ought it was necessary to give her
money, not because she might need it, but because it was customary to
do so. So he gave as much money as he thought was proper, considering
their respective positions.

On the day of his departure, after dinner he waited in the passage
until she came by. She flushed as she saw him, and wished to pass on,
pointing with her eyes to the door of her room, but he detained her.

"I came to bid you farewell," he said, crumpling an envelope
containing a hundred ruble bill. "How is----"

She suspected it, frowned, shook her head and thrust aside his hand.

"Yes, take it," he murmured, thrusting the envelope in the bosom of
her waist, and, as if it had burned his fingers, he ran to his room.

For a long time he paced his room to and fro, frowning, and even
jumping, and moaning aloud as if from physical pain, as he thought of
the scene.

But what is to be done? It is always thus. Thus it was with Shenbok
and the governess whom he had told about; it was thus with Uncle
Gregory; with his father, when he lived in the country, and the
illegitimate son Miteuka, who is still living, was born to him. And if
everybody acts thus, consequently it ought to be so. Thus he was
consoling himself, but he could not be consoled. The recollection of
it stung his conscience.

In the depth of his soul he knew that his action was so base,
abominable and cruel that, with that action upon his conscience, not
only would he have no right to condemn others but he should not be
able to look others in the face, to say nothing of considering himself
the good, noble, magnanimous man he esteemed himself. And he had to
esteem himself as such in order to be able to continue to lead a
valiant and joyous life. And there was but one way of doing so, and
that was not to think of it. This he endeavored to do.

The life into which he had just entered--new scenes, comrades, and
active service--helped him on. The more he lived, the less he thought
of it, and in the end really forgot it entirely.

Only once, on his return from active service, when, in the hope of
seeing her, he paid a visit to his aunts, he was told that Katiousha,
soon after his departure, had left them; that she had given birth to a
child, and, as the aunts were informed, had gone to the bad. As he
heard it his heart was oppressed with grief. From the statement of the
time when she gave birth to the child it might be his, and it might
not be his. The aunts s