now that he saw the whole of the affair--blame of Marie
Ivanovna there was none, only of his own weakness, his imbecile,
idiotic weakness. In that last conversation with her why could he not
have said that he refused to let her go, held to her, dominated her,
as a strong man would have done? No, without a word, except a cry of
impotent childish rage, he had submitted.... So, all his life it had
been--so, all his life it would be.

He could only wonder now at his easy ready belief that happiness would
last for him. Had happiness ever lasted? As a man began so he ended.
Life laughed at him and would always laugh. Nevertheless, he _had_
that journey--five days of perfect unalloyed delight. Nobody could rob
him of that. She had said to him that even at the beginning of the
journey she had known that she did not love him--she had known but he
had not, and even though he had cheated himself with the glittering
bubble of an illusion the splendour had been there....

Meanwhile behind his despair there was something else stirring. He has
told me that upon that afternoon he was only very dimly, very very
faintly aware of it, aware of it only fiercely to deny it. He knew,
however stoutly he might refuse to acknowledge it, that the events of
the last weeks had bred in him some curiosity, some excitement that
he could not analyse. He would like to have thought that his life
began and ended only in Marie Ivanovna, but the Battle of S---- had,
as it were in spite of himself, left something more.

He found that he recalled the details of that battle as though his
taking part in it had bound him to something. Even it was suggested to
him that there was something now that he must do outside his love for
Marie Ivanovna, something that had perhaps no connexion with her at
all. In the very heart of his misery he was conscious that a little
pulse was beating that was strange to him, foreign to him; it was as
though he were warned that he had embarked upon some voyage that must
be carried through to the very end. He was, in truth, less completely
overwhelmed by his catastrophe than he knew.

As they now advanced and entered upon the first outworks of the
Carpathians the day clouded. They stumbled down into a little narrow
brown valley and drove there by the side of an ugly naked stream,
wandering sluggishly through mud and weeds. Over them the woods, grey
and sullen, had completely closed. The