n when he's setting off
tomorrow, I'll catch him by the leg, I'll pull off his coat when he
gets into the carriage. I'll get my teeth into his hand, I'll bite him.
"See what lengths you can drive a desperate man to!" He may hit me on
the head and they may belabour me from behind. I will shout to the
assembled multitude: "Look at this young puppy who is driving off to
captivate the Circassian girls after letting me spit in his face!"

Of course, after that everything will be over! The office will have
vanished off the face of the earth. I shall be arrested, I shall be
tried, I shall be dismissed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to
Siberia. Never mind! In fifteen years when they let me out of prison I
will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some
provincial town. He will be married and happy. He will have a
grown-up daughter.... I shall say to him: "Look, monster, at my hollow
cheeks and my rags! I've lost everything--my career, my happiness,
art, science, THE WOMAN I LOVED, and all through you. Here are
pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and ... and I ... forgive
you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of
me...."

I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at
that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's
MASQUERADE. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I
stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow
in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, sighing and
astonished.

What was I to do? I could not go on there--it was evidently stupid,
and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as
though ... Heavens, how could I leave things! And after such insults!
"No!" I cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. "It is ordained!
It is fate! Drive on, drive on!"

And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the
neck.

"What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?" the peasant
shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking.

The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself, regardless
of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the
slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen NOW, AT ONCE,
and that NO FORCE COULD STOP IT. The deserted street lamps gleamed
sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow
drifted under my great-coa